Chapter 31

Going over to the edge, she looked down. She’d never been this high before. It had to be at least fifty stories to the ground. “This is where you go that’s peaceful?” She stepped back from the edge. She didn’t feel peace, she felt fear.

“It is.” He watched her walk back toward him, a wariness in his expression.

“What’s up, you look more tense than normal.”

His mouth quirked, but it didn’t turn into a smile. “Being alert is part of my job.”

“Your job to guard the princess?”

He nodded and then turned and walked over to a raised area and motioned toward it. She looked around and then went over and sat down. She didn’t know what it was she was sitting on, but she could feel a slight vibration, making her think it was part of a vent system.

He stood there looking down at her, and it made her uncomfortable that it was as if he was studying her inch by inch.

“So?” She leaned back and put her hands behind her, so looking up at him wasn’t going to give her a neck ache.

Firo closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, she could see something that was close to fear in them. What the hell was he going to tell her?

“Princess Aireese is not the first princess I’ve been charged with watching over.” He spoke softly.

Ava was going to ask what this had to do with anything, but she could see he was struggling with saying any of it and decided if she kept her yap shut, he might get to the part that explained things to her.

“I was guard to her older sister for close to one hundred years before I was reassigned to Aireese.”

She raised a brow and looked him up and down. How old was this guy? Was it the Fa Terra genes that had her looking twenty-five when she was double that age?

“Both are quite similar in the fact that they are high-energy and always on the move.” He glanced at the roof and shook his head like he remembered something. “Aireese is somewhat easier to keep track of, she has no desire to slip my watch and be somewhere else.” He held her look for a moment and then looked away again. “The queen’s firstborn was a handful, and I spent many hours hunting her down when she would slip to other realms without informing me.”

Ava sat up straighter. Was?

“The last time I found her, she had come here, to Interealm to meet up with her lover.”

What was she supposed to say to that? She had no idea, so she continued to sit there. Why was he telling her all of this?

“It was then I discovered she was with child. She had managed to cloak it for months. No one knew.” A pained look appeared on his face. “I found her in a forest, alone. Her lover had not come.”

Forest was the only word she heard. She stood up slowly. “Are you about to tell me that your first princess was my mother?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it and nodded.

“My mother was a princess from FaTerra.” She blinked about ten times as she tried to force that information into her brain. “Princess Aireese’s sister was my mother?” She stared at him, studying every inch of his face, looking for any sign that he was just messing with her. Hoped that he was just messing with her. After a few moments, she realized he was telling the truth.

“I…”

She held up her hand. “Hold on. I need a second here.” She turned on her heel and paced a few feet away. She couldn’t even walk it off, she was on a roof. She scoffed. Smart move on his part. Trapping her up here so he could tell her things that were insane. Completely, absolutely, mind-blowing insane. She turned around and looked at him. He stood there, shoulders back, his wings visible now, making her pause and think emotion was involved when it came to those damn things. “You’re telling me the truth.”

He nodded, even though it hadn’t been a question.

She looked down at the surface she stood on. A Fa Terra princess was her mother. Her father was an angel, her mother a fairy princess. She chuckled and then stopped abruptly and turned to look at him. He looked so wary. “I’m not going to freak out at you.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I get why no one told me.” She went back over and stood in front of him. “Until the last few days, I never would have believed you.” She grinned. “I probably wouldn’t have listened.”

“I know.”

There was more. She felt it. “How do you know? Because you’ve been watching me all this time?”

He clasped his hands in front of his body and held her look. “Yes.”

She looked into his eyes and had to force herself to see around the fact that they were very pretty blue eyes. “You were there when I was born. You were there when my mother died, and now—” She backed up a few feet, feeling like she needed space to say the rest because the pain was going to come if she went the wrong direction with her thoughts. “Now, fifty years later, you’re here.”

He tilted his head and looked at her for a moment before nodding.

“Okay, I’m going to try to ask this without my head popping open from the pain that comes with trying to remember things.”

He stepped toward her, his hand out. “Please, don’t.” He pulled his hand back. “I don’t wish to see you in pain, Avalie.”

If anyone else called her that, she’d probably drop-kick them, but it sounded right coming from him. “I have questions…”

“I know. I have some answers.” He rubbed his hand over his forehead, and all she thought was that was a very human thing to do.

“Okay.” She put her hands on her hips and looked directly into his pretty eyes. “Save me some pain and fill in the blanks.”

He searched her face for a moment. “I will try.” Inhaling a deep breath, he looked over her head and stared that way. “When—your mother passed, I cared for you whilst I made a home for you to live in.” He glanced at her. “It took several days.” He cleared his throat. “But I knew I could not stay with you, so I found someone to care for you.”

“Why didn’t you just take me back to Fa Terra with you?”

His brows creased. “You would not have been safe there.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “It’s dangerous there? I picture it all…”

“It is a beautiful, mostly peaceful realm, but—” He moved a few feet away like he needed to move to say it. “Halflings—” He glanced at her. “That’s what your kind are called in FaTerra.”

“Halfling? So mixed DN…”

“No. Yes, but just those with angel parentage.”

She put her hand on her chest. “There’s more of me?” She shook her head. “More that are part angel?” She smiled. “I thought I was the only one…”

“You are the only one I know of, but yes, there could still be more.”

She frowned. “Oh.” That was disappointing. “Okay, so I wasn’t safe there. Why?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it and tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “Aside from the fact that the queen’s daughter had died…”

“My grandmother would have been mad because she died, and it’s my fault.”

He came over quickly and touched her arm. “No. She didn’t die because of you. She died because she would not let me take her back to Fa Terra to the midwives, knowing full well that our kind do not have easy births. None of it is your fault. You are not responsible for being created. That is on Avaline and Izel.”

“Izel?”

He closed his eyes for a second. “I hadn’t meant to tell you that just yet.” He looked back at her. “I believe he was, or is, your father.”

“You know him?” Was knowing angels a normal thing in other realms?

“I do not. I spoke to one of our elders, and she believes he is.”

Ava nodded. “Okay. Can they get in touch with him?”

He frowned. “I do not know that.”

Ava blew out a breath and then shook her head. “Okay, I jumped the gun. You said something you didn’t mean to. We’ll come back to that.” She nodded. “Go back to why you were afraid to take me to FaTerra.” She needed to know. Her life would have been something entirely different if he had.

“Halflings aren’t allowed in FaTerra. Haven’t been for several royal reigns. The reasoning is they feared your power would overthrow them.”

Ava blinked. “Someone thought a halfling, like me, was going to take their throne?”

He nodded. “This is what I found out today.” He grimaced. “One of the things I found out today.”

Putting her hands on her hips, she looked down at her boots. “Okay. Well, I guess—” She looked back at him. “Thank you for making a home and finding someone to look after me.” She shrugged. She didn’t know what else to say. “I wish I remembered it. I’m sure it was nice.” She shrugged again.

He gave her a tender look, and it caught her off guard. She stepped back. “I had no choice. I had to see to your well-being.”

“Because of my mother.”

He winced. “Partially,” he said slowly.

“Partially?”

He lifted a hand and waved it around. “There’s more.”

“Okay, I get that. You want to tell me about my childhood? Was it good?” She remembered the name. “Was her name Kami?” She winced when a pain stabbed through her eye. “The woman you got to look after me.” More pain. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced air out through her lips to get through it.

“Stop.”

When she opened her eyes, he was right in front of her again.

“Please do not force memories.” He had a pained look on his face. “I can’t remember her name.”

Ava scowled. “You found someone to look after me and don’t know her name.”

He sighed. “I wasn’t concerned with such things, she just had to have a kind heart.”

When he put it that way, it was acceptable. “Thank you for that, I guess.”

“Don’t thank me.” He sounded annoyed now. “And stop trying to force memories you cannot access.”

His sudden change of tone surprised her. “Okay.”

He paced away with stiff movement and then turned around and looked at her. “I did it.” He lifted his hands and held them like that for a few seconds before lowering them.

“What do you mean you did it?” Her brain was a fraction of a second away from overload. Anything else stuffed into it today, and she might lose it. She didn’t want to get emotional or bad things would happen. Tossing a Fa Terra guard off a tall building would be frowned upon, she was sure. Something clicked, and she looked back at him. “You did this?” She pointed to her head. “Why? We don’t even know each other, and you just said you found someone with a kind heart to look after me…”

“I had no choice.” He moved in her direction until she held up her hand, to tell him to stop.

“Why?” She clenched her teeth together and hissed out a breath between them. “You’re going to have to tell me because if I try to remember, I’ll end up curled up in a ball on this roof, or worse—I’ll end up tossing you off it.”

He didn’t even look concerned with that. After a moment of studying her, he inclined his head. “Please sit down.” He motioned to where she had been sitting before. “It will do no good if you get too upset.”

She hated that he was right and that he knew she might lose control of whatever it was she could do. “Fine.” She went back over to the vent top and sat down.

“Thirty years ago, I felt your distress.”

She cocked her head to the side but didn’t interrupt him. She’d wait and ask when he was done.

“I came to find you there in the forest. You were devasted. The home was destroyed, and the woman—gone.”

Her eyes rounded.

“I could not console you. I could barely contain the power that was building inside you again—” He closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them and looked at her with a haunted look in his eyes. “I locked your memories away so you would feel peace. So you would not be tormented with what I believe happened.”

“You believe. You don’t know for sure.” Anxiety swirled around her. What had she done?

He moved over and knelt in front of her. “I do not, and I couldn’t speak with you about it because anytime I mentioned it, you grew more agitated and upset and…”

“My power or whatever was out of control.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

The pit of her stomach fell. “I think we can both piece together what happened.”

“Do not.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Do not blame yourself, Avalie. It is not your fault.” His sighed. “I am to blame. I knew the power you held then, and I should have made certain that you had the training to hone it and control it, but I was a coward and did not.”

Ava watched the shame in his expression. “You? Why was it your problem to do that? We don’t even know each other…”

“We do.” His gaze moved over her face. “More than we will ever know any other.” His tone was soft and caring.

“I-I don’t understand, Firo. What are you saying?” She thought for sure her brain had reached full capacity for things she didn’t understand.

He dropped his hand away from her and looked down at it. “When you were born, I held you, and I came to realize something…”

“That I wasn’t safe in FaTerra. Yeah, you covered that.” She nodded.

“Not that. I hadn’t realized that yet.” He dropped back onto his heels and looked at her. “I realized you were meant for me, Avalie.”

When he didn’t continue, she struggled to figure out what he was saying. “To look after?”

He shook his head. “You were—are the one meant for me. There will be no other.”

The one. She got up and stepped back over the vent cover. “You mean this fated mate stuff, like with Jeri and Trendan—” She waved her hand around. “Nova and crazy Bastian.”

He stood up slowly. “Yes.”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then did it again. “Okay—” She held her hand out toward him. “First, I don’t believe in that fated mate stuff.” She snorted. “If you have the hots for someone or have an intense connection, fine, but this whole fate stuff is just—” She scoffed. “Ridiculous. Insane.” She huffed out a breath. “It’s been fifty years, Firo, since I was born-” She shrugged. “Roughly. I couldn’t say the exact day.” She looked at him, her eyes narrowing as things he said registered in her brain. “So-so, you were a coward because you were ashamed that—” She motioned up and down her body. “This abomination was your—” She made quote marks in the air. “The one.”

He stepped up and over the vent and was right in front of her before she could blink. “No. No. That is not it.” He glared at her. “If I told you or came to help you train, I would have had to tell you all. Everything.” He ran his hand over his hair and then shook his head, messing it all up again. “Each time I have laid eyes on you, I have wanted to tell you everything. Every secret that should remain so. I cannot help it.”

“Why are you telling me all of this now? I mean, don’t misunderstand. I’m glad to have some answers, but if these are unsafe secrets to know, why are you telling me?”

“Avalie.” His tone changed to something firmer. “You need to settle yourself.”

She snorted. “Right, because I have no reason to be emotional right now.”

He grasped her shoulders and leaned down right in front of her face. “Take a deep breath and settle yourself.”