Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

" H ow have you been, Father?" the stranger asked. "And what the hell do you know about the snow in Faerie?"

The room was silent for a long moment. Rosa's heartbeat pounded in her ears as the tension in the room rose higher. Eldon's smile slipped as Eli's glamour was burned away until only a ferocious Unseelie prince remained. His startling emerald eyes glowed with fury.

" You are not my son," he hissed.

Balthasar pulled Rosa behind him as Eli leaped from the second-floor balcony. Bright blue fire stretched out of his hands towards Eldon. The air crackled, and a shield appeared in Eldon's hand, blocking the inferno that closed in around him.

"Cut it out, Bleddyn! It's me."

"Liar!" Eli hissed as he circled Eldon. "You are a shifter, a doppelg?nger sent by the Autumn Queen to disarm me."

"The queen! Father, seriously, stop it." Eldon's shield vanished and he held up his hand in surrender. "You turned a Wylt. Did you think I would let that go unanswered?"

"My son has been dead for centuries," Eli snarled. Smoke gathered around his hand before it materialized into a shining sword.

"I'm not dead. I was temporarily…misplaced for a while, but I'm back now, so you can put Widow's Fury away before someone gets hurt."

"I will not be fooled by that insipid witch of a queen again." Eli rushed towards Eldon, sword raised.

Eldon raised his hands, and his clap echoed like thunder, drowning out Rosa's scream. Roots shot up through the marble floor, catching Eli mid-swing and separating him from his sword.

"Enough, Bleddyn!" Eldon said, the command washing over them. Gone was the quick talking, joking man. Instead, something ancient and angry remained. Eldon took two steps toward the struggling Eli, a dagger in his hands. With eyes filled with golden rage, he ran the blade over his wrist and held it up to Eli.

"Here, see for yourself, you pig-headed faerie."

Eli hesitated only for a moment before his tongue shot out and tasted the blood. His eyes went wide, and Eldon lowered his dagger. The two men stared each other down with almost identical frowns.

"Myrddin, I'm… I am so sorry," Eli whispered.

"Save it, old man. I've been traveling for days, and I need to sleep. Get one of your new sons to help you down," Eldon muttered, turning his back on the mess and his father. His golden eyes lingered on Rosa for a moment with a tired smile, "Rhosyn."

No one stopped him as he walked up the stairs and disappeared into a guest room.

Rosa sat across the mahogany table, watching Eldon Blaise devour the rabbit and rosemary stew she had prepared. Despite Balthasar's puzzled amusement, she still wanted to cook for the family even though she was now a part of it.

Rosa had needed to do something to take her mind off Eldon's sudden appearance and the abilities she now had. Cooking calmed her, and with Balthasar needing to help Eli with the uproar in Albion, she had headed into the kitchen to keep herself busy in a house full of stressed men. Cecily knew what Rosa had become, that she was now a part of the Gwaed Teulu—The Blood Family—but insisted on keeping her position as housekeeper.

"You are going to need to slow down if you wish to taste the food," Rosa said, fighting the urge to throw a bread roll at the stranger. He'd been at Gwaed Lyn for less than a day, and after nearly destroying the entrance to the mansion, he had gone to sleep in a guest room and hadn't moved for ten hours.

"If you had spent the last four days traveling through the back roads of the Otherworld to get here, then you would be hungry too, Rhosyn," Eldon replied before draining another glass of red wine. The last person to call her Rhosyn was her grandmother, Glenna Wylt. Rosa still remembered her Welsh accent that was as thick as the sourdough she used to bake.

"And why were you so desperate to get to my lover?" Balthasar asked coolly. Like everyone else, he had a lot of questions he wanted to ask and had hated waiting for Eldon to wake up.

Eli sat at the head of the table, staring at Eldon as if he was waiting for him to turn into a puff of smoke and disappear once more, or if he wasn't sure if he were a miracle or a curse. Saul watched the exchanges with his typical mild amusement.

"I saw her in a vision, and I knew I had to come."

"Why did you call him Myrddin?" Saul asked Eli.

"Because it is what his mother named him," Eli replied in a voice full of sadness.

"Who was his mother?"

"Can we not wait until after dinner for story time?" Eldon interrupted.

"Can you stop being so surly?" Rosa countered. "We have a right to know who you are."

"You know who I am." His golden eyes bored into her, and something prickled like hot static at the back of her neck. Oh yes , she knew . The fresh Unseelie blood now flowing in her veins felt the magic oozing out of him, but something else that was pure blood and bone Wylt recognized him as family. She still couldn't bring herself to say his common name out loud. It was too surreal.

"I thought you would look older," she teased instead, and he burst out laughing.

"People always do."

After the following two courses, they all headed to the library. Rosa's hand slid easily into Balthasar's as they walked, his warm touch reassuring her. They hadn't had much time alone since they had come back from the Aos Si, and she was itching to get him as close to her as possible. It would have to wait for a few hours more. Balthasar looked sideways at her with a gleam in his eye that told her she wasn't the only one thinking about it.

"Get a room, you two," Saul snorted behind them. "If Bal smiles at you one more time, I think I'm going to vomit. I'm starting to believe he was better as the Tin Man."

"Shut up, Saul," Rosa said.

"Good to see the transformation didn't rob you of your wit," he chuckled.

"No, it only robbed her of her humanity. That's so much better," Eldon snapped.

Eli's fists clenched.

"It was my choice, and I would make it again," Rosa replied.

"Immortality is not all that it's cracked up to be, Rhosyn."

"I've always found it more a blessing than a burden," Eli said as he opened the door to the library. He flicked his hands towards the fire, and it sprang to life.

Rosa fought the urge to clap. Since she was now one of the Gwaed Teulu, Eli didn't have to hide his magic from her, and it made her want to laugh like a little girl in wonder.

Fresh whiskey was poured, and they all sat on the leather couches around the fire. Rosa positioned herself comfortably between Eli and Balthasar. Since her transformation, she had also gotten all her memories back from her childhood, and Eli really had been like a second father to her. Now they had shared blood, he was her kin. Eldon sat in front of the fire, watching the flames.

"Well, this is riveting," Saul said after a long, silent moment. "Okay, I will start… Who the hell are you?"

"Father? Don't you think you should answer that?" Eldon replied.

"Myrddin…Eldon…is Deryn's and my son," Eli murmured. No matter what tense history they had, Rosa didn't fail to spot the softness in his eyes when he looked at Eldon. "I thought you were dead."

"Close, but not quite. The Almighty won't allow me to die."

Eli snorted but managed to hold his tongue.

"I didn't know you and Deryn had a son. How is it even possible?" Balthasar asked.

"It was before she was turned. She fell pregnant when she was still human, and Myrddin was born…different. Both Unseelie and Wylt."

"A tempestuous mix," Rosa said, trying to ease the tension in the room.

"That's putting it mildly as you will soon learn," Eldon replied.

"Myrddin Wylt… Why is that name familiar?" Saul interrupted.

"Because he is famous, you ignoramus," Balthasar growled. "He is a legendary Welsh folk hero, born of a demon and a human. It makes so much sense now."

"Not to me," Saul said.

"He's Merlin, for fuck's sake!" Rosa exclaimed loudly before clapping her hands over her mouth as she blushed crimson.

"Thank you, Rhosyn. Why not scream it a little louder?" Eldon cleared his throat.

"You don't understand. I was trying to find out everything I could about the Wylts recently, and the only thing I could find were links to you. I dismissed it because there was just no way we could be related. I thought Wylt was a title, not a surname."

"Most surnames began their life as titles. Wylt became mine. Deryn's family had other children of course, but she kept a firm eye on them all. After a hundred years, no one knew I was even tied to the family."

"I've been patient enough. Where have you been all this time?" Eli demanded. "I heard that you had defeated Morgan and then nothing! Not a word for centuries!"

"Would you believe I put a spell on myself that wiped away my memories?"

Eli made a choking sound of frustration in the back of his throat, and Rosa stifled a giggle.

"I can believe it," she said.

"So you have been wandering about the world since then with no idea who you are? Who your family is?" Eli whispered.

"In a nutshell. The spell was broken recently with the help of a lovely shamanitsa who owed me a favor. She's the one that spotted the spell over me to begin with." Eldon straightened his long legs out towards the warmth of the fire. "I've been getting my memories back in chunks ever since."

"Yet, you only turn up on my doorstep now?"

"I wanted to wait until I was myself again," Eldon replied. "But you decided to turn Rosa, and I felt it like a smack in the face. I wanted to know what happened for you to want to do such a stupid thing. You made a promise…"

"I know I did! I had no choice. Besides, promises mean nothing if those you made them to are dead. The dead don't care," Eli argued. "I wasn't about to let Rosa die."

"And what happened to you to get you into such a state, Rhosyn? You said you killed Ryn Eurion, the fox bastard of the Aos Si."

"She did kill him," Balthasar said. "I've never seen such a surprised look on a Seelie before."

"I can imagine. I've had many visions of late," Eldon said, gazing into the fire. "Please, Rhosyn, tell me what has happened in the past few months so I can try to figure out what they could mean. Albion is in turmoil—its foundations are shaking—and I need to know why."

Rosa took a deep breath and told him about receiving her summons to go home to Gwaed Lyn and everything that happened after. Eldon managed to keep any comments to himself, even if at times, he looked at Eli with a range of baleful expressions. Hearing about the ball on the Winter Solstice had him downing glasses of whiskey as if they were water. When she mentioned being kidnapped and taken into the Aos Si, he let out a triumphant shout.

"That's it! I had forgotten all about that spell I put on the Wylt line," Eldon said, raising his glass to Rosa and Balthasar. "Well done, you two. You have dealt that red-haired harpy a blow she never saw coming. I'm sorry, please continue." Rosa quickly finished explaining how they got out, Pearl's attack, and why Eli had to turn her.

When Rosa was done, Eldon studied her carefully through narrowed eyes. "The only question I have for you, Rhosyn, is do you feel the magic yet?"

Rosa couldn't hold back the laughter that bubbled out of her. "I don't have any magic."

"Yes, you do…"

"It's barely been a month since Eli first began to turn her, Blaise," Balthasar growled. "This is the first day she's had since the completion of the transformation."

"Have you felt the magic growing inside of you since your trip into the Aos Si?" Eldon asked him.

"My magic has nothing to do with you."

"Actually, it does."

"There has been a…a change in the flow of power," Eli acknowledged. "I noticed it a few days ago. I thought it might have been because of the winter. It's the strongest time for the Unseelie."

"It's not only the winter. At least, I hope it's not."

"Do you always speak in riddles?" Rosa asked. "Why do you think I have magic?"

"You are Gwaed Teulu and have my blood. You will have magic." Eldon shrugged. "I'm going to have to wait and see if my theory is correct. I'll need some days to figure out the shape of it."

"So you will stay?" Eli asked, the hope in his voice tangible.

"For a time. Rosa will need advice and guidance, and I feel like I should be the one to be her teacher. I'm the only one qualified." Balthasar snorted, and Eldon's eyes burned. "She is my kin, boy. It's my right."

Balthasar opened his mouth, but Rosa was already on her feet.

"Enough! I'm done with all of your arguing. Come on, Wylt. We need to talk."

"Where are you going?" Balthasar asked.

"Eldon and I are going home. He's a Wylt, so the cottage is his. Besides, I think if he stays in this house, the bad tempers will cause the mansion to explode."

"Rosa…" Balthasar began, but she squeezed his fingers, a reassurance and a promise.

"I won't be long."