We? This must tie into my talkative spy and the other sorcerers Rogue had thought to tease out with this party. Looked like he’d done a fine job of it. I needed to play along, if I wanted to find out more.
“I don’t mean to laugh.” I twisted the diamond ring, trying to sound contrite and fearful. “It’s just that he’s so powerful. How could I possibly escape him?”
Fafnir radiated all kinds of smug. “We have taken care of it. Come with me and you’ll be safely hidden before he knows you’re gone.”
I frowned, going for befuddled. “But he keeps close tabs on me, why wouldn’t he miss me immediately?”
Fafnir leaned in, lips cold as they brushed my ear. I had to steel myself not to recoil. “I am part of a powerful cabal. As we speak, several simulacrums of you are leading Rogue on a merry chase. I have transport on the roof. Come with me now.”
Dammit. This explained why Athena hadn’t returned, if she was chasing Rogue while he followed “me.” He should have let me warn him. Still, I didn’t think the danger was all that great. I’d simply refuse to go.
“Who are they?” I whispered back. When suspicion creased his brow, I hastily added, “Your cabal, how can I trust they’re powerful enough to protect me if I don’t know?” I suspected this might be the first time in my life I’d had occasion to use the word cabal.
“Believe me, Sorceress, they are. And all with a vested interest in the child you carry. There’s one more thing. Recall that I said Mistress Nancy sent you two messages?”
Ooh. I’d bet money I didn’t want to hear this.
“She also asked me to point out that, despite my wish not to, I was forced to turn over my and Cecily’s baby. Take heed of that lesson, for Rogue, despite whatever pretty love tokens he gives you—” and here his gaze caressed the lily necklace, “—has long been Titania’s creature. She turned him before and she can do it again. Neither you nor the child is safe with him. Look into my mind and you’ll see the truth of it.”
Unbidden an image came to mind, the old painting of the serpent tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden. The snake hadn’t lied to her, had just broken the shell of her innocent ignorance. I had no doubt Fafnir believed every word he said. But knowledge could be used many ways. Though Fafnir’s cautions echoed fears I already nursed, I would take my chances with Rogue.
“I’ll think about it,” I tempered, going for fearful indecision.
“There’s no time. It must be tonight. It must be now.” Fafnir’s hand snaked out, but I dodged it and stood.
“Then I have to say no. I couldn’t possibly make such an important decision on such short notice.”
Fafnir put a hand in the pocket of his sober gray tunic. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I queued up a wish, ready to fire it off, and sent a call for Darling Hercules. Just in case I needed backup. Something pricked the back of my neck and Fafnir smiled at me gently, almost paternal, as the wish fizzled and died. Even as I wove on my feet, I tried for another wish, but couldn’t quite connect to it.
Totally fucking ambushed.
I was an idiot.
Strong arms wrapped around me from behind. I wanted to struggle as my unknown assailant lifted me, but I could no more make that happen than anything else. Whatever they’d given me somehow prevented me from exerting my will on my muscles or my magic.
Enslavement.
Inside my head, I shrieked for Darling, for Rogue, for anyone who could hear. But the plates of my skull were as impervious as they’d been back in my fully human life.
“Don’t worry,” Fafnir reassured me. “You no longer appear to be you. My associates have created a complex illusion that settled on you as we spoke. We anticipated that you might be too cowed to take your chance for freedom.”
He followed along as my abductor carried me out of the ballroom. “Too much to drink!” Fafnir told a gawker with surprising cheer. They carried me up a staircase, not the one that led to my bedchambers.
“This is for your own good,” Fafnir continued, giving me an affectionate smile. “I won’t let what happened to Cecily happen to you. You believe Rogue loves you, but we are incapable of love. He has simply discovered what you wish to hear and uses it to manipulate you. Truly, he’s exceptionally good at it. I’m told you even glimpsed him playing lover to Titania after you were safely carrying his child and yet you forgave him. He’s brainwashed you. After some time away from his dreadful influence, your mind will clear and you’ll thank me for this.”
The stairway narrowed into smaller spirals and we emerged abruptly into the crisp night air. Fafnir waved a hand at the sky and turned to face me. “Our ride is coming, and once we have you safe, the spell that binds your will can be lifted. I regret it came to this. You’ll only have to wear silver a short while. Once we’re sure of you, it will be removed. I promise.”
The cat inside me snarled, feeding on my sudden rage. Those words had been enough to trip me over the edge. Inside I laughed as the cat moved, unhampered by whatever they’d given me. If I could have spoken, I would have said it.
You won’t like me when I’m angry.
The platinum claws sliced out of my hands and the cat took possession of the body I couldn’t control. We whirled on my captor, slicing off his head with inhuman strength and speed. With a detached sense of horror and shock, I watched the decapitated body of what surely had to be an ogre topple over the edge of the tower. How the hell had they disguised that thing from us? Surely it hadn’t slithered through a chink.
The cat, uninterested in such observations, had already spun back and was stalking Fafnir, who seemed frozen in terror.
“Sorceress Gwynn?” He ventured, then screamed when the cat sliced through his midsection and laid open his face with the other paw.
Fafnir scrambled to escape, but the small area of the turret left little room. What had become of Rogue’s Black Guard on this particular tower? The cat pursued, relentless, shredding Fafnir faster than he could heal. The man had been totally melted before, by Mistress Nancy’s account. The immortality of the noble fae seemed to allow them to magically recover from anything so I didn’t fear that we’d kill him.
Not that he didn’t deserve it.
Great wings beat through the night sky and a shadow covered the moon momentarily. Now that I knew to, I recognized that slight deadening of my magical senses that meant dragon. Detecting the absence of input was much like first learning to find the blind spot in my retina, where the optic nerve passed through—once you knew where to look, it became obvious, and also easy to pinpoint again.
A good lesson, too, in being aware of your own blind spots.
The cat ignored the dragon in favor of toying with her prey. With the caring appreciation I’d learned from the heart of the earth, I began hauling her back, suggesting we get off the tower before the dragon snatched us. She didn’t like it, but reluctantly honored our new agreement, slowing her attack, remaining present enough to keep my body upright. A whoosh of air chilled me, not just from the loss of body heat, but also the draw on my magic as the dragon passed right over me. I wished I had enough control to crouch low, to avoid being snagged by the man-high talons. That wish did me no more good than the others had.
Instead, though, the dragon dropped, wheeled and hovered, one luminous eye like the lantern in a lighthouse level with my head. It surveyed me, hot breath flowing out and warming the air considerably. It shouldn’t be able to hover in place like that, lazily sweeping its tremendous membranous wings in slow arcs. Hummingbirds managed the feat through speed and a characteristic circular motion that created a vortex like helicopters use. The dragon’s wing movement should have depended on forward motion to keep aloft, much like a fixed-wing airplane. That the dragon didn’t drop from the sky meant magic.
But how did an anti-magical creature use magic?
Fafnir’s throat healed enough for him to begin sobbing and making frightened noises. Maybe I’d been distracted by the dragon’s ability to hover, but
I wasn’t afraid. The cat, perhaps, with her predator’s complete lack of fear. Or something else.
Now you lay claim to both of those things.
Fafnir had said that earlier, though surely this was the “ride” he’d mentioned. Yet, the dragon hovered, appearing to patiently await my instructions.
Fafnir’s cries faded into a hiss and he shifted, a large gray snake—a constrictor, by the look of it—formed from his body. It had happened this way to Falcon, too, when I’d injured him. Almost like a protective instinct. Less explosively powerful than my or Rogue’s spirits. Still unable to move, I helplessly watched him slither away.
Ah, well. Not like I could have turned him over to the cops or anything.
The dragon tilted its great head, examining me. Then it glided closer, the breath scorching. I braced myself—mentally, because I could do nothing more—and it stretched its neck, delicately touching my chest with its snout.
The spell fell away, along with my lily earrings, and the dragon backed off with what could only be a smile on its odd, reptilian mouth. I stretched, retracting the claws and reveling in the sheer joy of owning my body again, including the magic, which roared up in a wave as the dragon backed off in urgent need of direction. With nothing in mind to wish for, now that the crisis seemed to be over, and the dragon apparently going nowhere, I reached around in the stones of the tower I stood on. Partly threaded through with Rogue’s blue-black brand of magic and also older, other varieties. A definite whiff of Titania, but different than how she came across these days. Her younger, possibly less corrupt self.
Finding a grip in the interweaving, I wished the circular turret larger. Much larger, into a platform big enough to hold a dragon at repose, and the tower itself strong enough to hold it.
With what looked like a pleased expression, the dragon landed, neatly furled its wings and lay on its belly, taloned front feet and head dangling over the edge, looking down at the courtyard below with great interest. Like a knife to the heart the image reminded me of how my cat, Isabel, had loved to do that.
One day I would stop missing her so much.
And feeling so guilty that I’d abandoned her, however unwillingly.
Noises rose up from below, shouting and various cries. I ventured toward the edge—not too close, because I’d left off any kind of barrier, thinking the dragon wouldn’t like it—to peer down. Humans, fae and Black Guard alike teemed and scurried, the military sorts forming regimented groupings and the fae, well, looping about unhelpfully.
“Day late and a dollar short, guys,” I said out loud and headed for the stairway to go tell everyone I’d rescued my own damn self. It kind of pissed me off, after Rogue’s grand and persuasive talk about protecting me. Our first public event and he gets suckered in by one of the oldest tricks in the book and nearly lets me get kidnapped.
Not nearly. I had been abducted. Never mind that I’d escaped the worst consequences—Rogue had not stopped it.
Just as I reached the stairs, the devil himself launched out at top speed, long black hair tossing in the crosswinds, platinum sword at the ready, a viciously feral look on his face that transformed to searing relief at the sight of me. Okay, he’d been seriously worried, which made me feel a damn sight better.
Also the crushing embrace and kiss filled with all sorts of emotions edged in desperation went a long way too.
Chapter Fifteen
In Which I Acquire a New Pet
The shift to, or, more precisely, release of an animal form, while largely involuntary for all, seems be less wrenching for some fae. I can’t draw a direct conclusion, but I’m toying with the notion that there is a correlation between difficulty of shift and power of the animal form involved.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “The Black Dog/White Cat”
Okay, Rogue might not have rescued me, but I clung to him as any damsel in distress might, beginning to shake with the adrenergic reaction. Having him arrive, even belatedly, helped to steady me again. Bonus points for being on top of a tower.
I buried my face in his chest, my fingers wound around a lock of his hair and I breathed him in. Stargazers, sandalwood and mace. The scent of security and home. Rogue held me close, pressing more kisses to the side of my face. Then pulled back upon finding my bare earlobe.
“What happened to your earrings?” he demanded.
Not really the first thing I’d expected him to say to me.
“Duh,” came Athena’s voice from behind him. She stopped cleaning her nails with the point of the dagger long enough to use it to point with. “Did you miss yon dragon?”
Apparently Rogue had been focused enough on me—also making me feel much better—not to have paid attention to the dragon that was now watching us with amber-fired interest.
“Yes, the earrings are here somewhere.” I scooped them off the ground and pressed them back to my lobes, their magical tendrils weaving back into my skin like another kind of kiss. “I hope you don’t mind that I modified your tower. The dragon seems to be happy though.”
“Indeed she does.” Rogue had an odd expression on his face. “You mentioned before that one gave you a ride. Were you planning on going somewhere?”
The pissed-off feeling returned in force. I planted my hands on my hips. “Oh sure! While Fafnir and his fucking ‘cabal’ had you chasing after my doppelgänger—which I tried to warn you about—I thought it would be fun to be magically immobilized by him and kidnapped via dragon back.”
“Fafnir.” Rogue ground out the name and ignored the rest of what I said. “He will answer for this. Where is he?”
I threw up my hands. “Who the hell knows? After I sliced him up, he turned into his snake self and slithered off. He’s no doubt holed up somewhere. Or has escaped. I would have stopped him, but there was that whole magical immobilization thing I mentioned. I’m fine now, by the way.”
“Are you?” Rogue looked me up and down, amusement at me transmuting his anger into desire. “You seem to be concerned that I don’t care enough, my valiant Gwynn. Maybe I should check you for injuries you may not know about.” He vanished the sword and pulled me into his arms again, running his hands over my body and seizing my lips in a fervent kiss. Surprisingly, my own smorgasbord of disrupted emotions seemed happy to convert into answering lust. I returned the kiss with interest.
And ignored the little voice that noted how we returned to sex to reconnect. I needed whatever connection I could get.
Athena cleared her throat ostentatiously. “I’m gonna get the search going for snake-boy.”
Rogue paused long enough to say, “Do that. The Black Guard will assist you,” before resuming the torrid kiss.”
“Yes, sir. You two join us when you’re ready. Or don’t,” she added with a snicker. “It might be best for all of us if you two go to your room and stay there.”
I couldn’t reply as Rogue had my mouth occupied, so I settled for flipping her the middle finger. She laughed. Translation complete.
Then I lost track of time for a bit, my own adrenaline-fueled desire blazing up to meet Rogue’s as I drowned in his touch. One would think we’d been apart for ages.
Only when his hand moved up my thigh, under the voluminous skirts, did I regain some sense and protest. Incoherently, as we’d never stopped kissing, just gasped for breath as we adjusted angles and devoured each other again. His long fingers brushed my swollen, wet labia and it shocked me enough to wrench my mouth away and push my hands against him. Rogue opened his eyes, lambent and full of hunger.
“We have an observer.” I jerked my head in the dragon’s direction. Judging by the floodlit amber glow around us, it was watching us still.
Rogue flicked a dismissive gaze at it. “I doubt she cares.” And nibbled on my neck, making my head swim.
“I care.”
“Why?” he asked, clearly stalling me and not interested in the answer. I’d pressed my thighs tight together and his fingers brushed the seam of them, teasing me. “I care, too—that’s
what I’m proving to you.”
“No,” I laughed, feeling myself melt. “Besides we can’t have make-up sex until we’ve finished fighting.”
“What are we fighting about?”
“First of all, I can’t believe you thought that other...person was me.”
He shrugged, rubbing me against him. “There were several and I knew none of them was you. I only followed after to discover who was behind it.”
“Leaving me to fend for myself.”
“I didn’t expect that you would run off with Fafnir.” Anger crept back into his voice and he nipped me.
“I didn’t! He abducted me.” And I really hated that it had been so stupidly easy.
“I didn’t know that then, did I?” he pointed out with calm logic. “Besides I knew you could take care of yourself, which you did, my resourceful and powerful Gwynn.”
I sighed, partly from arousal and mostly from the mix of pleasure at his faith in me and chagrin that I kind of wanted him to have worried about me more. Dumb atavistic feeling there. I was full of them lately. Pregnancy hormones? I’d heard stories like that. “How did you know she wasn’t me?” I insisted. Okay, fishing maybe.
“Because, my delicious Gwynn, she did not smell like you.” He ran the tip of his tongue along my throat.
“Smell? This is how you know me?”
“Yes.” He bit the cord of neck muscle under my ear and inhaled. “It’s something sorcerers without animals frequently forget.”
“Fafnir has an animal—a snake.”
“Doesn’t count. They can’t smell.”
Not exactly accurate. Their tongues had chemoreceptors that functioned in a similar way. I lost the thought, however—no doubt exactly as he intended—as he kissed his way down to my generously displayed bosom and, nudging the bottom lily aside, dipped his tongue in the crevice between my breasts, making me shiver with heat. “More, your scent here is unique to this spot. I believe I could identify each part of you in total darkness.”
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