He clenched his jaw at the accusation, but he didn’t say anything because she was right.
She continued, more softly, “Sometimes it’s really hard to trust that. If we were in any kind of normal situation back home in New York, I wouldn’t have exchanged two sentences with you. I probably would have called 911 at the first sign of any of this cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
“I know,” he muttered. “This is far outside anything you’ve ever had to deal with before, and I don’t blame you for having doubts. And I was the one who told you that you needed to be wary of me.”
“Yes,” she murmured. She smoothed her hands across his chest. “Yet despite that, and despite the fact that you keep hoarding information about yourself, I still ended up trusting you anyway.”
And despite the fact that he tried to hoard information about himself, snippets still kept escaping, a little here, a little there. Some things, like the telepathy, were pieces she didn’t know how to put together yet, but she was bright, curious, and tenacious, and she was right. Sooner or later, all the pieces would come together and she would figure out who he was, but he was determined to delay that moment as long as possible.
When she did discover his identity, he thought it very likely she would not want to have anything more to do with him. And even if, by some miracle, she did, they would still need to keep their relationship a secret.
Isabeau must never connect them together or realize how much Sidonie had come to mean to him. If she ever discovered that, her hold over him would be complete. All she would have to do is threaten to have Sidonie tortured or killed, and Morgan would do whatever she wanted without resistance.
And he could never find ways to retaliate against Isabeau as long as she held Sidonie captive. He would lose the last corner of his soul that he had fought so hard to keep.
Her hands slid down to his waist, and she traced the edge of his bandages, murmuring, “How is your injury?”
“It’s getting better,” he said. “It’s healing well.”
“Good.”
As soothing as Sidonie’s touch was, he still couldn’t let their argument go. He said accusingly, “But Warrick!”
She laughed softly, but it didn’t sound amused. “Believe me, the thought didn’t sit well with me either.”
He had to feed his own addiction. He touched her neck lightly, and rubbed her cheek with the ball of one thumb. Her skin felt softer than a rose petal. Suddenly, he wanted to lick her all over, wanted it so badly his whole body went taut.
To distract himself from the temptation, he asked, “How did you discover I wasn’t Light Fae? What did I do to give myself away?”
“It was when we kissed last night.” Slipping her arms around his waist, she leaned against him and rested her head on his chest. “I ran my fingers through your hair, remember?”
“I do.” The memory heated his blood.
“It was only after you left that I realized your ears weren’t pointed,” she told him, her voice muffled against his shirt. “You couldn’t be Light Fae.”
Not yet able to smile at her cleverness, he pressed his lips to her forehead. “And your busy mind did the rest.”
“Of course. I told you, I can’t let go of things. And then I ran into Warrick.” She shuddered. “I didn’t want to think you and he might be the same man, but I also didn’t know any differently.”
His arms tightened. “Okay, fair enough,” he said. “For your information, there are several men around the castle and in town who look human but aren’t, and more should be arriving over the next few weeks. Take care around them, because they’re all dangerous.”
“Oh, great.”
He could just imagine her expression accompanying that. Biting back a smile, he added, “There are also a few humans scattered throughout the town. They’re the last surviving descendants of what had once been a thriving human kingdom in Avalon. There are a few other Races as well, so the population isn’t purely Light Fae. You just haven’t seen evidence of the others yet.”
She stirred in his arms. “What happened to the human kingdom?”
“Isabeau and Modred happened,” he replied curtly. “They killed the rulers, and either destroyed or drove off most of the population. Many of them fled to Great Britain. Isabeau has always been single-minded in consolidating her power base. Some years before, she had driven away her twin sister, along with anyone who supported her, and once the humans had been conquered, she claimed all Avalon as her own.”
“Does she have any redeeming qualities whatsoever?” Sid demanded.
A quiet snort escaped him. “I’m the wrong person to ask,” he said dryly. After a moment’s thought, he added, “I suppose there may be one thing. She doesn’t tolerate rape, especially in wartime—at least, she doesn’t tolerate physical rape. Clearly, she has no issue with using magical coercion. But physical rape is a capital offense, and soldiers who are found guilty of it are beheaded.”
Sid shook her head. “She may not tolerate rape, but she still embraces torture and, apparently, genocide too. She also has no problem with keeping people in captivity, coercing them to do her bidding, and throwing them in prison whenever she gets a stick up her ass. I’m feeling no compulsion to rush to be her friend.”
“Nor I, but let’s not waste any more time talking about her.” Loosening his hold, he clasped one of her hands and led her to the narrow bed, where he sat and leaned his back against the wall. “We’re able to get so little time together as it is.”
“I agree.” She readily climbed onto the bed too and curled against his side.
Pulling her close, he buried his nose in her short, clean hair. There were no perfumes to clog up his sinuses when he inhaled, just her pure, feminine scent.
The fact that she came so readily to his arms was a towering miracle. Sharing this one moment of peace was a rarity so fragile and precious it was almost indescribable.
It was too bad he had to shatter it.
Bracing himself inwardly, he said, “I have some news. I should have told you about it yesterday, but there has been a lot to deal with, and the most important thing was for us to find a way for you to play for Isabeau tomorrow.”
And the truth was, he hadn’t wanted to tell her. It was another piece of himself that he had to let go. But the stakes were too high for him to keep silent.
Her head lifted from his shoulder. “What is it?”
“Robin is here in Avalon,” he replied. He felt the shock of his words ripple through her body. “Or at least he was here yesterday, and I do not believe his sense of self-preservation is strong enough to have made him go home between now and then.”
The ripples quaking through her slender frame intensified. Tightening his hold, he willed for the shaking to ease. While he had known the news was significant, he hadn’t realized the deep level of distress it would cause her. Upon reflection, he should have.
She whispered as if to herself, “‘Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.’”
He recognized the quote from The Tempest. Then he thought of all the devils she’d had the misfortune to encounter—Robin, Isabeau, Modred, the guards in the prison below, the Light Fae commander who had refused to let her go and who had, instead, brought her to Avalon.
And not least among the devils, if she could but know it, was himself.
“Unfortunately,” he said as gently as he knew how, “it would appear so.”
* * *
Sid trembled as fever-bright memories raced through her mind.
Jogging through Regent’s Park in the morning fog.
Standing frozen in the wings of the stage, convinced her stalker was in the concert audience, watching her.
The immense, black horse, rearing in the car’s windshield, fire flying from its hooves, and the groaning scream of the metal as the car flipped.
Being dragged away from the wreck, and racing over the ground, tied to the back of the horse. Robin binding her hand and foot, healing her, gagging her.
>
Sobbing over her as if his heart had broken. The motherfucker.
Her lips had gone numb. She had to lick them before she would whisper, “Did you talk to him?”
“Yes,” he said, which shook her further. “It was more of a confrontation, rather than a rational conversation. I chose not to kill him when I had the chance, and I hope I don’t regret that.” He sighed. “Robin doesn’t understand anything, not the real reasons for things that have happened, or what I’m truly capable of—for good or for ill. I tried to ask him to take you back to Earth, but the geas wouldn’t let me say the words.”
As she listened to him, her shivering eased. She said, more calmly, “You mean, he doesn’t know about the geas, which means you can’t talk about it with him.”
“Yes, there’s that.” Pulling his arm from her shoulders, he twisted and lay down, and put his head in her lap, laying one forearm across his eyes. “And also, remember, I can’t help prisoners escape. You may not be in the cell down below, but both I and the geas know fully well you’re still a prisoner here.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I am.”
“He was treated very badly here for a long time,” he said. “I’d be surprised if he would risk sneaking into the castle, but I’m surprised he had it in him to come back to Avalon at all. Just be careful. He said he makes an excellent rat, but he could just as easily become a cat, a sparrow, or one of the castle dogs.”
Or a troll.
“I’m glad you warned me.” Absently, she stroked his hair. “I’ll be on the lookout.”
Because I have things I want to say to that sneaky shit, she thought.
I have things I want to say very badly, indeed.
Chapter Fourteen
Magic Man captured one of her hands and brought it to his mouth. She actually kind of loved how he did that. It seemed so old-fashioned and courtly.
Curling her fingers along his lean cheek, she felt the short stubble along the strong, clean line of his jaw. He must have shaved some time earlier that day. What an intimate thing to sense about someone she didn’t know.
But that statement was ringing less true the more she repeated it.
She did know him. She didn’t know certain details, but she knew the ring of sincerity in his voice when he promised to support, respect, and defend her.
She knew the private hell he was living. She knew he had an innate decency and sensitivity. He appreciated music, he mourned deeply for something in his past, and he was stronger than she could ever hope to be.
“So honey,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Tell me about your day.”
She tilted her head as she considered how to answer that. “You know, for being caught in a bigoted, racist, sadistic kind of hell, today wasn’t quite as nightmarishly awful as the past couple of weeks have been. You said the battle spell would fade away completely, but when I went to the music hall to practice, I remembered quite a bit of how to play the lute. On my own, I still wouldn’t be ready to perform tomorrow night, but there’s more there than I thought there would be. I’m encouraged.”
“That’s because you’re an accomplished musician already in your own right,” he told her. His voice was pure pleasure to listen to, deep, warm, and steady. “Your skills are adapting.”
“Thank you.” She sighed. “I miss my Vuillaume something awful though.”
“Your violin?”
She didn’t know why she was surprised he knew what a Vuillaume was. “Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry about that,” he murmured as he played with her fingers.
“I just have to believe that I’ll either see it again, or have another beautiful violin I love just as much,” she said huskily. Then, eager to change the subject, she asked, “How was your day?”
“It was not quite as hectic as my recent days have been,” he replied wryly. “I was able to get back to researching the geas.”
“Oh?” She perked up. “How did that go?”
“It went nowhere. But I have a lot more to read.” He hesitated, then added, “There’s the possibility I might need to make a trip to Earth soon.”
“What? No!” The words burst out of her before she could stop them. Then she caught herself. How selfish she sounded. Biting her lip, she added reluctantly, “I mean I suppose if you have to go, you have to.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone, not here, not in this place,” he told her. “But there’s a book in the Louvre I should consult about the geas, and I need a few other essentials from Earth if I’m going to keep sneaking around here without getting caught. The Queen’s Hounds have highly sensitive noses, and the only way I can disguise my scent is by using a scent-blocking spray sold on Earth. I’m running low on my supply.”
Agh! Near to tears, she realized just how much she had grown to rely on him. The thought of facing the daily challenges in Avalon without him was almost crippling. “I understand.”
He gripped her hand so tightly it neared the point of pain. She felt the strength in his hand and the tension running through his long body.
“Sidonie,” he said deeply. “I really don’t want to go. I’ll try not to, but I may not have a choice.”
He had done so much for her, all while coping with his own injury, and here she was being a needy whiner. Swallowing hard, she injected strength into her voice. “It will be okay. I promise. But I’ll miss you.”
I’ll miss you so terribly. She clamped down on the words and didn’t say them.
He was silent for a long moment. Then he whispered, “Lie down with me.”
I would love to.
Her internal reaction had been so thunderously loud, for a moment, she didn’t know if she had said it aloud, if she had telepathized it, or if she had managed to keep it private. He didn’t react, so she must have kept it to herself.
Slowly, she eased down beside him, and he opened his arms to draw her closer. The bed was narrow enough, and he was so big she had to mold her body close to his in order for them both to fit. As she settled against him carefully to avoid jostling his injury, he let out a long sigh and guided her head onto his shoulder.
She slipped one leg over his, so the bowl of her pelvis fit closely next to his hip. The heavy weight of his muscled arms provided a sense of shelter and an anchoring that she couldn’t remember ever experiencing before.
All his warnings had trickled out of her mind. He had become her single point of safety, warmth, and security. Resting against him felt like she had come home for the first time in her life. She could not imagine how they could continue as they were, yet at the same time, she could not imagine not having him in her life.
Tucking one hand underneath the nape of his neck, she turned her face into his shirt. The comfort of lying beside him was staggering. She felt tension she’d had no idea she was carrying melt away, until her muscles felt loose and relaxed.
“God, this feels good,” he murmured.
Unable to verbalize the overwhelming strength of her emotions, she simply nodded. As she shifted to settle more comfortably against him, she felt again the bulk of bandage underneath his shirt.
Resting one hand lightly on it, she asked, “What happened here? I don’t think you ever told me.”
He turned his head so that his mouth rested on her forehead. “It’s a knife wound.”
“What?!” She jerked up her head. Despite her own growing acquaintance with violence over the past few weeks, she still hadn’t become accustomed to it. “That’s terrible. What happened?”
Chuckling slightly, he stroked the back of her head. “It’s okay. It’s self-inflicted. Sort of. I paid someone in London to stab me. Originally it was an arrow wound.”
Blinking several times, she muttered, “I-I just don’t know what to say.”
“It all goes back to the geas. I was wounded in battle earlier this summer.” His stroking hand wandered down to the tense spot between her shoulder blades. Gently, he massaged the area. “Isabeau was furious at the outcome, and she said s
he didn’t want to see me again until I was fully healed. The nature of the geas is such that I could take that literally. I disappeared before she could realize what she’d done and issue another order contradicting it. I couldn’t let the wound from the arrow heal completely. While I can’t harm myself, the geas didn’t stop me when I hired someone to stab me.”
He had been badly injured for weeks, yet he had still returned to Avalon to help her. Overcome, for a moment she wasn’t able to say anything. When she could, she whispered huskily, “I don’t like the idea of you being in so much pain.”
He touched her lips with his fingertips, in a featherlight caress. “This is the most freedom I’ve known in centuries,” he said. “I’m reveling in it. But in order to stay free, I can’t hear someone tell me if Isabeau has changed her mind and wants me back. Do you understand? Be very careful what you say to me of what you may overhear.”
What a deadly situation, when even words became as dangerous as weapons. She captured his wandering hand and gripped it tightly.
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “I swear it.”
“I know you will, now that you know what’s at stake.” He squeezed her fingers.
“I’m surprised you told me about it.” A touch of wryness entered her voice. “It’s more information about you.”
“You needed to know. If I don’t find some way to break free of the geas, I’ll need to return to Isabeau in a few weeks, unless…”
“Unless, what?” she pressed, when he hesitated.
“Unless I can talk you into stabbing me next,” he said.
Hollow dismay spread through her middle. It had, unfortunately, become a familiar emotion. How would it feel to press a knife into someone she had grown to care for so deeply?
Someone she… loved? It was no use telling herself it would help keep him free, because trying to imagine the visceral reality of it turned her stomach.
“I-I don’t know if I could do it,” she whispered. “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life, not even in a good cause.”
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