The first place Urian took her was not the sort of place she expected. He led her to a parking lot, not to a dinner or a romantic get-away or any such place. He had a car, seemingly modified for their kind. To her eyes, it appeared to be a cherry red 1970-something Chevy Chevelle. Wide white stripes across the hood, a white roof, and whitewall tires. There was not a scratch anywhere, making the car look as if it was fresh off a showroom, despite being over fifty years old.
“Wow.” She reached out as if to touch the car, but suddenly, she had the strange suspicion that it was somehow alive. There was no motion, but as she’d gotten closer, she thought the car was breathing.
“She’s friendly,” Urian murmured, petting a hand over the roof, and Katherine wasn’t certain whether he was speaking to her or the car.
“Where are we going?” she hesitated, unable to figure out how or why the car seemed alive.
“I want you to see what we can be,” Urian said, still not very helpfully.
“And that takes a car?”
“Yes.” He opened the door, pausing to pet the side of the vehicle. “Your chariot.”
She slid into beautiful deep red leather seats with white trim. Her family wasn’t financially desperate, but her mother would never agree to a car like this. It practically screamed “look at me.” Hiding meant that ostentatious everything was forbidden, and sometimes what Katherine missed most was her father’s bolder-than-brass attitude. He was in your face, loud, unashamed.
Maybe it’s a gancanagh thing.
Katherine glanced over at Urian. “Are we all like this?”
He shot her a grin. “Devastatingly handsome? Irresistible?”
She laughed. “Big ego . . .”
“Yes. To all of it.” Urian still looked happy, but he sounded more serious. “Once, a very long time before either of us existed, there were faeries—gancananghand leannan-sidhe—who were seducers.” He paused and glanced at her before resuming his storyteller voice. “We were made to destroy mortals. Our skin irresistible, our touch addictive, and so we go through this world alone. We are deadly to them, and they want us more than life.”
“But . . . the folklore . . . and my mother. Notallmortals die.” Katherine looked at him, folding her hands into fists. The more he spoke in that tone--that lifting and falling, like tides luring her into a dangerous sea—the more she felt caught in the undertow.
He reached out and stroked the back of her hand, one thumb gliding over her knuckles and across the thin skin of her hand. That was it. One touch.
Katherine trembled.
“Shall I seduce you?” he asked, lightly as if he was talking about the weather. And maybe that was part of being what he was. Maybe he wasn’t lying when he said the kiss they’d shared was powerful, but that didn’t mean that he was anything more than a fleeting experience.
Do I want him to be?
That was the question she couldn’t answer. She felt more alive since meeting him, but maybe that would be the case with any faery she talked to and longed to touch. Maybe she was simply becoming more faery.
“Where are we going?” she asked, pulling her hand away from him and folding it in her lap.
He looked away from the road, staring at her and pointedly not paying any attention to driving.
“Not immortal, pretty boy. How about you put your eyes on the road?” Katherine squirmed, hoping it wasn’t obvious.
“Close your eyes for several heartbeats, and then when you open them,lookat the car.” He reached out like he would touch her eyelids.
Katherine flinched away, raising one hand to block him.
“Count to six,” he ordered. “Eyes closed.”
Despite her doubts, she did so, silently counting out each number. Then she opened her eyes and stared at the car.
“This is . . . not a car,” she whispered.
The creature—for that’s what it was—was some sort of wild animal that was wearing the idea of a car, but it was not a machine. It was fully and completely alive. Katherine could feel a heartbeat not her own, thumping faster than hers did even when afraid.
“What is she?” Katherine asked, because she recalled him referring to the car-creature as “she.”
Urian shrugged. “A friend.”