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“No. It isn’t.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes at the blue sky. “It is, Gwynn. You don’t know. The fae won’t have me either. Who wants a wife who’ll just die? And the humans—they’re all afraid the magic will rub off on them, change them.”
Interesting how that paralleled what I’d been thinking. “Yeah—but he was happy enough to dip his wick in it until you brought up true love.”
“What? Oh!” She wrinkled her nose. “And ick!”
“But my point stands.”
“I still don’t understand,” she whined. “I’m not as smart as you are.”
“Oh, stop it. Yes, you are. My point is that he was not telling you the truth. This is a human thing and—I’m sorry to say it—not unusual for a human man when getting laid is on the line. He was happy enough to do the deed, as you say, until you scared him with the Oh My God lifetime and beyond commitment of True Love.”
“But Iwantto fall in love!”
“Fine. But don’t go looking for someone to pop into that role. Figure out who you are first. Make your life what you want it to be. You are not trapped in a tower waiting for rescue. When you find someone you like enough, who thinks you—the woman, Starling, regardless of your parentage—is wonderful also, then you can try on loving them. Love as an active verb, not some fairy-tale idea of this magical state of True Love that somehow descends on you from beyond.”
“But everyone wants true love.”
“It’s a fantasy. It doesn’t exist.”
“You have it.”
“No. Especially not me.”
When we stopped for lunch, I left Starling to help Larch set out our colorful blankets, flasks of chilled wine and trays of leftover feast food. With the current size of our company, it took me a few minutes to find the human soldiers. The men had gathered around a small fire and were heating some kind of meat over it. Officer Liam spotted me and, wiping the grease from his cheek, rose from his crouch to meet me.
“Lady Sorceress.” He inclined his head in apparent respect, but I heard the unhappiness in his thoughts, the sweet scent of desire forever tainted with the bitter metal of fear. Great. “How may I serve you?”
“A private word, please.” I walked away, making him tag along after. Small pleasures. When we were out of earshot, I stopped. “You have an Officer Sean among your men?”
“He’s a good man.”
“I don’t care. I want him gone. Send him home.”
Liam’s face darkened under the sunny bronze curls. “Is that Lord Rogue’s order?”
“Lord Rogue isn’t here. It’s my order.”
“Why do you want Sean to go?”
“It doesn’t matter why—make it happen. Tell you what, you can go with him.” I turned to leave.
“No, I can’t.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. A handsome man, for sure, though not as tall as Rogue. “No?”
“Some of us hold our honor highly. I can’t just gallivant off because the whim takes me. Not like himself.”
“Excuse me?”
He scratched his bristly chin. “Seems I heard something about that—how you’re knocked up with Lord Rogue’s bastard and now he’s off to greener pastures.” He was pleased to needle me, his thoughts full of satisfaction at scoring a point. I’d been screwed, just as he had.
“Really?” I said to him. “That’s really where you want to go?” I stared him in the eye, letting the cat well up in me. She wanted out, frustrated from my worrying and with the lack of action in the past few days, ready for a little fight.
He held up open palms to placate me, but he smelled more of spitefulness than fear. “Just seems that I warned you of what would happen if you cavorted with the fae. ’Tis unnatural. No good can come of it.” His gazed drifted down to my midsection and I resisted the urge to wrap my arms around myself in protection.
“You have no fucking clue what kind of choices I’ve had to make.”
