Free The Magic Knot by Helen Scott Taylor

belong together. We’re the last—”
    “Enough!” Niall stepped between Rose and Nightshade, as if blocking her view of him would prevent her from hearing his words. “She doesn’t need this.” He touched her arm, and comfort flowed from his fingertips. “Me advice to you, lass: forget about Tristan. Take yourself back to London and get on with your life.”
    “Your destiny lies with me, Rosenwyn,” Nightshade said, stepping up beside Niall. “I’m the last of your people.”
    Shock jolted her. “You’re not related to me.” God, she hoped there weren’t wings in her gene pool. “I’m looking for my father. Not you.”
    “Stop this now.” Niall shoved Nightshade in the chest.
    He staggered back, but kept speaking. “Your father is not of the Good People like us. He’s human.”
    “Human?” Rose gaped at Nightshade. Reality stopped and flipped over like a negative image. So thatmeant…Her usually quick brain stalled. “I don’t understand…” She refused to believe she was anything like Nightshade. And Niall and Michael were human—weren’t they? They looked human, apart from Michael’s glamour and the way Niall jumped higher than any man should be able to jump. Her brain juggled the implications, but she couldn’t keep all the balls in the air.
    “Oh, my God.” She dropped into a chair, closed her eyes, and tried to focus her mind.
    She clutched her three stones through her sports top and took comfort from the familiar smooth circles. A suspicion trickled into her brain. Niall had similar stones. What about the other two men?
    Rose glanced up to see Niall shepherding Nightshade out the back door. “Wait,” she called. Both men jerked around. She pulled her stones out and cupped them in her palm. She remembered Niall’s reaction when she’d mentioned her stones earlier. Somehow they were the answer to an important question, but she didn’t know what the question was.
    Nightshade smiled, a slow curl of lips revealing pearly white teeth like a crescent moon in a night sky. “My sweet, you offer them to me?”
    “No, you bloody don’t!” Niall jumped between them and struck out, the action so swift Nightshade was on his back before Rose realized Niall had hit him.
    Surely they weren’t fighting over her?
    “Well, well.” Michael pushed away from his safe spot on the opposite side of the kitchen and ambled toward her. “Me brother, the grand protector, strikes again.” He gazed at Rose’s stones cradled in her palm. “Let me see what you have there, lass.”
    All three men seemed interested in her stones, sothey must be significant. Niall had advised her to keep them hidden. Her mother had given her the same warning years earlier, but men had never shown any interest in them before.
    Niall backed up and glanced at Michael over his shoulder. “You’ll keep your hands off her as well if you know what’s good for you.”
    Michael angled his head and scrutinized his brother. “If I didn’t know better—”
    “Shut it.”
    Michael shrugged. “Denial will not go changing the facts, boyo.” He pulled a leather thong bearing stones similar to Niall’s out of his shirt and then swung them in front of Rose. “Snap. Nightshade, show her yours.”
    Nightshade had risen and stood in the doorway, lip swollen, nostrils flared like an angry bull. He glared at Niall as he pulled a key chain from his pocket and un-clipped it from the loop on his jeans. Three earth-colored stones hung from the chain.
    “Nearly a complete showing,” Michael said. “Except Niall, of course, who dares not wear his in case someone should steal away his soul.”
    Niall kept a watchful eye on Nightshade, ignoring Michael’s taunt.
    Rose hid her stones beneath her top, and pressed her hand over them. Whoever these people were, she was one of them. She’d blamed the fact that she had never quite fit in at school on her mother’s weird influence, but maybe the reason went deeper. Maybe she really was