When Katherine made a face, he added, “She came to me as a small sheeplike creature. Then as an alligator. Often, these days, she is a horse. When I need to travel with a passenger or in mortal spaces, she is a car.”
“What’s her name?”
“I have no idea.” Urian shrugged. “She does not speak in that way.”
It hit Katherine then that there was something disconcerting in the idea of a car that was not a car, but a creature. As a car, there was a roof overhead, and she’d entered through a door.
“I feel like I climbed into her mouth or something,” Katherine whispered.
The radio switched on and a snippet of a song played: “You are safe in my arms.”
Katherine startled. Her imagination sparked. She could picture some strange undefinable creature running along the narrow road, carrying passengers in her massive arms.
“She doesn’t talk often,” Urian murmured. “She must like you.”
Katherine patted the seat, hoping what she was petting was an arm or shoulder. “I don’t know what’s where here, so please forgive me if this is not okay.”
The radio clicked on to play a laugh track.
And Katherine smiled at the strangeness of it all.
Urian and Katherine drifted toward silence as the car travelled faster and faster.
“Do you get a lot of speeding tickets?” she finally asked. The world outside blurred a bit, as the creature moved at speeds that were somewhere between high-speed trains and airplanes.
“Faery, love. We can be invisible to the mortal eye,” Urian teased. “Glamours. I could’ve watched you, unseen to every eye in that building butyoufor eternity. You could stalk me, unseen by most everyone in this state.”
Katherine nodded. “I’ve never . . . I mean . . . I’m not surehow.”
“I’ll teach you,” Urian promised.
And despite good sense, she teased, “Well, that wasn’tpreciselythe first lesson I was seeking from you, but we can add it to the list . . .”
Urian’s gaze was heated as he glanced her way. “Careful, Katherine. You taunt too much and—”
“I trust you. You already said you needed consent for a simple kiss,” she reminded him. Then, smiling, she held his gaze a moment longer than comfortable, before adding, “And I like the way you’re looking at me right now.”
“How’s that?”
“Like you’re the one being seduced,” she admitted.
ChapterSixteen
Urian
Nearly an hour later, they walked along a trail, deeper into a pine forest. Urian’s pulse was still thrumming faster than he’d expected. He was not expecting to meet a female of his kind, and while he could appreciate the company of men, he wasn’t drawn as much in that direction.
I am not like my father.
News of the former Dark King’s long romance with the current Dark King—a romance that predated Irial’s time with Urian’s mother—was reason enough to avoid any other gancanaghs.
I am nothing like him.The thought that the mere presence of anothergancanaghwas enough to make a person desperate seemed foolish. Urian assumed that his father was simply weak.
But, unfortunately, Urian’s reaction to Katherine meant that he did share this trait with his father—and he hated the reality that he felt pulled togancanaghs or sometimes to mortals. It was as if Urian lacked self-control. He couldn’t accept that possibility, couldn’t allow himself to believe it because it would mean he was no better than the monster who was his father,
I am better than him.
But how was a man to define himself in opposition to a faery who had found favor with the High Queen, seduced a mortal destined for the Summer King, and defeated death to become the embodiment of Chaos?