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That… and I decided to let Conn stew about Mulan’s little black book. I wanted him to know how miserable it could make ya to discover ya didn’t know a person as well as ya thought ya did.

ChapterTwelve

Fiona left early to meet with her teachers. I was proud of her for working things out. She was halfway through with her university education and I wanted her to finish. If her magick never developed enough for her to pay her bills with it, she would need to make the best living as a human that she could.

Conn said good morning, poured himself a cup of coffee, and raided the cabinets for breakfast bars. He thoughtfully put one by my coffee cup after he found them. I guess he could see I hadn’t bothered with food yet.

Then he took his makeshift breakfast to his room with him to make phone calls in private.

I continued to sulk after he left. The breakfast bar went ignored because I wasn’t hungry for food. I was hungry for emotional relief. Anger over the unfairness of my life had built up inside me to earth-shattering proportions. I couldn’t stop thinking about the man I met yesterday, and how different that man was from the one I’d been in the process of falling in love with.

I missed the original. I missed the man I’d felt compelled to save.

My feelings stopped me from spewing the truth at Rasmus and Ben yesterday. And now that I’d had a night to think of nothing else, I had decided that rescuing Rasmus from his new situation would do him more harm than good.

I hadn’t felt that way when I’d learned what Jack had put Rasmus through. But I felt that way after seeing the blank slate Orlin and his brethren had turned Rasmus into.

The white feather from my guardian ancestor was now stashed in the drawer of my nightstand. I hadn’t used it because of Conn’s dogged insistence that a guardian’s changes did not differ from his.

The first human form Conn had taken for me had looked very different so I understood what he was saying. He said it was the one he’d used when his keeper had been Grandma O’Malley. He’d chosen an appearance with me that made us look related for reasons that made sense to him at the time he made the choice.

In both cases, he’d exercised his free will and I’d never felt the need to stop Conn from exercising his preferences. I’d never even questioned Conn’s decision to change. So why couldn’t I grant Rasmus the same privilege?

I had no answer to my own contrariness. A part of me still thought I’d gotten the raw deal in this situation, but maybe Conn was right about Rasmus picking his new form without my input. At the moment, I couldn’t decide what was fair because I didn’t care about fairness.

Why hadn’t Rasmus chosen to be a forty or fifty-year-old experienced man? What was wrong with being older like me? I’d liked the silver at his temples. I’d liked his unruly long hair that he kept restrained. And there was nothing wrong with his previous body at all. Goddess only knew how often I dreamed of running my hands over it again.

Maybe that was my real problem. I had too many memories of intimate moments between us and nothing but regret that I hadn’t acted on any of them.

Depressed more than ever now, I stared into my coffee cup and wondered if Conn had replaced the bottle of Jameson’s we lost when our previous rental burned down. If he didn’t make us an appointment today, I might add a shot or two to my coffee to dull the throbbing in my head.

Sleep had come in two-hour segments and been interrupted by periods of anxiety when I was awake. Thankfully, Fiona and I had swapped Mulan’s twin beds from the garage for my bigger one. But I soon learned thrashing about in a twin bed risked me falling out of it, even as small as I was. Going from a queen-sized to a twin had taught me how spoiled a person could get.

Conn hummed as he returned to the kitchen with the remnants of his morning meal. “Both families were willing to see us today. I set one up for after lunch and pushed off the other until after we see what kind of success we have.”

I nodded to let him know I’d heard and mentally dismissed the whisky-in-my-coffee plans goodbye.

“What’s the matter, Aran? Are you still upset about Rasmus?”

I narrowed my eyes as I glared. “If Mulan showed up as a six-foot-tall pale blonde with an American accent, what would ya think?”

Conn crossed his arms and pretended to give it some thought. “I’d look at the aura around her to see if she was still the same person. Once I was convinced, I’d ask her what happened and how she felt about the changes. Is this a test? Are you looking for a reason to hate all men this morning?”

“What would happen if she thought ya were crazy, Conn? Or worse, didn’t know ya? What if she forgot that ya had ever kissed her?”

Conn uncrossed his arms and walked to the table. He sat down and looked at me. “Okay. I admit Mulan changing into another woman would be difficult for me to accept, and that Rasmus looks like his own son. But you were never really with the guardian. Right?”

“Not the way ya were with Mulan,” I admitted, resting my face in my palm. “But we kissed and held each other. We fought and made up. I liked him like he was. No one can order me to transfer my feelings to the new version.”

He reached out and rubbed my arm. “Maybe you should kiss him and see if anything important has changed.”

I pushed Conn’s hand off me. “Ya, know what? I thought I could never be angrier with anyone than I got with Jack. Well, I was wrong because I’m furious with both Orlin and Rasmus. The bastards didn’t even bother to warn me. And ya’re not helping.”

Conn groaned in sympathy. “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry you’re in so much emotional pain.”

I scrubbed my face with my hands and groaned too. “Oh, stop it, Conn. I know ya’re not genuinely sorry because ya think I’m being naïve. Like the guardians, ya’ve lived longer than me and assume ya know better than I do. Well, ya can feel as worldly as ya want and think what ya will, but my heart is broken by what he did. It’s like all the guardians think nothing of playing with my emotions. I can’t imagine what I’ve done that deserves such disregard.”

Conn shook his head. “Don’tlet them destroy your peace of mind. People say living well is the best revenge. That would be very true in this case. Plus, there’s nothing you can do.”