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“You—” he pointed at Darling, “—are not invited.”
Darling hissed.
“Control your Familiar, Lady Sorceress. If you can.”
I mentally nudged Darling along and allowed Rogue to draw me into the woods. Okay, that was understating it. He practically dragged me and I stumbled after. Maybe I was still in a bit of emotional shock over Nancy’s story, because I didn’t really feel anger over his pisser of a mood or his snotty remarks about Darling.
In fact, I felt remote. Walled off. As I’d done back under Marquise and Scourge’s torturous training. Really not charming at all if any emotional shock would send me reeling back into my mental PTSD cell.
It was protecting me, I supposed—and the world. For me, strong emotion had become high-octane gasoline. That deep subconscious training had likely kicked in, isolating my wishes from that explosive fuel, icing it down, separating the trigger from the dynamite. Maybe the rage in me had reached such a level of heat, then was forced down under extreme pressure, so that it had sublimated into another emotion entirely.
That explained the fine hissing sound in my ears. Steam escaping.
Rogue stopped suddenly, so that I nearly crashed into him. We stood at a break in the forest, a stream babbling past, golden sunshine pouring through the leaves to land on the emerald moss with sparkling motes of light. He pushed my back against a massive tree and raised our joined hands above my head, commanding my attention.
I observed the cracks in his composure with detached interest. Something vicious, nearly desperate roiled in him. His fingers drifted near my cheek, as if he wanted to cup it.
“I can’t lose you now.” He said the words more to himself than to me, but I answered anyway.
“You can’t lose what you never had in the first place.”
It was cruel, yes. I felt cruel saying it, a sharp claw, slicing. But I also couldn’t shake the image of Cecily, her flapper’s body splayed obscenely open, bleeding out while her lover strode away to sacrifice her infant to a monster. I wanted to take Fafnir and Incandescence apart with my bare hands. I struck at Rogue in their stead.
“You condemn me for a crime I didn’t commit.”
“Yet. If I waited for empirical evidence I might find myself shit out of luck to take precautionary steps.”
“Had I known what that slattern intended to tell you…” Rogue’s jaw clenched on the rest.
“What? You would have prevented me from knowing? You would keep me wrapped up, imprisoned and impregnated in happy ignorance so that I can’t ruin all your carefully laid plans?”
“It would be infinitely easier,” he snapped back. “Have you considered why I haven’t done so?”
“All. The. Time.”
The blue in his eyes seemed to boil and we stared at each other, forever at our impasse, never quite communicating what we needed to.
With a growl of frustration, Rogue gestured and the little egg timer, absurd in its perkiness, appeared to hang in midair. I glanced at it, shocked.
“You have got to be kidding.”
“No. I’m not. I need this, so shut up.”
I couldn’t have spoken if I wanted to, because his mouth descended on mine, feral, demanding, full of that desperate seeking that had shot over his face like a night creature ducking the light of day. Though I thought I’d become accustomed to his kisses, this one affected me in a different way. The sheer heat of him thawed that icy shell that had clamped over me. With an animal cry of longing, I kissed him back, twining my fingers with his. I was utterly lost to him and he was the only one who didn’t know it. If only it could work between us. I truly wished for that.
I didn’t dare wish for that.
Carefully, I eased off the mental trigger and let those feelings flow away.Be oh so careful what you wish for.
The final grain of sand fell with an inaudible ping that nevertheless resonated through us both. Rogue pulled back just enough so that our lips no longer touched. He paused there, regaining his breath, gathering himself.
“I am not Fafnir,” he finally said, so quietly that someone standing next to us would not have heard.
“But you play the same game.”
His gaze flicked up to mine. “The game, as you call it, changes. I do not make the rules.”
“I don’t know what to believe.” My words came out as a plea. “I’m not this person who just rolls with the magic and the pretty stories. I rely on facts, on empirical evidence. The past does not lie, and a keen observer of what has already occurred can reliably predict the future. Numbers add up. Demonstrable evidence leads to reliable hypotheses, which assemble into theories.”
