Darklight by Lesley Livingston Page A

in their time apart, or whether he remained the same and she was only now seeing aspects of him that she had not noticed before.
    She couldn’t stop thinking about her visions, in which she barely recognized the boy she’d fallen in love with such a short-long time ago.
    Why is this all so hard?
    Why couldn’t she just wrap her arms around him and melt into his embrace as though only hours apart had passed between them?
    “Why?” she asked.
    Standing in the little yard, Lucky whickered in what sounded like commiseration. Kelley went over to him, stroking the kelpie’s neck. She could feel where battle scars on his hide had healed, leaving behind raised ridges in the deep russet coat. His mane and tail were a mass of knots—not like before, when he’d had the enchanted beads tied into his hair with elf knots—but rather, just from a lack of care. He and Sonny both seemed to be suffering in that regard.
    Kelley thought of the way Sonny had looked on the riverbank. Of the way the slanting sunlight had cast deep shadows under his silver-gray eyes. Of the stains—they were bloodstains, she knew, there was no sense pretending that they weren’t—on his clothes. She’d noticed the bandage wrapped around Sonny’s hand, and she shuddered to think of all the times she had seen him bleed—and shed blood—in her dreams.
    So what? Kelley thought, suddenly angry with herself. What’s the difference? You knew what he was when you fell in love with him. It’s not like he’s changed, is it? He kills Faerie.
    Then again, she’d fallen in love before she’d even known that “Faerie” was what she was. But why should that matter? It wasn’t as if Sonny were a danger to her . . . although her mother was certainly in his sights. Of course, her mother—and it still weirded Kelley out to think of Mabh in those terms—had her own agenda. And was, in her own right, just as dangerous as Sonny. More so, Kelley was inclined to believe—even though Kelley carried that same dangerous, seductive power within her. Would Kelley’s Faerie heritage one day make her a target of “Auberon’s bloodthirsty little lapdog,” as Mabh routinely referred to Sonny?
    “No! Of course not!” she told herself.
    Lucky nudged at her gently, and Kelley dug into the damp shoulder bag that was still slung across her body. In the very bottom, her fingertips brushed the bristles of her hairbrush. She pulled it out and began to gently worry all of the knots out of the patient kelpie’s mane and tail, brushing them to silk. Lucky’s comforting presence, and the gently monotonous action of grooming him, helped Kelley calm down and get a handle on her spiraling emotions. When she was done, she ran the brush over his whole coat, until finally he stood there gleaming from head to toe, ears pricked up, tail swishing contentedly, an expression of bliss on his long, handsome face.
    Kelley smiled and murmured, “This is that very Mab that plats the manes of horses in the night . . . ,” quoting Mercutio’s famous Queen Mab speech from Romeo and Juliet . “Which once untangled much misfortune bodes. . . .” She let the line drift away. Right. Misfortune. She’d forgotten how that line ended.
    Kelley hugged herself, suddenly cold.
    I am not my mother, she thought, her cheeks heating. I’m not dangerous or reckless or cruel. . . .
    And she sure as hell wasn’t her father—that ice statue masquerading as a person! No, she was nothing like Auberon, and she felt nothing toward him but disdain. Feeling suddenly lost, Kelley slid her arms around Lucky and leaned her forehead on his strong, warm neck, closing her eyes.
    When a noise behind her made her turn, Kelley barely even bothered to conceal her disappointment that it wasn’t whom she had been hoping for. It wasn’t even Fennrys.
    “Oh. Hi, Bob.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “I guess so.” Kelley sat down on the stone wall that encircled the yard.
    The ancient Fae sat beside her. “Is there