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A blushing Gabrielle had insisted they venture forth Had given him a quick lesson in human manners, a lesson he’d not liked one bit He loathed the idea of sharing her with anyone, for any amount of time

But Gabrielle had been resolute, and so the six of the the day, dining in the evening, and drinking and playing cards or chess or soae all his desire for her into the tiun to hate the dawn

Not since his days with Morganna had he lived on such an intimate daily basis with humans, and never had mortals welcomed him so completely as these (Apart froure out; he’d never seen a bunch of woroin: For so hiit on his plate with a downright baleful glare)

But the MacKeltars treated him as if he were one of the themselves Thrust their wee bairns into his arms and made him hold them He’d not had a baby in his hands for over a thousand years, had never had one spit up on hiitated forht the look in Gabrielle’s eyes and decided tiny Maddy MacKeltar could spit up on hiot testy with hih about his, shared experiences he’d shared with none before His own kind would have scoffed, and mortals had never truly seen him as one of them, never freed him so completely sianna He’d always been one of the Fae to her, and his son had never welcoe him as his father

But here, in this enchanted ti less And it was a colanced about the library Drustan and Gere playing progressive chess near the fire, laughing and talking

Their tiny, beautiful dark-haired daughters were slu occasionally to be fed

Gabby and Chloe were laughing, insisting to Dageus that they would never cheat, how could he think such a thing of thereat clock above the hnassadh would begin And the walls between realms would start to thin

And he would sit here in the castle and wait for the queen

By the close of day tomorrow, at the very latest, Aoibheal would be warned, Darroc would be revealed for the traitor he was, the realht very well be his iain

His petite ka-lyrra, however, would continue aging day by day

And he would have to stop that