His mention of her ruined plans brought her thoughts back to the present. "Oh. No, we had to call off our carnival adventure. Jonathon has the sniffles and his mother thinks he should stay out of the wind."
Stone frowned at her, his brows bunching. "But you were so excited about it."
She shook her head quickly. "That was just foolishness. I can't imagine why I went on and on about it the way I did last night. I really don't care one way or the other."
"And you really are a terrible liar."
She looked up quickly, and those probing black eyes grabbed hers and wouldn't let go.
"Let me take you, Bridin."
She blinked in surprise, taken totally off guard. "You... you want to—"
"I want to take you to the carnival. I've never been to one either, you know."
"No. I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't," he said. "So I've made up my mind. I'm going to one, and I'm going today." He tipped his cup to his lips and drained it. Bridin took a sip of hers, and burned her tongue. "So?" he said. "Are you coming with me or not?"
She wanted to go. It was silly for an adult woman—a princess, no less—to be feeling excited over such a childish outing. But she was. She told herself it would be practical to go with him. She needed to spend time with him. She'd be able to observe him a bit more, see whether he'd make a suitable king. She would be able to test him, perhaps. To learn the depth of his courage, his strength, his wisdom. She would be able to... she smiled, dipping her head... she would be able to ride a roller coaster.
"Bridin?"
She cleared her throat, wiped the giddy grin from her face, and lifted her head again. "All right," she said. "It will take me a few minutes to get ready. Will you wait?"
"If I can have another cup of that coffee," he told her.
Bridin of the Fay, coldhearted, haughty, troublemaking, vengeance-seeking, deposed ruler of Rush... screamed loudly enough to damage his hearing. Her long, sunset-colored tresses snapped like whipcords, and she clung to his hand, then his arm, then snagged his waist and buried her face against his shoulder as the tiny car in which they sat plunged and dipped and lurched around curves.
Tristan was very glad he'd skipped breakfast this morning. Yet he managed not to flinch or make any startled sounds like the ones that kept emerging from her pretty lips. He knew that even in this exhilarated state, she'd be watching, observing, judging whether his courage was up to the level needed to rule Rush beside her. And though his head was spinning and his stomach seemed to be following the path of the twisting tracks, albeit at a slower speed, he refused to give any clue to the woman beside him. Instead, he sat very still, noticing how tightly she'd wrapped her arms around his waist. Feeling the silken tendrils of her hair that fluttered against his face. Smelling her. Hearing the soft little cries she made each time the car jerked in a new direction, and thinking how similar they probably were to the cries she would have made had he been making love to her.
Her face remained pressed to his shoulder. He could feel her mouth, parted and moist, just beyond the thin barrier of the T-shirt he wore. And while telling himself that these sensations, and the stirring in his loins, were no more than evidence of her fairy magic, enchanting him—despite his vow that it wouldn't—he encircled her shoulders with one arm, and squeezed her a little bit closer. He lowered his head, until his nose and his lips touched the top of her head, and remained there, eyes closing, stomach clenching.
So swamped with physical sensations was he that he didn't even notice when the ride slowed and stopped. Not until she lifted her head slowly to blink up into his eyes as if just rousing from a long slumber. And he realized that she'd stopped stiffening and tensing and crying out at some point. That she'd just relaxed there in his embrace, and that maybe... maybe... she'd been as lost in sensations as he'd been. He searched the sparkling sapphire gemstones the gods had given her for eyes, then lifted his gaze higher at the sound of a throat clearing.
A young man stood there holding the safety bar open, waiting for them to exit the car so the next eager couple could climb aboard.
Tristan lowered his eyes to Bridin's again and, hating to break the moment—the first moment in which she'd seemed at all susceptible to his efforts at seduction—was forced to do just that. The carny was waiting. Not so patiently by the look of him. He hooked a finger under Bridin's chin, lowered his head to whisper to her. And she closed her eyes, obviously expecting the touch of his lips on hers rather than the soft voice in her ear. Good, he thought. Good.
He bent so close, his lips brushed her tender earlobe, and whispered, "Time to get off now, my lady fair. But we'll ride this one again, if you like."
She started in surprise, and jerked her head around, seeing the young man who stood in front of the car for the first time. Her cheeks flushed with color, and she got up hastily, hurrying down the steps, clearly a bit embarrassed.
Tristan trotted down the grated metal steps as well, and fell into step beside her. Her suede walking boots were turning a pale shade of gray from the midway's dust. And her tight-fitting jeans, too, seemed to have absorbed a good deal of the stuff. None of which did a thing to detract from her allure. Every man she passed turned to look at her. And it occurred to Tristan that she wasn't even aware of what she was doing. The enchantment seemed to exude from her pores like some sort of musk, drawing men the way the scent of a flower draws the honeybee. Most fairies were fairly harmless unless they consciously chose to turn on the allure. But with Bridin it was just there. She wore it like a nimbus that was with her wherever she went. And she wasn't even aware of it.
She looked up at him, smiling. And he could do nothing less than smile back. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed, and her hair sailed in the hot-dog-and-popcorn-scented air. The tin-can music blasted from a dozen attractions, all of it blending into a cacophony of noise that didn't even seem unpleasant. It belonged here. The dust did, too. And the crowds, and the spilled drinks and tired mothers and noisy children. All of it combined to form the very soul of this place.
A carnival. He was suddenly very glad he'd experienced this.
"What next?" he asked her. "We've ridden on every ride at least once and played every trickster's games. What else would you like to do, Bridin?"
Smiling still, she searched the crowd, then pointed. Tristan looked and saw a small child in a stroller, clinging to a fluffy pink bunch of something, and burying his face in it. The child was clearly in ecstasy.
"What in the world—"
"Cotton candy," Bridin said. "I'd like to taste it."
He lowered his head in a miniature bow, then straightened and began looking for a cotton candy stand.
And that was when he heard the screams.
He whirled quickly and saw the woman, saw her eyes, which was all he needed to see. "Timmy! My God, Timmy!" she shouted again.
Tristan followed those stricken eyes, and saw the young boy, far too young to be on that Ferris wheel alone, but there alone all the same. The machine had stopped with the boy at the very top, and the child was now dangling from the car.
Tristan took another step forward.
"What the hell—" someone shouted.
"He dropped his bear," the mother said. "He leaned over to try to catch it. God, somebody get him down!"
"Who the hell let him on there alone?" a man said, clearly accusing the younger one who was running the ride.
"Hey, he was tall enough," the kid said, gesturing toward the wooden sign that read, IF YOU'RE NOT AS TALL AS ME, YOU CAN'T GET ON THIS RIDE.
"I only turned my back for a second," the woman went on.
And still the child dangled.
Bridin clutched Tristan's arm, squeezing it. He could hear the child crying, see him twisting and shaking as he dangled by his hands. His own magic didn't include any spells for making children float. But he could see that it wouldn't be impossible to climb up to where the child was. He turned to meet Bridin's eyes, and she seemed to read his min
d. She nodded once. Tristan moved forward.
The carny reached for the control lever. "I'll just bring him down, nice and slow."
"No!" Bridin stepped in front of him. "If you move it, he'll fall." Tristan heard this, then felt her eyes on his back as he gripped the cross pieces of the machine, pulled himself up, and began his climb.
"Just let him hold on," he muttered.
Then Bridin's whisper, which he shouldn't have been able to hear, reached him anyway, filling his mind and echoing through it.
"You are but a little child, always meek and always mild, tossed by fate whose will is wild. But magic makes your body strong, your arms will hold you all day long, if you would heed the fairy's song."
Yes, Tristan thought fiercely. That's it, Bridin. Help him, help him hold on until I can get to him.
He climbed faster, driven onward by the pathetic cries of the frightened little boy, which grew louder the closer he got. "I'm coming for you," he called. "Hold on. I'm almost there."
He swung for the bar closest to the child, gripped it, and pulled himself up beside the little boy. Hanging by one hand, he wrapped the other around the child and, grating his teeth, boosted the boy back into his seat.
A swell of cheers rose from the midway as Tristan pulled himself into the car as well, and when he looked down, he saw that a huge crowd had gathered. The mother was sobbing in relief now, her face nearly covered by her two hands. Bridin stood below, too, looking up at him with a pleased smile on her face as she dusted off the little boy's teddy bear, which she'd apparently just picked up from the ground.
Tristan turned to the dirty, tearstained child. "You're going to be all right," he told the boy. "See? Your mother is right down there waiting. You'll be with her in—"
But his words were cut off when the little one suddenly hurled himself into Tristan's lap. Two small arms snapped around his neck, and a sobbing little face soaked his shirt. There was nothing he could do but hold the little fellow as the Ferris wheel moved slowly around, lowering them again. He looked for Bridin, thinking that if this little episode didn't make him seem like a suitable husband for her, then nothing would... but when he finally found her again, his attention was grabbed by something else.
Everyone else in the crowd that surrounded her was looking upward, focused on the child. Smiling and clapping or looking relieved. But one form stood apart from the rest. He was dressed all in black, and he wasn't smiling. He wasn't looking up, either. He was staring at someone else in the crowd. And that someone... was Bridin.
Damn. He might be overreacting. Or that might be one of his brother's scouts, sent to find her. His fingers itched to hurl a bolt of blue fire at the man and kill him where he stood. But of course, he couldn't be sure the fellow was any threat. He might not be here to kill her. Perhaps only to see that she had no plans to return. Or perhaps he wasn't from the other side at all, but simply a man caught in the web of Bridin's charms. He couldn't just go around blasting the innocent.
The ride reached bottom and stopped. Tristan got to his feet, still cradling the child in his arms, and carried the tot to his waiting mother. She took the boy, hugged him, cried, blubbered her thanks over and over. Tristan was oblivious to most of it. His gaze remained focused on Bridin's admirer, but he lost sight of the man even as Bridin herself made her way to his side, elbowing through the crowd to do so.
It seemed at first, as she rushed toward him, that she would throw her arms around him and kiss him breathless. It was as if she caught herself at the last possible moment, and came to a grinding halt only inches from him. But her eyes still shone with pleasure, and her lips were parted in a breathless smile. "You saved that little boy's life."
"And you helped," he said.
Frowning, she tilted her head. "What in the world do you mean by that?" A tiny widening of her eyes signaled her alarm.
Tristan shrugged. "Well, you stopped that fellow from turning the motor back on. Besides, I only did it to impress you. If you hadn't been here—"
"You'd have done the same," she said.
He put a casual arm around her shoulders, turned her toward the exit, and walked at a brisk pace, keeping his eyes on the people around them, watching for the man he'd seen.
"This upset you," she said, and when he looked down it was to see her studying his face.
"What makes you think I'm upset?"
"The way your dark eyes are darting all around. The way you're dragging me along the midway at the pace of a racing horse. The way you're holding me so tight to your side that you're leaving finger marks on my arm."
He slowed his pace, eased his grip. "Sorry."
She lifted her brows, looking regal again. "And the way you've forgotten all about my cotton candy," she added. But then she dropped the royal despot imitation, and smiled. "But that's all right. That little scare made me lose my appetite. I can see you're shaken. Perhaps we should leave."
"I'm not shaken," he told her. "I don't get shaken." He stopped, seeing a cotton candy booth off to the right, and turned her in that direction. "And your appetite is not an issue here. I don't think one eats something like that stuff out of hunger." He stopped by the booth, ordered a large cotton candy, then leaned against the counter, watching Bridin as she watched the person inside. The girl whisked a cone-shaped bit of cardboard around inside a spinning pan, and the pink fluff seemed to take shape by magic.
When it was finished, she handed the thing to Bridin. Bridin studied it for a long moment. She opened her mouth and approached the fluff, then back off and tilted her head in another direction, approaching again, until she finally picked a bit of the stuff off with her fingers and popped it into her mouth.
"Oh!"
Tristan lifted his brows, waiting for the verdict.
"It melts," she told him, popping in some more. Then she pulled off another piece and held it out to him in offering. Leaning forward, Tristan took the fluff from her fingers with his mouth. And it did indeed melt. And it was indeed sweet. But not as sweet as her. So when she would have drawn her hand away, he caught it in his, and brought it back. And he took her forefinger into his mouth, gently sucking the stickiness from it. And when he finished, he did the same with her thumb. Her cheeks got pinker than the candy, and her eyes, those glittering sapphires, darkened to midnight blue, and her lips parted on a soft, surprised sound that was half gasp and half groan.
When he finished, she lowered her hand to her side, and with it, she lowered her eyes.
"I think you're right," he told her. "I think we should leave now. There are... other things I want to do with you today."
She blinked and looked up fast. "O-other things?"
Tristan smiled, knowing fully well she'd drawn the conclusion he'd wanted her to draw. "Yes," he said. "The place with the golden arches for lunch, and then the zoo."
She looked as if he'd sprouted a second head. "I... I don't... understand."
"What's not to understand? I'm sweeping you off your feet, Bridin. You might as well just relax and enjoy it. Because it isn't going to end until..."
"Until... what?"
He shrugged, lowering his head. "Until you tell me to go away," he said, finally. "Until you tell me that you aren't feeling... any of the things I'm feeling."
Holding his gaze, lifting her chin, she whispered, "And what if I never tell you... to go away?"
He smiled at her. "Then... then I guess you're going to wake up one day to find yourself sharing cotton candy with a very old man."
Her brows drew close, and he saw moisture spring into her eyes. She lowered her head, but he caught her chin, lifting it again. "I'm moving too fast," he said. "Frightening you, aren't I? We barely know each other, and I'm talking about forever already. I'm sorry."
She lifted one hand to his cheek, caressed him there. "I feel as if... as if I've known you all my life," she said softly. "But that wasn't you. That was someone else."
Tristan felt a hard knot form in his stomach.
Someone else?
Did she mean him, Tristan? Or... or could there be another?
Someone jostled against his side, alarming him and reminding him sharply of the man he'd seen watching her so intently. There was a small chance she could be in danger here.
"I don't mind that I remind you of someone else," he said. "As long as there's only the two of us now." But he did mind. He minded a great deal. He minded that she was responding so easily and so powerfully to him, when she thought him to be a stranger. He minded that she'd never looked at him as Tristan the way she was looking at him now.
"To the golden arches, then," she told him.
He nodded, taking her hand and leading her away as she munched on her cotton candy.
Chapter Nine
"Well? Have you decided yet, Bridin? Has he passed your tests and proven himself worthy of the throne of Rush?"
Marinda had met Bridin at the door when Stone had dropped her off. Now she was following her through the apartment like a lonely puppy eager for a pat on the head. Bridin sailed into the bathroom, started the water running in the tub, and added lavender-scented oil.
"Well, where shall I begin? We got to the carnival and there was a game to test a man's strength. It involved hitting a small peg of some sort with a giant of a maul, and seeing the power of one's swing measured on a meter." She stirred the tub's rising water with one hand to mix in the oil.
"And?"
"Well, naturally, I suggested Stone try it." Bridin straightened away from the tub, and turned to walk out of the room. Down the hall to the bedroom, with Marinda on her heels. "He made the meter's arrow go all the way to the top, where it rang a bell. I do believe it would have gone higher, if there'd been more room."
"So he's plenty strong enough, despite that weak arm of his," Marinda almost sang.
Bridin pulled her satin robe from the closet where she'd hung it this morning. "But there's more to ruling a kingdom than physical strength, Marinda. So very much more. A king must be skilled in many other ways."
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