Prince Charming Doesn’t Live Here

by Christine Warren

  What concerned Danice at the moment—a concern that deepened when she glanced at Mac and caught the flicker of alarm in his expression just before he stamped it out—was what exactly it might be that Dionnu had been hunting.

  Or rather, whom he’d been hunting. And whom he intended to hunt again.

  Could that be where Rosemary had gone? Had she not been kidnapped at all but traveled to Faerie and eluded capture all this time when Danice and Mac hadn’t lasted five minutes? How would that even be possible? And why would the girl have come here?

  For an instant Danice felt her heart stop. She wanted answers to those questions, but at the moment she figured a more pressing concern would be how to keep the girl alive.

  “Send word to the master of the hounds that I will rejoin him shortly,” the king ordered Morag, his gaze still fixed on Mac. “I think it’s time to resume the hunt. Peigi, you and the others can escort my guests back to the chambers where they spent the night. I fear they could not have gotten enough sleep and will need more rest.”

  Dionnu turned to go, but Tyra stepped forward and held out an imperious hand. “Sorcha, your bow,” she commanded. “I feel the need to do a little hunting myself. I will join His Majesty at the hounds.”

  “No, you will not.” The king didn’t bother turning around or even looking at Tyra. He dismissed her as easily as he had his servants. “I’m not in the mood for your company, my dear. While I enjoyed our evening together, I’m afraid the light of day does little to highlight your charms.”

  Ouch.

  Danice felt herself wincing at the harsh smackdown. As much as she hated Tyra for all she’d done to Mac, it was hard not to feel the slightest bit of sympathy for a woman so brutally and publically rebuffed by a lover.

  Dionnu strode away toward the back of the dais, disappearing into the shadows, not bothering with a single glance back at the woman he’d just rejected. Peigi (which, it turned out was the name of the second brunette) and the other guards seized Danice and Mac by the elbows and turned them, shoving them back toward the exit. As she marched along, prodded by the mean-spirited Catrin, Danice chanced one last look back over her shoulder.

  There, on the dais, Tyra stood alone, as straight and tall as a statue. Her dress shimmered like the night sky, but her eyes shone even brighter. Whether the light glinted off tears or fury, Danice couldn’t tell, but either way, a shudder raced down her spine until the doors to the throne room closed behind them, shielding them from the immortal woman’s gaze.

  Twenty-one

  “So much for our luxury accommodations upstairs,” Danice sighed, plopping back on the bed in the small dungeon cell and trying not to think too much about what had happened there just the night before. Unfortunately, while her mind might bow to her self-control, her body seemed to have a memory all its own. Every time she inhaled a whiff of Mac’s scent, it suffered Vietnam-intensity flashbacks of sensation.

  Mac didn’t look up from his pacing. The moment the guards had bolted the door behind them, he’d begun to stalk the perimeter of the room, his gaze fixed on the stone floor and walls.

  “Never trust a promise from a Faerie,” he told her. “Especially not when she happens to be my mother.”

  “Yeah, I’m beginning to understand that. Not to put too fine a point on it, but as it turns out, she’s a really big bitch.”

  He looked up and grimaced. “I hate to say I told you so, but…”

  Danice allowed him another minute to pace before she cleared her throat. “Um, not to throw you off your rhythm or anything, but it appears to me that we have a bit of a problem here.”

  He stopped in front of the fireplace and turned to face her. “You could say that.”

  “I mean, I’m not the expert on Faerie, and the subtext in that throne room was so thick, you could cut it with a switchblade. Which, by the way, I kind of expected to happen at any minute. But unless I’m completely off the mark here, it sounds to me like Dionnu took just a wee bit too much interest in Rosemary and that she was what he intended to go out and hunt tonight.”

  Mac’s mouth thinned into a very fine line. “You’re not off the mark. In fact, you’ve pretty much nailed it.”

  “Right.” Danice sighed. “In that case, I was thinking it might be a good idea for us to get out of our jail cell here and find her before he does. I mean, I can’t see him hunting her down just to invite her back to his place for a cup of coffee.”

  “No, I don’t think that’s what he has in mind.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  Mac bowed his head and clasped his hands behind his back in a thoughtful pose. Personally, Danice didn’t think they had time for extended contemplation, but since she was flat out of ideas about how to get out of the kind of prison that looked like it could have contained the man in the iron mask for thirty or forty years, she felt a little bad about nagging him.

  As it turned out, she didn’t have to bother. After less than a minute, he heaved a really big sigh and lifted his head, his gaze locking on hers. His eyes held an intense expression that made Danice simultaneously wary and very, very hot. She felt as if tongues of fire had leapt from his eyes to her skin.

  When he remained silent, she shifted self-consciously and shook her head. “What?”

  He appeared the slightest bit uncomfortable, as if he feared her reaction to what he was about to say. Frankly, unless he suddenly announced that he’d decided to defect and join Dionnu in a lifetime of malevolence, Danice couldn’t fathom what he might say to make their situation any worse.

  “Mac, what is it?”

  “Since I think we can safely assume that this time, Tyra is not likely to ride to our rescue and have us released from this prison again, I’m afraid it looks to me like we’re left with only one choice.”

  “Which is?”

  He unclasped his hands from behind his back and gestured at their surroundings. “This room is not someplace we can break out of or dig out of or trick our way out of. I heard Peigi tell Catrin and Sorcha to stand guard outside the door until she and Ailis, the redhead, came to relieve them. Thankfully the door is thick enough that they at least shouldn’t be able to hear us talking, but I don’t think they’re taking any chances with us.”

  Danice waved her hand impatiently. “Yeah, I know all this already.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that the only way out of this room is going to be magic.”

  She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, since I’m human, and you’re only half Fae, I’d say that really sucks. So I hope to hell you’re holding back some kind of good news.”

  “That depends on how you want to look at it.” Mac ran a hand over his hair, almost as if he felt nervous. “The thing is that I’m not just half Fae. Since Tyra is—regrettably—my mother, that makes me half sidhe.”

  Danice blinked. “Does that mean something?”

  “The sidhe are the noble race of Faerie. They’re the most powerful of the Fae. Hence Dionnu being king, and my mother one of the higher members of the court. It also means that they get their magic in a different way than most other Fae. They raise power through passion.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think I told you that most of the Fae tap into the energy around them to do magic. Well, the sidhe sometimes do that for the little things, too, but to work really powerful magic, they generally use sexual energy. A kiss can work for small things, but major magic requires actual sex.”

  Danice felt her eyes go wide. “Are you trying to tell me—”

  “That I think I might be able to figure a way out of here, but I’m going to need your help,” he confirmed, looking strained and uncomfortable. “I need to have sex with you. You know. Again.”

  Mac had never experienced this level of discomfort in his life. This was not the way he wanted his relationship with Danice to progress. The first time they had made love, she’d reacted afterward as if it had been some kind of ghastly mistake, as if she’d had too much
to drink and would forever associate waking up next to him with the nausea of a bad hangover. That wasn’t how he wanted her to think of him.

  Things had not improved with the interference of his mother, a figure he firmly believed had never improved a situation in her life. Where Tyra went, exacerbation followed, kind of like the pharaoh’s plagues. Then there had been the king, threatening not only their lives, but that of Rosemary as well. And to top it all off, the only thing he could think of to get them out of their predicament was to turn sex not into an expression of their mutual attraction and the deepening feelings he had for her, but a mechanical act akin to charging a cell phone.

  How romantic.

  He almost couldn’t bear to look at her. Mac didn’t want to see the look of distaste and disappointment she would wear. He didn’t want her to see him as the same kind of user that his mother and her lover were. From the beginning, he’d wanted her to think well of him, but that had been when all he’d felt for her was that sizzling attraction. Now there was too much more. He didn’t think he could stand to have her hating him.

  Waiting for her response, braced against the inevitable rejection, he held his breath. Man, if she thought the tension in the throne room had been bad, he couldn’t imagine what she made of this. His muscles felt tighter than the head on a snare drum.

  “Right,” she said, her voice sounding oddly strained. “Well, as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve fallen for worse pickup lines.” She blew out a breath. “So, does it need to involve something special? I mean, we’re not talking anything kinky, are we?”

  Mac didn’t believe he’d heard her correctly. His head snapped up, and his jaw dropped open, and he couldn’t swear that he hadn’t uttered something embarrassing, along the lines of, “Wha-huh-say-uh-di-uh-wha?”

  In fact, he was pretty sure that was exactly what he said.

  Danice gave him a lopsided smile and a tight shrug. “We need to find a way out of here, right? I mean, unless you’re hiding some explosives in your pants or something—”

  She stopped abruptly, her cheeks flaring with the kind of crimson color he’d only ever seen on the extremely fair-skinned. He could almost feel the heat radiating off her face. Somehow it comforted him to know she felt as awkward about this as he did.

  She cleared her throat. “I mean, I don’t see how we can escape from this cell through normal means. You said it yourself. So if you really think this will give us a way out…I mean, I’m pretty confident you’re not the kind of sleaze who would make this up just to get into my pants. Figuratively speaking. Especially since you’ve already been there and done that.”

  Didn’t she realize that in the last week it had become his driving ambition in life to repeat that experience as often as possible?

  Mac forced his expression to remain neutral and nodded.

  “Then if this is what we need to do, I say we do it.” Her words sounded definite, but her tone remained a tiny bit shaky. “I mean, if that’s what you want to do?”

  If he wanted to? Was she really asking if he wanted to make love to her? If he wanted to lose himself again inside all her honeyed heat? What would she want to know next? Whether he intended to continue having a heartbeat?

  Mac concentrated on taking deep breaths. And on not jumping on her like a starving man on cheesecake. He didn’t want to scare her into changing her mind.

  Slowly, he took a step toward her, then another. She watched him with those chocolate cat’s eyes, her lips soft and slightly parted. He could almost taste them already, the tart, rich, spicy flavor of Danice. She drew him like a magnet, not just her body but her herness. The amazing essence of being Danice—strong, smart, calm, and competent. And so sexy he thought he might burst into flames without ever getting close enough to touch her.

  He halted in front of her and lifted a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. His thumb brushed the high arc of her cheekbone and he felt the rush of her breath against his wrist. Even that was nearly enough to have him shaking.

  “Um, do you have something in mind?” she asked, even as her head moved into his touch, like a kitten seeking to be stroked.

  Oh, so many things, he thought, watching her hungrily. He wanted to take her in every conceivable way, in every position, in every location. He wanted to drown in her, to glut himself, to have her so often that he forgot what it felt like to live in a body separate from hers. He wanted to sate himself with her, even though the idea seemed impossible. He couldn’t imagine this gnawing hunger ever truly leaving him. It might fade, but it would always return and demand to be fed.

  She must have read his answer in his eyes, because her skin pinked again, and she bumped him scoldingly with her knee. “I meant, did you have something magical in mind? A certain kind of spell,” she hastily clarified when he began to smile.

  His hand slid around to cup the back of her head, drawing her toward him. His fingers tangled in the heavy thickness of her hair, holding her in place.

  “I’m considering a couple of options,” he breathed, brushing his lips across her cheeks. “I could try a charm on the guards, control their minds until they believe they’ve been instructed to set us free.”

  Danice nodded, the movement sluggish and uncoordinated. Already, the same heat raging through him had begun its drugging effect on her. He felt her eyelids drift shut. He feathered kisses over those, too, and then followed the line of her cheekbone across to the tip of her nose.

  “Or maybe I could rearrange the walls, so that the stones in the outer wall moved to fill in the fireplace and left an opening for us to escape through.”

  His lips drifted down to hers, hovering for a moment, drawing in the breath she expelled, tasting her on the hot, humid air. She moaned softly.

  “Or then again, maybe I could just move us, the way we moved this morning. We would just disappear from here and reappear somewhere outside.”

  Slowly, painfully slowly, he let his lips descend to the corner of her mouth, let them brush against the satin of her skin. His tongue snuck out to taste her, just the barest touch, until she strained upward, seeking a firmer pressure.

  “It all depends,” he murmured, his voice deep and low, another kind of dark caress, “on how much power we can raise.”

  Danice’s eyes fluttered open, and a small frown creased the area between her brows. “Is that what this is about?” she asked hoarsely, pulling back until she could focus her gaze on his. “Is that the reason for the seduction scene? The reason for teasing me? Because it will raise more power?”

  That was probably the last thing Mac had expected to hear. He felt his eyebrows lift in surprise. Could she honestly believe even a degree of the heat between them was anything but organic and honest? Did she think he was putting on some kind of act? Drawing out the moment for any reason other than the pleasure it gave him to anticipate the utter perfection of the moment when their bodies joined and the world dissolved around them?

  He searched her gaze for a moment, saw the ghost of suspicion, but recognized beneath it the same passion he knew shone in himself. Her mind might harbor a few lingering doubts, but her body knew as well as his that they had been made for each other, formed and shaped to give each other pleasure.

  Mac let his mouth curve in an expression he knew would appear anything but reassuring. He would look to her like the big, bad wolf himself, all dressed in Grandmother’s nightclothes and more than ready to feast on unsuspecting little Red. He watched her eyes widen as she took in the grin he knew made him appear positively devilish.

  “Is that was this is about? You think the fact that I want to savor the scent of you, the taste of you, the feel of you, is because of the power we can raise together?” he purred, wrapping his free arm around her waist and using it to press her closer, close enough to feel her trembling all along the length of him. “Because I’d be more than glad to show you how wrong you are about that.”

  He loomed over her, blocking out the light, filling her vision and allowing his
hair to fall like a curtain around them. She shivered at the silky, soft brush of it against her skin, and he could feel heat racing through her. Her back arched and flexed, pressing her closer of its own volition. He didn’t know if she’d intended the movement or not, but he heard when she bit back a groan.

  His mouth quirked. “I’d enjoy showing you, Danice.” He used the arm around her waist to lift her onto the mattress, sliding her back until he could press her gently into the soft cushion of silk and down.

  Mac settled his weight on top of her, bracing his forearms against the mattress and brushing her hair aside so he could cup her head in his palms. He wanted to surround her, to consume her, really. To press her so tightly against him that he simply dissolved into her softness. All they needed was one body. They could live happily, could only survive, he was sure, as one body.

  He aligned their figures with a sinuous movement that nearly made his eyes roll back in his head. She felt so soft and perfect beneath him, even concealed as they both were by far too many layers of fabric. He tilted his hips against her, pressing his erection against her soft belly until he swore the heat would sear her through the barrier of silk.

  Lowering his head, he pressed his mouth to hers and pushed forward like a conquering army. He let himself sink into her, savoring every soft sigh, every melting acceptance, every tentative welcome. His tongue searched out every hill and crevice, every last secret, reclaiming the terrain he’d made his the night before. She moved restlessly beneath him, struggling to free her arms from the trap of their bodies so she could wrap them around him and pull him even closer.

  Goddess, he needed to get closer.

  All at once, the clothing that separated them became an intolerable interference. He was scowling when he pulled back, hating the idea of leaving her even for as long as it would take to strip them both naked. Which in the circumstances he figured he could manage in forty-seven seconds, flat. He felt the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she struggled for breath, saw the doubt begin to creep back into her eyes and knew he couldn’t let that happen.