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“You refuse the terms?” Falcon demanded, with an edge of excitement.
“What happens if I do?”
Lady Lillibeth shrugged. “Execution.”
Their answer to everything.
Rogue quietly watched me, as if I were deciding which kind of ice cream to buy.
“You said never to accept a first offer,” I whispered to him.
His eyes were sober indigo. “Sometimes, one has no other choice. I’ve done all I could.”
He had me neatly trapped. But I would find a loophole. Seven years to do it. If I was a freaking sorceress and would be trained, then I could find a way out of this deal and a way back home.
“Fine.” I raised my voice. “To cancel all debts I might owe you, after I finish my service to Lord Puck, in seven years, I will give you my firstborn child, at such time as I may have one.” Since I didn’t plan to have any kids, that should be easy to deal with.
“Mychild,” he stipulated.
I stared at him. Completely aghast.Oh, I don’t think so.“Howexactlywould that occur?”
Rogue stroked long fingers down my cheek and over my throat. “Oh, my lovely Gwynn, I would be delighted to demonstrate.”
“What if I have someone else’s child before then?” I tried to shake off his effect on me.
Something blazed hot in his eyes. “To do so would void the agreement.”
“Let me guess—defaulting to death?”
Rogue nodded, lips thinned.
“How do you even know we can interbreed? I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but we’re not exactly the same species here.” I was forgetting to pretend. I put a hand to my temple, my thoughts muzzy.
This observation prompted great hilarity from the group. They laughed, repeating my words to each other. Lady Blackbird went to fetch a pitcher and circled the group, refilling goblets, including mine.
“I may not even be fertile—the women in my family tend not to be.”
“Oh, you are now,” Healer assured me, smiling sweetly at Rogue. Of course.
“Trust me to handle the rest.” Rogue took the goblet from me and set it on the table, keeping hold of my hand. I tried to yank it from him again, but he held it firmly, eyes sparkling dark as star sapphires. He never broke his gaze, even as he kissed the back of my hand. The barely banked heat in me flared.
“You know, I really don’t think ‘trust’ is a good word choice right now.”
Rogue looked grim. “Trust in that fact, if not in me,” he said, stroking my hand. “Trust that the response of your body will make it pleasurable for you. And that this protects you from far worse things.”
“I really do not want to have a baby.”
“You don’t want to die, either.”
“What I want is to go home.”
“You can’t.”
“Can’t because it’s not physically possible or can’t because you won’t allow it?”
A shadow crossed his face, darkening the lines even more. What would it be like to see that mask above me in bed? Shadows upon shadows. A shiver ran through me, composed of as much chill as heat. Rogue felt it.
“You are not the only one out of choices, my Lady Gwynn. You have seven years to get used to the idea.” He released my hand and seized his own goblet. “The terms are set and agreed upon.”
