Frankie sat down beside Jazz, tucking her wings in further, and they playfully knocked shoulders. “Right then, Jazz, have at me.”
“Is that what you think I want to do?” Jazz shook her head. “Nope, not doing that. You are grown, well, maybe not quite, because eighteen doesn’t really cut it in the world of experience,” Jazz smiled at her.
“So what are ye telling me then, is when I have more experience I will cut out m’friends, because m’loved ones tell me to?” She shook her head. “It isn’t going to happen. And Jazz, when it comes to experience, ye can’t say I haven’t had m’share.”
“Instead of fresh, that sounds so cute with your Irish lilt,” Jazz said trying to lighten the moment. “No, that isn’t what I was going to tell you. In fact, I don’t want to tell you a thing. I want to ask you a question.”
“Fair enough,” Frankie agreed.
“When Graely visits with you…what do you feel?”
Frankie eyed her beloved Jazz and sighed, “In a word, free.” She laughed at Jazz’s expression and hugged her fiercely. “Oh, don’t look like that. Let me see if I can explain meself. I should have said, outside the family, I never am, ye know, free as a hu
man…with humans, that is. I can’t be meself. And on Tir, and Daoine, I haven’t quite found a good fit. I’ve come to maturity in human years, not quite in Fae years and well--it is what it is. But with Graely, outside the family, outside m’friends, I can be meself. I can jest let go and be meself.”
Jazz considered this, and Frankie watched as Jazz played with a strand of her long blonde hair.
Frankie waited and it was a long moment before Jazz finally turned to her. She was full of understanding in her unmuted aqua lit iridescent eyes, for she too, was now all Fae. “Do you have…well, are you attracted to him? He is very handsome, and I could see that a young woman would find him well, no denying that he is definitely hot.”
Frankie put up a hand, “Stop that, Jazz. I’m not ready for this, because I don’t want to lie to ye. I love ye, Jazz, and I can’t tell ye what I don’t know for sure. Aye then, he is—well he fills m’eyes he does, with his dark broody expressions, and his amber lit dark eyes and his…well, aye, so he is, attractive, as ye say.”
“Are you, I mean…well,” Jazz seemed to stumble over the next question. “Getting in too deep?”
“No, I haven’t gotten in too deep with anyone yet Jazz. But if ye are asking if I think about it? Well… if ye want the truth, I will tell ye, but for yer ears only. Not Trevor’s, not m’da’s. Don’t be going and pillow talking with Trevor about what I tell ye now.”
Jazz crossed her heart, “No, this is girl talk, not meant to be repeated.”
Frankie hugged her, “I know ye, and I know ye can only hold it from Trevor a short while. But, I will tell ye this, if I think about it, romance that is, I think it would be exciting to have Graely look at me like that, but he doesn’t. He never once treated me as anything but a child. Not even a friend, really, but a child. It is most insulting now that I am a woman. Now more than ever, he treats me like a kid that he must forever protect.”
“Good, that raises my opinion of him a notch, which by the way, has never been that of Trevor’s or your father’s. I have seen Graely do…an exceptional thing during the war, and I can’t forget that or refuse to credit him for it.”
“Then, is it yer blessing I have, Jazz?”
“Not quite going that far. Come on, your da and Trevor are waiting for us back at the cottage. Then, we are going to go to Loch Ness and take a boat ride and look for Nessie. We actually know she is down there, don’t we?”
Frankie laughed, donned her human Glamour and brushed off the grass from her jeans, “Don’t we ever! I took a swim with her last night when you were all so busy making plans for today!”
Chapter Two
BRIGHT RED AND yellow flashed by in a graceful movement and landed in a palm tree. It squawked loudly breaking the silence of the new dawn, as the first of two suns emerged from their sleep.
An elk as large as an elephant jumped into a rushing river, as the lush vegetation on the other side gave promise of a sweet breakfast.
However, everything in Conglam was as it should be.
Conglam was wild, lush and tropical, as colorful as anything in Faery, but a universe away and apart. Its inhabitants were an odd assortment of various species, many of whom had left their own worlds and cultures to start another, in this welcoming realm.
Shapeshifters, magical beings, from a world known as the Realm of the Wolves, a dimension in which they found they did not fit in for one reason or another had come to Conglam. They each wanted to stand out. Wanting and needing its own pack and its own alpha mates to guide them. There they found harmony and peace. This morning all but one was happily going about their morning rituals.
These Shapeshifters were content. They loved Conglam even more than they had loved their native world. They tilled the land as farmers, mixing vegetables in their raw meat diet. They catered to the part of them that had always been human, yes, born wolf shifter but able to shift into human whenever it suited them.
The Shapeshifters had brought with them many of their own native plants and animals, and all had adapted and thrived. Theirs was a peaceful existence.
All but one was sweetly content. Darmon wanted more.
He looked into the pond at the edge of his feet and his reflection rippled back at him.
He should have started his own pack a long time ago. He knew he was overdue to be his own pack leader, and then her image came to his mind. He needed a mate and there was only one, just one that he wanted.