He absorbed all that in silence. Finally he said, You know I can’t promise what might be done under the geas, but I will never hurt you. I—the man—will never hurt you. I will never push past any barrier you erect, or coerce you into doing something you do not want to do. I will always support, respect, and defend you.
How chivalrous, she whispered.
Well… yes. His lips pulled into a wry smile.
Your well-being matters to me, he said. The music your spirit creates… it matters to me. If you want to talk to me through a closed door, and if you want to keep your candle lit so you aren’t in the dark, I am not going to do anything to change that. And if you tell me to go away and leave you alone, I will go. Just… for your sake, we should arrange to meet tomorrow, so I can cast the battle spell on you before you play for the Queen.
On the other side of the door, he heard a quiet thump, as if she had banged her forehead against the panel. She said, Thank you for saying all that. I believe you. Hang on.
A moment passed, and then the light went out in her room. None of the servants’ rooms had locks on the doors, but he made no move to open hers. Clenching his fists, he made himself wait, until she opened the door.
When she did, he strode forward and snatched at her. At the same moment, she leaped at him, throwing her arms around his neck, and something raw and angry eased inside, and he was so tired of thinking about what he should or shouldn’t do, he threw all of it out of his head, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her.
Raising her face, she met him halfway. Their lips collided, not gently. A muffled laugh escaped her, then she parted her lips, and he delved inside as deeply as he could go.
Kissing her was a euphoric experience. The softness of her wet mouth, the eagerness with which she kissed him back, the velvet sensation of her tongue sliding across his.
His conscience made one last effort. Lifting his head a little, he whispered against her mouth, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Shut up and get inside so we can close the door,” she whispered back.
Quickly, he complied and shoved the door gently with one foot so that it settled into place. He glanced around. The walls of the servants’ rooms were made of thick stone, but someone could still eavesdrop at either the window or the door. With a flick of his fingers, he cast a dampening spell in the room so that all the sound inside the room was muffled.
“I spelled the room,” he told her. “We can talk freely. Nobody outside will be able to hear anything.”
“Okay, good to know. Wait a minute.” In the faint illumination of the moonlight shining into her small window, he watched her tilt her head. She asked, “Why didn’t you throw that kind of spell when you came to visit me in prison? But instead you said, oh no, we needed to whisper.”
“We do need to whisper without the dampening spell,” he snapped. “Either that or use telepathy. I’ve been dealing an injury, and after I healed you that first night, I had no magic left. Besides, I didn’t want you to be able to recognize my voice. But I let that one out of the bag when I gave you the telepathic earrings.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation. “What on earth are you talking about now? Remember, I know almost nothing about magic items.”
“A person’s telepathic voice sounds like their physical voice,” he told her. “As soon as you heard me telepathize, you’ve been able to identify me by my voice. But since you’d gotten yourself out of prison, I thought we needed to be able to communicate any way we could, so I made the earrings. And right now it doesn’t matter if we whisper or not. It just matters that we not be overheard—but there’ll be plenty of times I can’t throw the dampening spell.”
Heaving an aggrieved sigh, she said, “Okay, I’ll bite. Why not?”
“Because it would never go unnoticed in a crowd. Dampening spells are cast over areas, not over people, and as soon as someone walks into a dampened area they know it.” Resentment boiled over. He accused, “I can’t believe you thought I might be Warrick.”
“Oh, I get it now,” she remarked, dark humor lacing her voice. “You really spelled the room so we could argue.”
“Can you blame me?” he snapped.
“Fine—go ahead and be mad at me. But I didn’t know what to believe!” she exclaimed. “You’re so insistent on not telling me any details about yourself…. Or at least as few details as possible. Even just now, you only told me about telepathic voices sounding like physical voices because you had to.”
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.”