Before that, she’d dropped hints about Rogue’s abilities in bed.
Had it all been true?
I felt ridiculous, standing there in this fabulous crystal dome Rogue had made for me, wearing the robe he had given me, stupidly bound by a vow to be tied to him forever, my hands crippled beyond use. Had he played me? Maybe they both had. Despite my vigilance, regardless of all the efforts I’d made to stay sharp, be suspicious and beware of every damn bargain I’d made. I faced the yawning chasm of terror that I’d totally and completely miscalculated.
At the same time, I absolutely hated that I couldn’t seem to simply enjoy the moment. I should be happy. Instead, fear and suspicion gnawed at me from the inside out.
Rogue straightened from his indolent posture, wariness changing the lines of his body as he surveyed me. “Gwynn?” he asked, his expression guarded. “What are you thinking?”
“Don’t you already know?” I gritted out. “Don’t you know every damn thing I think before I know it?”
“I don’t, no,” he replied in a cool tone. “As you well know, you are frequently as much of a mystery to me as I am to you. Tell me what you’re thinking or let me see.”
The cat in me didn’t like that. She prowled up, irritated, reflecting my despair. Or did my emotions come from her? I couldn’t tell and, at the moment, I didn’t care.
“Is this all a lie?” My planned demand came out plaintive. “Is this all just the long con, to rope me in and put me under your control? Under her control?”
“Gwynn.” Rogue said my name on a long sighed breath, carefully not colored with the sense of how he felt, which spoke volumes in and of itself. “How can I convince you? I don’t know how to give you the truth in any other way.”
“Tell me about her. The part you’ve been so meticulously avoiding.”
Chapter Eight
It Ain’t Just a River in Egypt
Though I’d known that I grounded much of my thinking in scientific method and the reliability of empirical evidence, I am discovering how difficult it is for me to believe in something I can’t quantify through an objective method. My kingdom for one amniocentesis!
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Private Notes”
Rogue’s shoulders, his whole body, sagged in weariness. Damn me, but I felt bad for him, for what I drove him to. I steeled myself against it. I might sound the jealous girlfriend, but I needed this information. This tortured me, too, as I most certainly would be happier not knowing. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not plotting against you.
“What do you want to know?” He met my gaze, the blue somehow young and without guile. In a flash, I recalled some images I’d seen in his mind once. Him, as a boy, running on a beach, black hair streaming, while raven’s feathers filled the air.
“Were you her lover?” I made myself ask. It didn’t matter, of course. I’d had other lovers. He surely had too. But that it was her that mattered.
He closed his eyes against the question but nodded.
“When?” I pursued it, feeling relentless, like the cat, and more than a little cruel with it. My turn to skewer him with a determined gaze, heartily sick of being in the dark.
“What difference does it make?” He opened his eyes, blazingly dark. “You came after me anyway. You knew then. Don’t tell me you didn’t.”
The stone in my stomach sat heavy, making me ill. I had known. But I hadn’t wanted it to be true. “Because she forced you,” I whispered, barely audible, but he heard me.
“Because I had no choice,” he qualified. “That’s part of what she won. If you want the truth, then don’t dress it up as something else. We were lovers and I had no reason to believe that would change. She wanted it and I...” Unusual for him, he fidgeted, picking up the rubber ducky that had lived on my workbench since I found it in my tribute stores. I kept it around as a reminder that some things did cross the Veil. Besides myself.
“What?” I prompted, when he’d dwelled on his dark thoughts for too long.
He pinched the ducky, the soft plastic rebounding under his long fingers. “You’ve been in a similar place,” he said finally. “I might not have been bound in silver, but I was no less her slave. With no ability to resist, you just go from moment to moment, unable to hope for anything. It...altered me. I’m not sure I can explain more than that.”
Aching for him, moved that he’d trusted me with so much—more of an insight than I’d ever had into his labyrinthine psyche—I pressed my lips together, afraid to say the wrong thing.
“Who gave you this thing?” he asked, a clear attempt to step away from the painful subject.
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask Athena.” When he raised questioning brows, I added, “She has a gift for knowing where objects come from. She’s been compiling a list for me, of all the tributes given me and who sent them.”
He smiled a little at my emphasis on “list,” but his thoughts remained shuttered and his gaze opaque. “What else do you want to know?” He clearly meant Titania.
“We don’t have to discuss it.”
“Will you attempt to protect even me?”
“I only meant that—”
“No, Gwynn. Ask your questions. Better that than letting them fester between us, once again poisoning your heart against me. I’ll hold you to your vow to marry me, regardless, but I still would rather not have you hate me, if I can avoid it. Ask.”
I hated that it bothered me, but he was right. If I didn’t ask, I’d always wonder. “What about those other times, when she visited, knowing this place so well?”
“Then too,” he said, gaze steady on me. “Long ago.”
“When?”
“Before we became the people we are today. Before she set her feet upon her current path.”
It hovered on my tongue, the words like the ugly toads of fairy tale lore, to ask him if he’d loved her, but I refused to open my lips to it. He’d say that neither of them thought that way. Besides, I knew well how he felt about her now. No, what I wanted to know lay somewhere else. But I didn’t know how to ask it, what phrasing to use.
“Just ask,” he said, putting the ducky down and coming closer, though not touching me. Possibly staying out of reach. “If I can answer, I will.”
“Does she still have a hold on you?”
He cocked his head meaningfully. Duh. Stupid question. Of course she did or he’d be able to speak freely. Certain restrictions have lessened, he’d said to me after we’d broken him out of the Queen Bitch’s castle, not that they were gone.
“Never mind.” I waved a hand, the claws sliding against each other with a metallic chiming hiss. “Strike that question. Tell me this if you can. Can she take you away from me again?”
“Her powers are vast.”
Meaning yes.
“More to the point,” he said, “will you let her?”
“Her powers are vast,” I snapped back and he inclined his head. Restless, full of both vague, formless worries and very pointed ones, I looked out at the meadow of iridescently indigo Stargazer lilies, imagining for a moment that their heady sweetness reached me, far in the tower above. Likely just the scent of my earrings, made in their image.
“What else, Gwynn? Your thoughts are very quiet.”
“And here you’re forever bitching about them being loud.”
“I shall never complain again,” he teased, though his voice sounded sad. I glanced back at him and away, unwilling to voice my deepest concerns.
Have I made a terrible mistake?
Will you use me and then be rid of me?
Will you betray me, in the end?
Not really the sort of questions one should ask one’s fiancé, particularly right after your magically binding engagement. Although, I supposed these fears were as old as relationships.
And sometimes people discovered the answer was yes. They survived.
“I think these are questions I have to answer for myself,” I finally said.
&nb
sp; Rogue studied me, not satisfied. For once, however, he didn’t push me. Instead, he waited me out. A new—and effective—strategy on his part.
“I feel very out of control of my life at the moment,” I admitted. A big step for me, owning up to weakness with him. A deliberate effort on my part, to place trust in him. Call it hypothesis testing.
His lips twisted in a wry grimace and he closed the last bit of distance between us, pushing my hair back over my shoulders, smoothing it and looking into my eyes. “Welcome to my world,” he offered and lowered his mouth, stopping just short of mine, waiting for me this time, instead of simply stealing the kiss.
With a sigh, I tipped back my head and met him the rest of the way, the touch of his lips, the passionate connection between us, restoring my sense of rightness. If only we stayed in bed all the time, the relationship could totally work.
“I’m willing if you are.” He slid his tongue along the sensitive inside of my upper lip.
It was tempting, to give myself up to the storm again. But afterward, I’d still feel as out of control. “I think I need to take steps to regain some of my equilibrium.” I reluctantly pulled back. “Something active. No more talking in circles.”
“What would you like to do?”
“I want to work on getting my hands back.”
His thoughts stilled, studiously smooth, but something of concern flickered in his gaze. “Are you determined on that?”
“Yes.” I flexed my fingers, the weight of the metallic claws dragging them into helpless lumps of flesh. “I can’t live like this—not happily. And isn’t this a good time? We’re kind of resting and recuperating anyway.”
He hesitated, only for a split second, but enough to be telling.
“What?” I asked. “No secrets.”
“It might not be the best time, no.” He chose his words. “You’ve reached a sort of balance with this spirit. Trying to take back the ground it’s won might anger it.”
“So let her be angry.”
He smiled, almost despite himself, and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Even with all you’ve seen, you are so cavalier about matters that would terrify others.”
“Ignorance is a beautiful thing sometimes. Why should I be afraid of pissing off my big kitty within?”
“Because, foolish Gwynn, you might not be strong enough to win.”
Daunting thought. “Well, right now this does not feel like a workable détente to me. Are there things I can do to get stronger? Exercises or lessons or some such, to improve my odds?”
The questions seemed to take him aback. He considered. Then finally shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. The learning is in the doing.”
“Then there’s no time like the present.”
“Gwynn.” Rogue moved away from me, raking his hands through his hair. “You haven’t thought this through.”
“How can I when I don’t have all the information I need? This is about my body, Rogue. I need my hands. I should be able to make these choices for myself. If learning through experience is the key, then let me try it.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Then show me.”
“Not here.”
* * *
Rogue took me to another wing of the castle—toward the back, I thought, trying to orient myself on the walk there. We descended via the stairs this time, then traveled wide hallways lit with torches, the large windows all shuttered against the invasion he’d assured me was unlikely to occur. Along the way, we passed all sorts of people, fae and human alike.
They bowed in greeting, murmuring various felicitations on the upcoming wedding. Of course everyone would know by now.
We ended up in an interior chamber that reminded me of the indoor riding arenas we’d used for lessons and exercise during Wyoming’s harsh winters. Similar to the bathing chamber, stones lined the walls which curved into a domed ceiling. The mortar between these, however, gleamed silver in the sourceless light. The floor seemed to be packed dirt, reinforcing that riding-arena feel. A single door, barred behind us and also made of silver, led in and out.
“Silver boundaries and an earthen floor?” I voiced the observation as a question.
“Protects everyone else from magical errors,” Rogue replied, raising an eyebrow at me, as if daring me to object. “And us from certain kinds of eavesdropping. Had events worked so that I’d been in charge of your training, it would have been here and you would not have had to be bound in silver at all times.”
“Alas for that.” I managed to sound flippant, proud of myself for it. If only events had worked that way, instead of the nightmare I’d endured.
“Indeed,” he returned with feeling.
For the first time I considered how my torturous training had worked against Rogue. I’d been locked away, out of his reach, and when I emerged so embittered it had taken all this time for him to woo me into a bit of trust. Once again poisoning your heart against me. Had it worked out otherwise, I might have studied here with him, fallen hard for my devastatingly sexy professor, and our child might already have been born.
Sobering thought. One I didn’t care to entertain, for several reasons.
“Why not a silver floor?”
He gathered his hair at the nape of his neck, tying it back with a leather thong, doing it manually instead of by magic. “You asked me once how I drew from resources outside myself.”
“The ground—really?”
“Mother Earth is the font of all our life, magical and otherwise.”
“You say that like it’s a real person.”
“The earth is not real to you?”
“Sure it exists—but the ground is just a composite layer crust over a layered lava sea and probably a metal core. The earth is a planet circling a star, not a person.”
“In your world, perhaps that’s so.”
“I don’t see how these fundamentals could be that different. If I can live here, then Faerie has to share some physical characteristics with the same universe. Clearly the basic laws of physics still operate—gravity, cohesion of molecules, atomic structure—so it follows that the fabric of the overall world is the same.”
“Then I shall introduce you to Mother Earth sometime and you can argue with her about it.”
“Are you teasing me?”
“Believe me, charming Gwynn, I have far more diverting ways of teasing you.” He grinned at my blush. “However, you elected to spend our time this way. Do you wish to debate further, which we could do in the comfort of our bedchamber, I might point out, or will you pursue this reckless course of action?”
“I’ll take door number two, thanks.” Determined, yes, but apparently also easily tempted. Didn’t hurt that I preferred Rogue seductive over quietly wounded. I took a moment to settle my wayward thoughts. You’d think I was twenty again and full of randy hormones.
“The magic will do that,” Rogue replied to my thought. “Already we foment that in each other, as I’d hoped.”
I nearly made a dirty joke about “fomenting,” but restrained myself. “Okay, then, teach me how to control the cat.”
He gave me a stern look and folded his hands behind his back, all set to lecture me. I smiled to myself, loving his professorial bent too. “The first thing you must remember, my forgetful student, is that you cannot control the cat. Though it grows out of you, it is not part of you. You can no more direct its growth and actions than you will be able to with the child, once it’s parted from your body.”
“Can we just leave the theoretical embryo out of the conversational equation for the time being?”
His gaze drifted to my belly, where I fancied I detected an answering flutter. Raising his gaze to mine, he stared into me. Annoyed? “Not discussing the babe won’t make it disappear.”
“I don’t want that.” Not that it wouldn’t be a resolution to innumerable problems that plagued me. “I need... Let’s focus on one thing at a time, okay?”
“It’s all of
one thing.” Rogue frowned a little but dropped the subject. “So lose the idea of control. There is no defeating it. Think in terms of coexistence. A push and pull.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Unless sorely pressed by circumstances, yes.” He said this in that dry tone, implicitly reminding me of my role in some of those events. “I find that it helps to allow the Dog its time to run. That satisfies it and keeps it from growing too...hungry.”
My skin crawled a little at the word. Not precisely what he’d meant, I knew. At least, the term he’d used conveyed a sense of voracious need.
“So this is why I get the impression the Dog sometimes...escapes you.” I picked my way around the phrasing, not wanting to insult him.
He simply raised a supercilious eyebrow at me. “More than sometimes, until the beach, thanks to you.”
That night returned to me in vivid, horrific images. I’d thought the Dog had killed him, ripping itself out of Rogue’s body, leaving only tattered flesh behind. He’d lost control because I’d betrayed him. I’d thought he was dead. Indeed, it seemed he might not have been able to return to himself on his own. He might be immortal, but more and more I understood that the fae were mutable. Somehow, I’d managed to stabilize the magic and bring him back. I still didn’t really understand what I’d done, except that it had sprung from some deep instinct.
“I’m not certain either,” Rogue admitted, to my surprise. “You bring an unprecedented element to the magic, powerful Gwynn. You gave part of yourself over to me, something that I lacked. I’m hoping that you’ll be able to bring the same...ability to bear in dealing with your own beast.”
The cat, white-cold, stirred in answer, my fingers stretching as she extended her metaphorical claws into my real ones. A deeply unsettling feeling.
“She likes having them.” Rogue was still looking into me, with a peculiar unfocused gaze. “You’ll be hard-pressed to convince her to give them up. Perhaps you should consider letting her keep them, as a bribe.”
“A bribe?”
He looked at me now. “To satisfy her enough so that she won’t push for more than you can give.”
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