Page 50 of A Fate of Wings

It was the worst thing for me to say. The guards attempted to drag me away from the woman. I let my rage build to a boiling point. One blast of unfettered demon rage and I’d annihilate her. Saltine threw a potion over me. Glittery stars formed for a moment before darkness descended.

Chapter twenty-three

Thea

Earth

Cara wrapped her slender,yet firm, arm around my waist and helped me walk over the lush green field. The soft grass was spongy under my feet. It frightened me to think I didn’t know if I’d been here before. I didn’t know if I’d ever walked across the grass like this in my life. Or had a gracious arm wrapped around my waist. A modest cottage with white walls and a thatched dark roof sat on the top of a hill. In the distance, a small seaside village with an array of bright white, blue, and red buildings sat on the curves of a cove.

“Ireland is on Earth,” Cara said.

I wrinkled my nose. The name didn’t sound familiar at all. Nothing did. My brain was in blank darkness. I knew I was a woman, but that was it. Every time I strained to think thoughts of who or what I was, my head flared with a dark pain. Caraprattled, her voice a white noise in my ears, on how she was a fae, her entire town was a fae village. She thought I was a fae, too. I didn’t correct her since I didn’t know who or what I was.

Or where I belonged.

My heart thudded frantically inside my chest as though I’d headed in the wrong direction. My ribs ached with the pulsing. A sense I was supposed to be somewhere, doing something with someone important filled my aching brain. I placed a palm on my forehead. Thinking made my head hurt with the pain of a thousand pressure points. Cara blessedly stopped talking and patted my arm.

She opened the door of her house, beaming at her humble abode like it was a palace fit for a queen. Pain shot through my head once again. I gasped as I staggered in after her. She eased me onto a chair. I placed my elbows on the timber table and rested my chin in my palms watching Cara as she moved about efficiently heating water in a black pot over the glowing timber in the hearth. She tested the water with her finger, then poured it into a bowl and dipped a cloth into the steaming liquid. She lifted the cloth to my face. I dropped my hands so she could wipe the bruises and scratches with her tender care. As the liquid seeped into a scratch close to my eye, I winced. She tutted and tested the split in my skin, making it sting even more with the fresh air hitting the raw surface. Letting it close, she fetched a jar, opened the lid, and wiped the white pine-scented salve on the wound.

“There,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll heal, anyway, since you’re a supernatural creature.”

“How are you sure?” I tugged the sides of my robe around my chin, aware I was naked underneath.

She eyed my face. “You’re too pretty to be human. Not that humans can’t be pretty, but there’s an extra glow to us.”

I let my gaze roam her face. She stared back at me with inquiring blue eyes. Her features were delicate and so beautiful. Beneath her skin hummed with the something extra she said. Power? I lifted my hand, surprised to find it glowing. I shook my hand like I experienced something horrible on it and wanted to get rid of it. The glow grew.

Cara clasped my hand between hers. The glow on my hand disappeared between her glowing white palms.

“That’s fae power in your hands. Only fae have glowing hands.”

“Oh.” I was fae. I had to be. What else might I be?

“Let’s get the rest of you tended to before my mate comes in from the fields.” She let go of my now once again normal hands. “I’ll fetch you a dress to wear, too.”

She hurried over to her closet and removed a pale blue dress. I slid the sleeves of the robe up my arms and found more bruises and scratches. Wherever I’d come from or whatever I’d been through must have been rough.

“It was the vortex.” She placed the dress across the back of the other timber chair. “Fae go through the veil to the Summer Court. It’s like walking through the air, calm and welcoming. What you arrived through was unnatural. Made by a witch, most likely. They make anything if you have enough money to pay them.”

“Witch?”

“Aye.” She took the damp cloth from my hand and moved behind me, easing the robe from my shoulders. Her startled gasp echoed in my ear.

“What is it?”

Her finger touched my back in a tentative brush as though she was frightened of what she’d found. “You have wing slits.”

“Wing what?”

“These.” She ran her finger over one shoulder blade and then the other in a more confident manner. “These are the places your wings come out of.”

“I have wings?”

She chuckled. “Aye. You can snap them in and out of your body as you require. Which means you’re not a fae.”

But if only fae had glowing hands…

“What am I then?” I tilted my head back.