He raised his eyebrows. “The plan? What plan?” Actually, wait, he did remember her saying something about a plan not to marry Celedin, but that she needed his help with this first.
“It’s not exactly my plan,” she said. “It’s Flaihir’s plan, but I think it will work. I am going to make some other elf lord fall in love with me and buy my bride price from Celedin.”
He gaped at her. She was going towhat?
“And I’ll convince him to take you, too, somehow, though I do not have a plan for how I will do that, I admit. Maybe you’ll have an idea about that. Sometimes, you do have ideas, I think. Or do you? Maybe all of your ideas have actually been terrible.” She mused over this.
“Why did you need me to dothisif you’re not planning on marrying Celedin?” he said in a tight voice. “You went on and on about how you’d be left to him, and how he would be the only person to touch you—”
“Right,” she said. “I should have thought that through better.”
“Why did you come to me? Why did you want this?”
“I thought if we…” She closed the distance between them and she put a hand to his cheek. “You felt it, didn’t you, the way it feels when we touch? I needed you to touch me again. I need you to feel it, too, because the only way that we can—”
“I don’t want you to marry some other elf lord,” he said. “And you will not be successful in convincing some man to bring me along when you get married. Don’t be daft.”
“I think I could,” she said. “But that is why I need your help. There was a time when you would have done anything for me. I need to know what it was that I did to kindle such athing within you, so that I can kindle it in someone else.”
He stepped backwards, astonished.
She waited, looking at him innocently.
“You want to make some man fall in love with you, you mean?”
“Do you love me, Dathor?” she whispered, her voice gentle.
He wanted tohither. He didn’t. He clenched both of his hands into fists.
“Because I love you,” she said. “And I think you do love me, but you’ve convinced yourself that I do not need you or something, that you have nothing to offer me, and you think there cannot be anything between us if that is the case, but it is foolish, don’t you see, because when we touch, all of that fades away, and it is about—”
“Stop,” he said, shaking his head. “Please stop.”
“I cannot.” She came closer, reaching for him.
He backed away. “You absolutely can.”
“I want us to be together. We can never do it here, because Celedin would kill you if he discovered us together, but if I can find some other lord, one who I can make desperate for me, so desperate that he will allow me anything I wish—”
“No,” he said. “You’re mad. There is no man on earth who allows a woman to have another man.”
She hesitated. “Are you certain?” she whispered.
“I won’t go and watch you with your elf lord,” he said. “I don’t wish to be your servant, little fair elf, no matter how muchyouwish it. You want to keep me in your chamber, take me out when you want to look at me, have me parade around half-naked and follow you around—”
“I think this is your fantasy, not mine,” she cut him off.
He hung his head. Did he sometimes stroke his cock and think of being hers in that way, some oiled and silent slave whose job it was to see only to her comfort and pleasure? He had to admit that he did. But just because it made him hard, it didn’t mean he actually wanted a life like that.
“Obviously, if I marry another elf lord, he won’t let mekeep you in my chambers,” she said, her voice going scoured at the edges. “But we could find somewhere for you, perhaps somewhere in the house. You can read and write and do figures. You could assist with the books. You could serve at a table. You could—”
“Stop,” he said. “I would much rather be outside, looking up at the sky, seeing the cliffs in the distance. I can’t be trapped in a suit, with a tie tied tight round my neck. It would not suit me. Anyway, I do not wish to be a servant at all. I will not live that way.”
“It won’t be forever. The plan is to find someone who is a bit older, someone who will die ere long, leaving us years and years together.”
He lifted his gaze to hers.
“We must wait, of course, until I have borne him an heir,” she said. “But then I will be secure, and we’ll have nothing in our way.”
