Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Was it really so bad to be Unseelie as opposed to Seelie? I had very little idea what the difference was. I only knew a little about the Fae—mostly that they were all bubble-headed blondes like Morganna, who thought they were too good to hang around with humans. To be completely honest, I really disliked them— but now I was realizing I knew almost nothing about them.
We got into the house and went quietly to Bran’s room, where he firmly shut the door. Out in the forest, I had almost forgotten how I looked. But now I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over Bran’s dresser. I winced all over again at how hideous I was.
“All right,” Lachlan said, assuming a professional tone as he looked me over. “She’s under a glamour all right. Tell me the details—what happened?”
Bran told him how I had tasted the Suva and then suddenly transformed into my current, uglified form.
“I gave her the counter-spell but it didn’t work,” he told Lachlan. “And I can’t leave her like this.”
“No, you certainly can’t!” I put in. “This is not okay.”
“Hmm…well…” I was sitting on the side of Bran’s bed and Lachlan came and knelt before me. He took my face in his hands and looked at me first from one direction then from another. It almost felt like he was a doctor examining me.
I noticed his clothing was as black as his hair and seemed to be slightly old-fashioned. Or maybe that was just how they dressed in the Realm of the Fae.
“Thank you for doing this for me. For helping me, I mean,” I said, feeling awkward, as I always did, around extremely good-looking people. I knew I shouldn’t let myself be intimidated by their looks but I couldn’t help it—both Bran and Lachlan were intensely gorgeous. I’m talking movie-star perfect. Even if I had been my normal self, they both would have been way out of my league and right now I looked awful.
I knew from experience that a guy as good-looking as either Lachlan or Bran would have simply not noticed me in the regular course of events. I just wasn’t pretty enough to attract their attention, so they would have looked right through me. So, to have Lachlan studying me so intently was unnerving to say the least.
Though, to be fair, I amended to myself, Bran hadn’t done that—hadn’t ignored or belittled me. Under the ugly-spell—or glamour as he had called it—the Suva had cast on him, he had been this gorgeous, tall, muscular Greek god all along. And still he had been kind to plain-Jane me and even offered to take the skink for me. There was definitely something special about him.
But it was hard to concentrate on Bran when Lachlan was looking into my eyes so intensely. It almost seemed like he was trying to stare into my soul. When I blushed and dropped my gaze, he frowned impatiently.
“No, don’t look away, little one—I need to see exactly how be-spelled you are,” he told me.
So I had to stare into those mesmerizing, black-ringed emerald eyes some more. If you’ve ever had to hold eye contact with a stranger for a long time, you’ll know how difficult this was. Staring into someone’s eyes is just so intimate—it’s normally something only lovers do. I could feel my heart pounding and a hot blush creeping into my cheeks. It was all I could do not to drop my gaze a second time.
Also, with Lachlan so close, I couldn’t help noticing that he smelled as good as Bran did—though in a different way. His scent reminded me of the deep woods—a green, growing, wild scent with a dark, dangerous spice just under the surface. It drew me like a magnet, which made me even more uncomfortable because, as I said before, Lachlan was as far out of my league as Bran was, even when I was my normal self—which at the moment I most definitely was not.
Finally, the Dark Fae nodded and stood up.
“All right,” he said to Bran and me. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Good news,” Bran said at the same time I said,
“Bad news.”
Lachlan smirked at me, one corner of his lush mouth pulling up into a lazy smile.
“You’re a pragmatic little thing, aren’t you? Very well, I’ll give you the bad news first.”
“Okay…” I clenched my fists in my lap. “Only please don’t say the bad news is you can’t change me back,” I said. “Please—I can’t go to school like this! I need to look like my normal self again.”
“Oh, no—I can change you back,” Lachlan said. “But you’re not just be-spelled by the Suva, which is a relatively easy body-morphing glamour. You’re actually under a geas.”
“A what?” I asked, frowning.
“It’s a kind of curse and blessing at the same time,” Bran explained, frowning. “But how could she be under a geas, O’Rourke?”