“Because that’s part of becoming real.”
“Eew. I don’t want to be real. I want to be pretty like the fairy queen. Oops”—she clapped a tiny hand over her mouth—“wasn’t ’posed to say that.”
In the doorway, Gabby gasped softly, and Adam glanced up immediately, arching a brow at her, a silent question in his eyes.
I’ve never told her anything about fairies, Gabby mouthed. Have you?
He shook his head. They’d both assumed Tessa wasn’t a Sidhe-seer. Gabrielle hadn’t seen a single Tuatha Dé since that day Darroc had ambushed them in Scotland five years ago, and they’d assumed Aoibheal must have stripped the Fae-vision from the O’Callaghan line.
“What fairy queen, Tessa?” Adam said softly. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”
Tessa eyed him doubtfully. “She said you’d get mad if you knew she came.”
“I won’t get mad,” he assured her, smoothing her tousled ringlets.
“Promise, Daddy?”
“Promise. Cross my heart. What fairy queen, sweet?”
“Ah-veel.”
Adam inhaled sharply, glancing at Gabrielle again.
“Does Aoibheal come to see you, Tessa?” Gabby said softly, moving into the room, joining Adam on the edge of Tessa’s bed.
Tessa shook her head. “Not me. She comes to see Daddy. She thinks he’s pretty.”
Adam bit back a laugh at the look his wife shot him then, her eyes narrowed, dainty nostrils flared. She all but growled. He loved that she got a little jealous sometimes, adored her possessiveness. Suffered from his own fair share of it where his petite ka-lyrra was concerned.
“Pretty, huh?” Gabby said dryly.
“Mmm-hmm,” Tessa said, rubbing her eyes sleepily. “But I can’t see it no matter how hard I try.”
Okay, now, that miffed him a bit, Adam thought, disgruntled. Before Tessa had been born, he’d pored over piles of parenting books, determined to be a good father. He thought he’d been doing a fine job, but wasn’t his daughter supposed to have stars in her eyes whenever she looked at him? At least until she hit her teens? (And then God help the man who tried to date his daughter!) So, he had a few tiny lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before, he was still a handsome man! “You don’t think I’m pretty, eh, Tessa?” He tickled his daughter’s neck, right behind her ear, where it never failed to make her limp with laughter.
“ ’Course I do, Daddy.” She giggled. Then she gave him a thoroughly four-year-old look of exasperation. “But I can’t see what she sees. She says only fairies can.”
Adam’s heart skipped a beat.
It couldn’t be.
Could it?
“Oh, God,” Gabby said weakly, her gaze flying to his. She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. They stared at each other for a long moment.
Adam nodded, wordlessly encouraging her to ask the question they were both thinking. He’d ask himself, but he couldn’t seem to find his tongue.
He knew of only one thing he’d been able to see around humans when he’d been a fairy that humans couldn’t see. He could scarcely breathe with wanting it so badly. With aching to be able to follow his wife from this life, into countless others. Five years ago, when he’d wed Gabrielle in a romantic Highland ceremony, the MacKeltars had offered him the use of their Druid binding vows: those sacred vows that united lovers for all eternity. He’d refused to say them—not because he hadn’t longed to with every fiber of his being—but because it would have been to no avail, as he’d had no soul with which to bind himself.
Breathlessly Gabby said, “See what, Tessa? What can fairies see that you can’t see?”
Tessa yawned. Snuggled deeper into the covers. “That Daddy’s all glowy and golden.”
Adam’s mouth worked, but nothing came out.
“Adam glows golden?” Gabby said faintly.
Tessa nodded. “Mmm-hmm. Ah-veel says now he’s just like you and me, Mommy.”
Gabby made a soft choking sound.
For a long moment Adam couldn’t move. He just sat on the edge of Tessa’s bed and stared at his wife. She stared back at him, wonderingly, her eyes misting with tears of joy.
Then the enormity of it electrified him, galvanized him into action—there wasn’t a moment to waste! If, by some miracle, he’d been gifted with a soul, he wanted it bound to Gabrielle’s now.
Hastily dropping a kiss on Tessa’s brow, Adam turned out the light, scooped Gabrielle up into his arms, and carried her from the room, hastening down the hall to their bedroom.