Page 50 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)

That night, Faye dreamed of Finn Beatha.

In the dream, Finn stood before her on the beach.

Even though she knew him well – every dip and rise of his perfectly sculpted body, what his smooth honey-brown skin smelled like, how it tasted – it was as though she was seeing him for the first time.

He wore the kilt he’d worn on stage when she’d gone to see his band, Dal Riada, play at a bar in Edinburgh with Aisha.

Yet, even in the dream, the memory of Aisha made her step back from the faerie king; he had as good as murdered her.

Faye had to resist him. He was dangerous.

‘I have nothing to say to you!’ she shouted. ‘Leave me alone!’

‘ Sidhe-leth . Please.’ Finn stepped slowly towards her, his hands open and raised up in a submissive gesture. ‘I know you are with child. My child. You cannot ignore me.’

Faye felt an uncontrolled hilarity threaten to take her over. It wasn’t amusement, but shock that pushed the laugh out of her mouth. She felt consciousness tug at her, as if it rejected what Finn had said.

‘Your child? Are you mad?’ She heard her own voice. It was high-pitched, not like herself.

Finn reached out to touch her belly.

‘You know it is,’ he said softly.

She pushed his hand away. ‘Don’t you dare touch me. This is Rav’s baby.’

‘It is mine,’ Finn insisted.

‘How do you know?’

He was barefoot and wore a soft black T-shirt on top of a kilt; his dirty blonde hair had grown a little and touched his shoulders.

Why he’d chosen to wear human clothes to see her instead of his faerie robes, she wasn’t sure: perhaps to make her forget what he was.

She had to keep Finn’s identity straight in her mind.

Faye made herself recall his sudden temper, his selfish pout, like a child denied a toy.

He has no human morality. He takes what he wants, uses it and discards it. Uses people.

‘I know,’ he replied, reaching for her. ‘Faye. You know it too.’

‘It’s Rav’s baby,’ she insisted. ‘Moronoe told me.’

‘You believe a faerie queen over me. Why?’

‘Because she has no reason to lie. Because she is my aunt,’ Faye argued back hotly. ‘Because she has never betrayed me and murdered my friends.’

‘The fact she is your aunt is nothing to do with anything. She is the High Queen of Falias, and I am at war with her realm. She will have offered to take the baby, yes? Told you that she must have it, otherwise great evil will befall you and the child? Am I right?’ He searched her expression, but Faye turned her face away. ‘Yes. I am.’ He nodded.

‘She didn’t lie,’ Faye insisted doggedly, but she realised Finn was right in questioning whether she should trust Moronoe over anyone else.

‘She said she has nothing to do with the war. She is not speaking to Lyr because of it. Her…her palace is not even connected to his. She said the prophecy that you believe in is wrong.’ Faye stammered, searching for something that would explain why she believed Moronoe.

Finn sighed. ‘She played on your weaknesses. She knows you have a desire to belong to something now that your mother and grandmother are gone. She made you believe you had some kind of family bond with her.’ He stroked her arm, gently; she pulled it away.

‘And she also knew that your relationship with the human – who I tried to protect you from, but who you insisted on learning the hard way what manner of man he was – was one fraught with tension. If she could make you believe your baby was his, you would be more likely to give it up, given his treatment of you.’ He continued.

‘You’re saying that Lyr and Moronoe have plotted all along to take this baby. Because it’s yours.’

‘Yes.’ Finn reached for her hand. ‘She is a powerful queen. Murias has had some victories in the war, and Falias has been looking for a way to destabilise my advantage over the Crystal Castle. Moronoe may have used her magic to help your pregnancy in the first place. That, I do not know. But I do know that if she has my child in her kingdom, she can use it against me.’

‘You talk about your children as if they are weapons. All of you. This scheming, it’s so….’ Faye exhaled, exhausted. ‘I don’t know what to believe. If the baby’s yours, why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘Moronoe and Levantiana constructed a web of magic around you, Faye…I didn’t know. I am sorry.’

Though it was a dream, Faye still felt Finn’s familiar magic coursing through their linked hands.

‘How can I believe you?’ she whispered. ‘How can I believe anything?’

‘You don’t have to believe me, Faye.’ Finn drew her to him softly and kissed her cheek. ‘But you are the mother of my child now.’

She woke with a start, still feeling Finn’s hand in hers. Regardless of what she thought of Finn, she couldn’t deny that the link was still strong between them.

If the baby was Finn’s, then it thrust her even deeper into the faerie world. Faye had no idea how she’d be able to navigate the road ahead of her.

But at the same time, if it was Finn’s baby, then it gave her more power over him than she had ever had.

Faye watched the dawn filter in through her curtains and felt the baby kick for the first time. It was a sudden, strange sensation, like a cross between a hiccup and a punch. Not painful, but odd.

Startled, she rested her hand gently on her belly, waiting for it to kick again. Obligingly, the baby seemed to feel her hand or hear her expectation, because Faye felt a – was it a foot or a hand, perhaps a knee – lunge under her hand.

My baby.

She was filled with a sudden rush of love and tenderness, but also a wave of strength and power.

Faye knew in that moment that she would protect this baby from anything.

She would go to war for her baby; fight monsters, faerie queens and whatever other terror came her way.

She would willingly lie down in front of a speeding train, lose an arm or a leg, sacrifice anything if it meant that she would keep her baby safe.

It was clear this baby would have a great significance to the faerie kingdoms. But the identity of his biological father, Faye realised, was almost irrelevant.

This was her baby, her child, her magic.

It was the magic of every woman to be able to create life inside herself, and the folly of men to believe that they could burn a brand of ownership onto a child after the fact.

Whoever the father of this child was, he would be born a Morgan. And a Morgan – male or female – had the power of the witch running in their veins.