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“My apologies. That came out wrong.”
Yeah, it did.
With a huff, I storm away from him. I feel like such an idiot. Why did I think it was a good idea to sleep with him? Now there’s nowhere I can go. I’m stuck in here, with a fae who thinks there’s something wrong with me being human, and a parade full of guards who are all talking about how I gave it up to my cellmate.
The thick crystal that covers the iron, dulling the effects against the guards, is impossible to break. Still, I give it the ol’ college try when I rear my foot back and kick the cell bars with everything I have.
My boot conn
ects and nothing happens except my toes start to throb. I hop up and down in place, already regretting doing something so stupid.
Ugh.
Rys waits for me to shake it off before he commands, “Come to me, Leannán.”
“No.” Jesus, I’m sulking. “Leave me alone.”
“Please. I’d like to hold you. I won’t touch you. But… I need to hold you.”
I wish I could refuse. No… I could. I wish I wanted to refuse.
The lure of Rys is too damn strong.
Feeling like he’s a magnet whose pull I can’t escape from, I stomp all the way across the cell. He’s already sitting in the position I’ve come to regard as ours. His legs spread, arms wide open, I’m helpless to do anything but climb into his lap.
I’m sure more guards will be coming soon. It’s gotta be close to time for lunch, and it’s not like the shifts aren’t taking turns coming to see me and Rys together.
Oh, well.
Might as well give them a show.
I press my cheek to his chest and say nothing.
His hand goes straight to the back of my head, stroking my hair in a light caress. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he murmurs. “I don’t see you as a pet. I see you as a gift.”
A gift… that’s what he told me in the oubliette.
Damn it! He’s so charming. He could get me to do anything and he doesn’t even need my true name to do it.
I almost prefer the scowly Rys to this heartbreaker. Because that’s the truth of it. Something changed between us in the oubliette. And while I thought he was rejecting me when we were first freed from it, that’s only because he was trying—again—to protect me from the rest of Siúcra.
Too late now. Everyone knows.
I can only imagine what they’re all saying. Probably something about how, right after I rejected Dusk—because being set on fire is a pretty solid rejection—I let myself be touched by the human lover.
And there’s that niggle of jealous rearing its ugly head again…
Speaking into Rys's chest as he holds me, I ask, “Have you touched many? Humans, I mean.”
He hears me. “Depends.”
What kind of answer is that? I jerk my head away from him, tilting it back so that I can look up into his face. “Depends? On what?”
“Are we talking about a touch?” Rys brushes his fingers along the side of my neck, leaving a shock of tingles where our flesh meets. “Or what we did last night?”
Last night… it’s still so fresh in my mind.
Before I reached for Rys, I justified it by assuring myself that getting so close to him will only help convince him that I’m worth saving, too. Did it work? I think so.
