CHAPTER NINE – LIES

Aidan’s eyes focused on the shotgun’s twin barrels. They looked like black hungry mouths.

Grandfather Patrick.

A shotgun.

Pointed at us.

The whole situation was so incredible that it had a nightmarish quality. But it became all too real when Aidan saw how Sarah’s face had drained of color as she watched their grandfather crashing towards them. Aidan grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her behind him.

Has Grandfather Patrick gone crazy? Is he determined to kill me for being a Sidhe – oh, god, I’m not the only Sidhe here.

“Aidey, is – is that a gun?” Sarah asked.

“Whatever you do, Bed Bug, you stay behind me. Got that?” Aidan ordered, a tremor in his voice.

“I want Momma. I want her now!” Sarah wailed as she hid behind Aidan’s legs.

“Me, too,” Aidan whispered.

The thought of a gun and his sister in the same place were making Aidan’s blood go cold. But what to do? Grab her and run?

Where? To the dark forbidding forest? To the SUV with no gas?

Aidan felt despair well up inside of him. There was nowhere to go that was safe. But their lack of an escape route wasn’t stopping Grandfather Patrick from fast approaching with his shotgun. Suddenly Asher was between them and the old man. That’s when Aidan saw that there was a crossbow slung across the Sidhe’s broad back.

Grandfather Patrick snarled at Asher. His expression was warped by revulsion as if the very sight of the Sidhe sickened him.

But why? Asher’s so beautiful, Aidan thought. How could he ever hate let alone want to kill someone so incredibly lovely?

“You came on my land, demon! You will die and praise will go out to Cybella!” Patrick screamed, spittle flecking his lips.

Demon? Cybella? Aidan clenched his hands into fists at his sides. Oh, god, what have we gotten ourselves into?

Asher’s response to this bizarre threat was action. In one fluid motion, the Sidhe grasped the crossbow and brought it around to aim at Grandfather Patrick’s chest. A silver bolt with a red-tinted tip was already loaded.

The red tint is poison. Even a nick will kill, Aidan thought. A trill of unease ran through him, because he had no idea where his knowledge came from but he was sure he was right.

Both men raised their weapons, preparing to fire at each other. The beautiful yet deadly crossbow looked insubstantial compared to the bulky shotgun.

“DON’T!” Aidan yelled. He wasn’t sure whom he was yelling at. But it was in vain. Aidan heard the blast of the shotgun and Sarah’s scream.

He shut his eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought of Asher’s lovely body sprawled lifeless on the grass; blood pooling in a great lake around him, staining that platinum hair red. And if the bolt had hit Grandfather Patrick, his “victory” would be cut short, too, because his body would shortly join Asher’s in death on the ground. Part of Aidan hoped the bolt had gone true. It would be a fitting punishment for killing something as wondrous as the Sidhe.

“Will you kill me now, demon?” Grandfather Patrick asked.

Aidan’s eyes flew open and he gasped. Asher was still standing. He’s alive! Grandfather Patrick was also on his feet. Both men were unharmed. The only thing that was different was that Grandfather Patrick no longer held a weapon. The shotgun was on the ground several feet away. The bolt stuck out through the remains of one of the shattered shotgun’s barrels. Asher had shot the bolt right inside the barrel. How did he DO that? Aidan stared at the Sidhe in amazement.

“I do not kill in the presence of children,” Asher answered Patrick.

Aidan irrationally wanted to argue that HE wasn’t a child. Be grateful that he does think I am! That may be the only reason he isn’t killing Grandfather Patrick right now.

“You claim to have some kind of honor, demon?” Grandfather Patrick snarled.

“Strange that you call me a demon with a sneer in your voice considering the goddess you worship,” Asher said.

“You know nothing of our goddess! You – I know who you are!” Grandfather Patrick said, his blue eyes narrowing. “You aren’t just a normal demon, are you? You’re one of their princes. A Dark Prince of the Sidhe!”

A Prince? Aidan thought as he watched the wind stir Asher’s long hair. It blew around him like a silver halo even as the Sidhe’s mercury-eyes narrowed in contempt at Grandfather Patrick. A Dark Prince. All moonlight and shadows. Yes, Asher does look like that.

“It matters not who I am, but who he is. Where did you get the child?” Asher demanded to know, pointing towards Aidan.

Grandfather Patrick’s blue eyes alighted on Aidan. “It would be you that brought him here, wouldn’t it?”

Aidan flinched.

“Do not make me repeat myself again, Clansman,” Asher said, his rich voice going frosty. “Where did you get the boy?”

Grandfather Patrick shifted uneasily. “He’s my daughter’s whelp.”

“Liar!” Asher hissed. “Aidan is not of your kind. He is one of ours. So I ask again, where did you get the child?”

“I will tell you nothing, Demon Prince,” Grandfather Patrick said, crossing those meaty arms across his chest in defiance.

Asher’s eyes flashed. Gracefully, he loaded another bolt into the crossbow. The bolt sparkled in the sunlight like a piece of jewelry. This one had no red-tinted tip. No poison, Aidan realized and, oddly, he could almost taste the bitter metal of the shaft on his tongue.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t kill in front of children,” Grandfather Patrick scoffed, yet there was wariness in his blue eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“Who said I am going to kill you?” Asher asked softly as he raised the crossbow up and aimed it at the other man’s right leg.

Grandfather Patrick blanched and took a half-step backwards. Aidan’s chest seized. Sarah gave out a high-pitched cry. Whatever was going to happen was going to be very bad. And it’s going to happen because of me.

“Don’t hurt him!” Aidan said, stepping between the Sidhe and his grandfather, one arm outstretched.

“I don’t need your protection, boy!” Patrick roared.

“Are you kidding? He’s got a crossbow trained on you and he clearly knows how to use it!” Aidan snapped over his shoulder at Patrick then turned to face Asher and said, “He’s telling the truth about me.”

“What do you mean?” Asher asked as he slowly lowered the crossbow.

“I’m from around here like you thought. My mom adopted me and then we moved to Chicago,” Aidan explained.

Asher shook his head, his mane of platinum hair shimmering in the summer light. “That is impossible. We do not give away our children and you are clearly one of us.”

“Then maybe my birth parents are dead,” Aidan offered.

Something flashed in Asher's eyes, grief or guilt, something that was too quick to understand. “You would have been taken in by others --”

“But I wasn’t,” Aidan interrupted, his throat going tight with sudden thick bitterness. He blinked away sudden, unexpected tears. The feeling of abandonment had never felt so powerful before. But upon seeing Asher, the feeling had multiplied in strength. Just look at him. If all Sidhe look like him and my birth parents saw me of course they’d want to get rid of me. “I was left behind. Given up. Abandoned. Got it? Whatever you think should have happened, didn’t. There’s no mystery here.”

Asher’s free hand was suddenly cupping Aidan’s cheek. The touch burned. The Sidhe’s expression went from forbidding to almost tender. “We would never abandon you, Aidan. What you’ve been told is a lie.”

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