Dark Alpha's Caress Read online

  I’d love to introduce him to my sister and Molly, but I can’t bear to share him with anyone right now. This is too new. And even though I know he’s leaving soon, I hope that I can convince him to stay forever. We’re good together. Even he’s said that. He doesn’t want to leave. I don’t want him to go.

  What’s happening between us is very sudden. And yet, I know it’s real. How could something this strong, this amazing be anything but real? I should fear how fast all of this is moving, but I don’t. I know in my heart it’s right. We’re meant to be together.

  While I don’t want to leave Skye, I’d go anywhere to be with him. He’s my future. The person I’ll spend my days with once Molly is out on her own. For the first time, I see a real future for myself. Someone who will stand beside me and share my life. A father for Molly, and maybe, just maybe, more children.

  I can’t stop smiling. I’ve only known him for two weeks, but they have been the best two weeks of my life. When a person finds their soulmate, they know. And I knew the moment I looked at him. It was electric.

  I’m about to go meet him in our usual spot. We keep our love hidden from everyone, because many wouldn’t understand. I don’t care what others think. I just know what I feel.

  Sorcha bit her lip as she reread the last paragraph. Could her mother have been trying to say that her love was Fae? There was an argument for that. It could also mean that he wasn’t a Druid. What was obvious was that the man wasn’t from Skye, and that was all Sorcha could decipher for certain.

  She read a few more pages where her mother continued to speak about how happy she was. The entries took place over the course of a month. Then she came to the next page.

  * * *

  August 12th

  * * *

  I knew this day was coming, and I’d thought I prepared. But nothing could have prepared me for what I felt when he left. I can’t stop crying. My sister keeps asking me what’s wrong. I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone about us, but it’s so difficult. I’m bereft without him. He’s taken my heart with him.

  At least he promised to return as soon as he can. When he does, he said we’ll be together forever. Since he has others he needs to answer to just as I do, I’m trying to be patient. What’s a few months when we’ll have years together?

  I know that, and yet, I can’t stop feeling as if I’ll never see him again.

  * * *

  Sorcha hesitated before she read the next few passages.

  * * *

  September 2nd

  * * *

  I’m pregnant! I can’t wait to tell him. He’s going to be so thrilled. Our family will have grown by one when he returns. The only way I could be happier is if he was here to share the news with.

  * * *

  November 29th

  * * *

  He was supposed to be back by now. I’m getting worried. I’ve had to lie to my family and tell them I had a one-night stand with a tourist. I kept putting off telling them anything, hoping he’d return. Then I started showing, and I had to tell them something. Molly is excited. She keeps telling me she’s going to have a sister.

  * * *

  January 5th

  * * *

  That feeling I had that I’d never see him again grows each day that he doesn’t return. I keep a little hope that I’m wrong, but I know I’m not. I already lost one man I loved. Now, it seems as if I’ve lost a second. Maybe I’m cursed.

  My sister would probably say I was suckered, but she’d be wrong. If she had experienced everything I did with him, then she’d understand. She would see that he didn’t lie or use me. He loved me as much as I loved him. We vowed to spend the rest of our lives together. Magic bound us. He never would’ve done that if he didn’t mean it.

  * * *

  April 20th

  * * *

  My beautiful Sorcha was born today. She, like Molly, will grow up without a father, but that’s all right. I will love my girls enough to make up for it. And I’ll make sure both of them know enough about their fathers so they don’t think I’m hiding things.

  I wish I could tell Sorcha everything. Perhaps one day I will. Until then, the secrets will stay with me, buried alongside my broken heart. She’s a Skye Druid. The Druids born on Skye are very powerful. No one will think twice about how much magic she has. Skye is the safest place for her. Until she’s ready to know the truth.

  * * *

  Sorcha felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. She read the last passage over and over again. It didn’t outright say that she had Fae blood, but there was enough there to allude to it. She dashed away the tears that fell onto her cheeks and hurriedly read the rest of the journal entries. No more did her mum mention her magic, secrets, or the man who hadn’t come back for her.

  By the time Sorcha closed the last journal, she had more questions than when she’d first started reading. What was it that her mother had wanted her to know? And why did it matter if a Skye Druid and a Fae found love? Nothing said that a Druid couldn’t be with a Fae. For most of Sorcha’s life, the Fae were revered on Skye. It had only been recently with the mess with the Others and Usaeil that things had gone south.

  Now, it was well known that being with a Fae could ruin a person from having a relationship with a mortal. Sorcha had used to scoff at that. In fact, she and her friends had once said they would rather have a Fae since their choices for mortals were…lacking.

  Sorcha gathered the journals and rose to carry them back to her mother’s room. She didn’t put them between the mattress. Instead, she put them on the shelf in the closet. On her way back to the living room, she passed the chair she’d sat in to speak to Cathal and was reminded how he’d healed her ankle.

  He had promised to tell her the rest of what he’d come to say. She wasn’t sure what that could be, but she couldn’t help but be curious about it. There was so much about her past that had been kept a secret from her. Her life had been so normal, that it had never dawned on her that she was different from her sister. From an early age, she remembered her mother practicing magic with both her and Molly.

  Sorcha could go back to burying her head in the sand as she had for ten years. Or she could call for Cathal and find out the rest. Once she heard everything from him, she would then dig into her past and see what else she could discover. Maybe Rhona knew something. Someone had to know something. She wasn’t just going to take Cathal’s word for it. He was a Dark, after all.

  Then, it hit her. Her father might have been Dark. Is that why Cathal had sought her out?

  “Bloody hell. Is he my father?”

  She hoped to hell not because it would be really awkward to be attracted to her sire. Sorcha put that out of her mind before she made herself sick. Then she walked around the coffee table, weighing her options before she finally stopped.

  After a deep breath, she said, “Cathal.”

  In the next instant, there was a knock on the door. “It’s me,” he called.

  She licked her lips and walked to the door before she unbolted it and opened it. The minute her gaze landed on him, the tension inside her began to ease.

  “I’m glad you called for me.”

  “Come in,” she beckoned as she stepped aside.

  He walked past her into the house before he turned and waited as she closed the door and faced him. “Are you all right?”

  “No,” she said with a half-laugh. “I dug through my mother’s journals to see if I could find anything. She mentioned a man that she’d met. They hid their affair. She doesn’t mention that he’s a Fae, nor does she note his name.”

  Cathal’s red eyes held a hint of sorrow. “That must have been difficult to read.”

  “He promised to come back for her, but he never did. My mum talked about him when I was younger, but it never dawned on me to ask his name. Maybe because Molly, my sister, never asked her dad’s name. Of course, we knew it, but…” She trailed off and shrugged. “Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t ask. Is there any
way you can find out if he was Fae?”

  “I—” he began hesitantly.

  Sorcha held up a hand and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I had no right to ask that. Forget I said anything.”

  Chapter Ten

  There was no way Cathal could forget a single syllable Sorcha said. Ever. She was being torn in two, and he hated that he was adding to it.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to help. It’s that I’m not sure I’ll find out anything,” he told her. “But I’ll ask around.”

  She smiled. “That’s kind of you, especially after how I’ve treated you.”

  “It’s never easy to learn your world has been turned upside down.”

  “No, it isn’t. Where are my manners? Please, sit.”

  They walked to the living area. Cathal waited until she chose the chair before he lowered himself into a corner of the sofa. She shifted a few times, trying to get comfortable through her nervousness. It made him want to smile.

  “I guess it would be better if you just finished telling me what you tried earlier,” Sorcha said.

  Cathal put an ankle over his knee and rested his elbow on the arm of the sofa. “The Fae that spoke with you at the Fairy Pools? There are more gathering around the isle, waiting for you.”

  “Me?” she asked with a frown. “Why? Because I’m half-Fae?”

  “I don’t think the fact you’re a Halfling plays into it at all. This is about your family’s bloodline. From what I gathered from a Fae I spoke with today, if one of them can plant his seed within you, then they’ll be able to return if the Fae are ever booted from this realm. Because of their child with your bloodline.”

  Sorcha’s frown increased as she blinked, trying to take it all in. “That doesn’t make sense at all. Why just me? Why not my cousin, Rhona?”

  “Because you’ve not done the ritual. Apparently, you must take part every year.”

  “Bloody hell,” she murmured as her face smoothed out in shock. “Everyone always talked about that damn ritual, but there are so many. All of them are touted as important, but I never learned the reasons.”

  Cathal nodded. “And you didn’t want to leave the house.”

  “That was part of it, yes,” she admitted.

  He waited, hoping she’d say more, but she didn’t. “You chose not to do the ritual. I’m guessing that had something to do with you not wanting to do magic anymore.”

  Her gaze darted away as she took a deep breath, green eyes flashing. Then she looked at him once more. “As far back as I can remember, my mother taught me magic. My sister, Molly, and I spent hours doing it, perfecting our skills and learning spells.”

  “Magic came easily to you,” he guessed.

  “Very. Mum cautioned both of us constantly on how to use magic and when to use it. Molly didn’t struggle with it, but she didn’t always catch on as easily as I did.”

  Cathal nodded slowly. “You never thought you were more than a Druid?”

  “Never. Mum never singled me out for doing magic better than Molly. Nor did Mum ever pull me aside and tell me she was worried about the magic I used. Perhaps it would’ve been better if she had.”

  Something in her voice alerted Cathal to the fact that there was more to the story there, but he didn’t press her. Even if he did want to know what it was that she hid. He didn’t want to tell her that he knew her mother and sister were dead, but he wasn’t sure how to delicately broach the subject. In the end, he realized there was no good way to ask it.

  “Have you asked your mum or sister about any of this?”

  As if knowing that was his next question, Sorcha barely blinked as she said, “They’re both dead. And before you ask, they died on the same day. At the same time. And I was responsible.”

  He hadn’t expected that. He paused, noting how her statement hadn’t been said with anger. There was sorrow, yes, as well as regret. Something else was there, as well. Guilt and shame. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed them from the very beginning. He should have since he carried the same emotions within him.

  “I’m sure that isn’t possible,” he said. If it had happened, she would now have red eyes. The same rules of the Fae applied, even with Halflings. And especially with one such as she, who had power coming from both her Druid side and her Fae side.

  Sorcha’s gaze lowered to her lap, where she picked at a hangnail on her left thumb. “I assure you, it is. Does that change your opinion of me?”

  “No,” he answered immediately.

  She glanced up at him. “Because you’re Dark.”

  “Because I know that there is always more to a story than one simple statement.”

  Sorcha smiled, but there was no humor in the action. She kept picking at the nail. “I’ve not talked about…what happened. Ever. Not even after it happened. Everyone assumed I was in shock. Corann knew, though.”

  Cathal could well imagine that the previous leader of the Skye Druids had known a great many things. Cathal remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

  “Corann took me aside and stared into my eyes for what felt like an eternity,” Sorcha continued after taking a shaky breath. “Then he told Rhona to bring me home. I don’t remember the days following that. It’s like I blinked and found myself standing by the graves dug into the ground as my mum and sister were lowered into them.” She gave a quick bark of laughter. “So many tried to ask me what happened, but Corann quickly silenced them. He remained by my side the entire time, even during the funeral. I thought once everyone left that he would sit me down and ask me what had occurred. But he didn’t. He gave me a kiss on the forehead and told me that he’d be there if I needed anything. Then he left.”

  Cathal swallowed, watching the play of emotions on her face. Her family’s deaths might have occurred ten years ago, but to Sorcha, it weighed on her as if it had happened just yesterday.

  She lifted her gaze to him. “I didn’t leave the house after that. I didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone. I think everyone believed I was just grieving. Then, as the weeks turned into months, and months into years, they accepted it. Well, everyone except Rhona. She usually comes by every month or so.”

  “It’s good that she does,” he said.

  Sorcha’s lips twisted. “Perhaps. I’ve long wanted to ask her if Corann told her what happened that day with my family, but I don’t have the guts.”

  “Has Rhona ever treated you differently?”

  Sorcha thought about that for a moment before she shook her head.

  “Then there’s your answer,” Cathal told her.

  “You’ve not asked me either.”

  Cathal glanced at her hands, still picking at the thumb. “Everyone has something in their past they don’t want to think about or share with others.”

  “Including you?”

  “Including me. As you’ve pointed out, I was Dark.”

  She frowned. “Was?”

  “Am,” he corrected, wondering why he’d let that slip out.

  Her head tilted to the side. “You don’t act like a Dark.”

  “Have you met many of us?” he asked with a grin.

  Her lips began to curve slightly. “I can’t say that I have. I’ve only seen one from afar.”

  “What about the Light Fae?”

  She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “They aren’t uncommon on Skye.”

  “That didn’t answer my question.”

  “No, it didn’t.” She cleared her throat and dropped her chin to her chest. “Mum didn’t like Molly or me interacting with the Fae. She didn’t care if they were Light or Dark, she wanted us to keep our distance. But Molly and I came across one at the pub one day. I dared her to talk to him, but she wouldn’t do it. So, I said I would.”

  Cathal didn’t like the turn this story had taken.

  Sorcha glanced up at him. “He was nice. He flirted. I flirted. I was young and stupid, and I honestly believed I could control the situation. We met a couple of times without Molly knowing. We ju
st talked. It was nice.”

  “I take it that didn’t last?” he asked when her eyes got a faraway look in them.

  She blinked, coming back to herself. “I think everything changed when I began keeping secrets from my family. We had always shared everything. I know that’s unusual, but we had an unusual family. Mum was definitely our parent, but there came a time as we got older that she turned into more of a friend. Not many can say that their mother and sister are their best friends, but that’s how it was for me. Every once in a while, we’d convince Mum to go out on a date. She was always being asked out, but there was never a second one. She used to tell us that she’d already found—and lost—her soulmate. I always believed it was her husband.”

  “But now, after reading the journals, you think it was your father,” Cathal guessed.

  “I do,” she admitted. “Neither Molly nor I asked her for a name. Looking back now, there were several instances we could’ve pushed her to reveal more.”

  “You three shared everything. You didn’t believe she would keep anything from you.”

  Sorcha snorted. “I felt so bad for keeping my secrets from her and Molly, and the entire time, Mum had secrets of her own.”

  “I bet your sister did, as well.”

  “Probably.”

  He lowered his foot to the floor. “Just because you know that you’re a Halfling and your mum kept that from you doesn’t change the fact that the three of you were close and had a great family dynamic.”

  “And yet, I’m the one who killed them.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  He drew in a breath. “There is nothing about you that I’ve seen that would lead me to believe you’re a killer.”