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Trinity

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"Valerian, my love, when did you discover that she was killing humans?" Daciana took Athair mòr's hand and looked him in the eyes as she asked this question.

"Let me continue in the sequence from when we got married." Athair mòr cupped his new wife's cheek and looked into her eyes for a few more moments. I think he was trying to gather strength from her with just that look.

"Alright dear. Just continue at your own pace. We are here with you." Daciana assured him to calm him down a little bit.

"Thank you."

After Athair mòr gave his new wife a quick kiss he turned to look at me again. I think he found it easier to tell me these things directly than to talk to his mate about them. He didn't want to be viewed negatively by her.

"Solanum and I didn't rush things in our relationship. I didn't want to pressure her or force her into something that she wasn't comfortable with at the time. She was my wife, but she was a stranger to me. There were many people who ridiculed me at the time for that way of thinking, but I could hardly be intimate with someone that I did not know. So, we spent the first year of our marriage getting to know each other. There was a time when I thought that I might have loved her. Even to this day there are some fond memories that I had from those times."

"There is nothing wrong with that, Athair mòr. You were married, even if it was arranged, you spent a lot of time together and that led to the development of emotions."

"I don't know if Solanum developed feelings for me, but I did for her. In the end, I had truly thought she loved me but that had all been a lie."

There was heartache dripping from the words that he was saying. He truly had been hurt at the time. But he wasn't done with his story, so he took another breath and continued.

"About a year into our marriage, we started to actually act more like a couple when we were in front of everyone else and in our home. We had gotten close enough that we finally consummated our marriage. She got pregnant that first time. That wasn't just the first time, that was the only time. Every time that I went to her after that she would refuse me. Solanum had been more than just upset to find out that she had gotten pregnant the night of our first time. She was furious and insisted that she didn't want the child. However, she was forbidden by me, Glory, and her family from doing anything to harm the baby. I am just thankful that Antirrhinum managed to survive her."

The love and joy in his eyes now told me that he had been a proud father, even if his wife was against having the baby.

"Rhinum was a special little boy. He was so strong and wise from the very beginning. However, he barely saw his mother since she was almost never home. I had to use the assistance of a wet nurse to breastfeed him so that he would survive his infancy. I actually think that is part of the reason that Rhinum turned out as amazing as he did. He was not sullied by his mother."

"Where was Solanum during this time?" I asked him to clarify that so he would not get lost in the memories of his son.

"I followed her once, when Rhinum was a month old. She went out to the human world and shifted her form."

"She was a shifter?" Reece asked without thinking.

"Shut up, Fido. Think before you speak. Kelpies are a Fae creature that can turn into a water horse." Everyone in the room, aside from Reece and I, laughed when I scolded him.

"She is right." Athair mòr answered my idiot mate. "Kelpies were originally magical water horses that became Fae when mother brought together those that she included as her people. However, what most people didn't know at the time, was that Kelpies fed on humans. And when I followed Solanum I found that she was luring humans to their doom to feed on them in the water after they had been drowned."

"That is horrible." Daciana put her hands to her mouth to hide the horror and the gasp.

"That is why I put an end to it. She is not wrong when she says that she was cast aside. I hauled her back to the castle and told Glory about the crimes that Solanum was committing. That had been when we started to round up those that were committing different atrocities and locking them away. At first they were in the dungeon of the castle, but this was when we were in the old lands of Fae and there were too many of them for us to round up easily."

"So, what happened?" I prompted, being drawn in by his tale.

"The first of several great wars had started. With each war we suppressed them and fought them back and there would be peace for a short time, but it wouldn't last. Over the following centuries we fought constantly with those that were dubbed the 'dark Fae'. They were no longer welcomed among the light, and they were shunned away from the city. But they refused to stay away."

"How did you manage to lock them away?" Reece asked this time. He was just as enraptured as I was.

"The battles continued, and what the dark Fae wanted was our lands. They wanted a place to call their home. So, we fought the war once again, pushed back against their commander, and when we won we fled our home lands and sealed it off with them inside."

That sounded like an extreme solution, effective but extreme.

"That was the battle, or rather war, that Rhinum died in?" I asked him even though I already knew.

"Yes. And at that time, he was fighting against people that should have loved him and been part of his family.. They never accepted that, though."