“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?”