A Solstice Journey Read Online Free PDF

but other than that, yup, I’m adopted.”
    While I really didn’t look like my parents and sisters, I also didn’t look like any one ethnic group. Even after all the traveling, and later, the searching I had done online, I couldn’t easily point to a racial group and say, “Hey, I’m one of them.” I was a mixture of all of them. It had bothered me when I was younger, but when I got more comfortable with myself, when puberty was over, I accepted it. I just was different, and that was all there was to it.
    “They are striking,” he said quietly. “Your eyes.”
    I didn’t know what to say about that, but I smiled, since he was trying to be nice. And it was nice that he seemed to be interested in me, in the same way I could be interested in him.
    “But unfortunately, we need to talk to Idris before anything else.”
    “Business before pleasure,” I said lightly.
    His eyes lit up when I said that, so he knew I wasn’t averse to what he was hinting. Celyn made a sweeping bow and gestured toward the door.
    “Off to business, then,” he said grandly. Then his voice dropped to a husky, sexy purr. “And then, more about this pleasure that you want to talk about.”
    I swallowed hard and hoped my dick twitching wasn’t too noticeable—that voice had gone right to it. All of a sudden I didn’t want to leave the room.
    Judging by the slight smile Celyn wore, he was pleased with my reaction. But he made a shooing gesture to get me out the door. I didn’t think I was going to be able to move, but I did, walking across the threshold and hoping I didn’t look like too much of an idiot because I wanted to be going in the other direction: back to bed to get naked and sweaty.
     
     
    C ELYN LED me into a huge hall. The walk had been mostly silent, the quiet broken by Celyn pointing out various pieces of art along the way. I had given up trying to track where we were going, since the castle seemed to be all twisty corridors of stone and a large number of heavy wooden doors. Nothing actually stood out, and I didn’t think I could find my way back to Celyn’s room if my life depended on it. By the time we arrived, it felt like I had been walking for ages in those winding halls, and I had seen no stairs, so as far as I could tell, this entire place was only one floor, with a very impressive front wall.
    A large number of people stood around in groups talking in the hall. All of them were dressed in the same tunic and pants Celyn and I wore, in various colors, embroidered in different patterns. Everyone we passed stopped and stared at us. Celyn nodded at several of them, and I started to wonder who exactly he was. I hadn’t thought about it before, because of everything else that had been happening. But corporate politics had taught me how to read a room, and I was doing it now. Celyn was someone important, more important than the horse and the armor told me. Now it was evident because he was being treated like he was a director conducting a tour of the office. People acknowledged him, and while they weren’t bowing, he was being treated with respect. They all seemed surprised to see me, so I guess elves weren’t too popular here.
    “Don’t worry,” Celyn told me with a smile as he slipped his arm around my waist. We were the same height, so it wasn’t awkward, but it felt odd because I wasn’t used to such public displays of affection from someone who wasn’t family. “You have nothing to fear because you are with me.”
    “Are you going to tell me that I’m under your ‘protection’?” I asked dryly, looking at him.
    Then I noticed the huge cat in one corner of the room, licking its paws and acting like a housecat… except it was the size of compact car. I shivered when I realized what it was: the Yule Cat, straight out of the Icelandic legends. That was the cat that was supposed to eat you if you weren’t wearing your new clothing on Christmas Eve. It yawned, showing its long and sharp teeth, and my