Chapter Seven
The air became charged and volcanic, and as she listened to his breathing change she tensed.
But whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t what came next. Instead of either confirming or exploding in denial, he remained silent for several moments.
Then in a measured tone, he asked, “What if I was?”
She listened intently for any nuance, anything that might give her a hint of how he was reacting, but the only impression she gained from his murmured whisper was one of immense self-control. He was determined to give her no information whatsoever, yet still, despite the paranoid thoughts and questions that had plagued her throughout the day, conviction settled into her bones.
“It doesn’t matter,” she told him. “Because you’re not him.”
“How do you know?” Genuine curiosity tinged his question.
She groped for the right words. “Modred is… charming, until he is not. He has a certain way of speaking. I don’t know quite how to put it. Maybe it’s ironic? It’s an affectation you don’t have. He has a light, almost affectionate attitude that disguises something much darker underneath. You’re not nearly so light, or you haven’t been with me. Modred is the one who carried out Isabeau’s order. He broke my hands.” A shudder ran through her. Her body would recognize Modred’s touch. She knew it would. “You didn’t do that to me. I would bet my life on you and him being two vastly different individuals.”
Again he surprised her, as he neither confirmed nor denied what she said. Instead, he told her soberly, “Sidonie, you must stop asking these kinds of questions.”
She uncurled and swiveled to face him, or at least face in the direction of where he sat beside her. “Why?”
His hand came down on one of her knees, long fingers tightening. She had gotten so used to him touching her in the dark, she didn’t flinch at the contact. “Because they’re not only dangerous for you. They’re dangerous for me. You know too much already.”
She snorted in derision. She didn’t know anything. If she had bothered to take any time to read about the Elder Races demesnes before her world tour had reached Great Britain, she might have been able to puzzle out his identity. The way Robin had spoken about him indicated he was important somehow, and deadly. Her own ignorance and disinterest had trapped her in this situation as much as anything else had.
He muttered, “I wish I could take back the things we said to each other last night. If I’d not been so depleted after your healing, I would have thrown a spell of forgetfulness over you. Now it’s too late. The experience has settled too firmly into your mind.”
She flinched and pulled her knee away from his grasp. “Obviously I can’t stop you from doing something like that, but if I ever discover you’ve used magic on me without my permission again, I’ll do everything I can to find a way to hurt you back. Because that’s what you’re doing when you spell someone without their consent. You’re hurting them. There’s a reason why it’s illegal in virtually every country on Earth. It’s a rape of someone’s will.”
The volcanic charge was back in the air, threading the darkness with a sense of imminent danger. When he replied, his whisper was as forceful and edged as hers had been. “I know all too well what a rape of the will magic can be to those who don’t consent to it. Nevertheless, if I could have done it last night, I would have, since causing you to forget might have meant saving your life. I’m trying to protect you by not telling you who I am. You have an inkling of what Isabeau might do if she’s angered or crossed.”
Yes, she did. Huddling away from him, she wrapped her arms around herself. After a moment, she said with dogged determination, “You said you can’t help me escape. Can’t, not won’t.”
“Sidonie,” he said in warning.
She plowed on. “Does that mean you’re too scared to do any more than what you’ve already done? You’re afraid you might be punished?”
Even as she asked, the questions didn’t ring true. If he was so afraid of being punished, he would never have helped her in the first place.
But she had to try to figure this out. She had to get a better understanding of what was really going on around her if she was going to have any hope of getting out of here. Besides, not knowing anything was driving her crazy.
This time when he said her name, it was through gritted teeth. “Sidonie!”
Blindly she reached out. Her fingers caught on the folds of his shirt as it pulled tight across his chest. She fisted both hands in the material.
“Can’t, you said,” she pressed. “Not won’t. You said you were constrained. What does that mean?”
She felt the tension thrumming through his long body. “I am. Unable. To tell you.”
Again, her hearing was all she had to rely on, and his voice hitched on the words in a way they never had before.
Unable. Can’t. Not won’t. Constrained.
Those were all his words, not hers.
And also, there had been this:
I know all too well what a rape of the will magic can be to those who don’t consent to it.
She whispered, “Are you under some kind of magic compulsion?”
His hands circled her wrists in a bruising hold, but he didn’t answer.
He didn’t deny it either.
Her heart pounded. Licking her lips, she asked, “Are you forbidden to talk about it?”
His fingers tightened painfully. Then he seemed to realize what he was doing, because his grip relaxed. But he didn’t deny it. His pulse drummed against her fingertips. His heart was pounding hard.
“And you’re forbidden to help any prisoners escape,” she said.
Again his hands tightened on her wrists, then loosened. Without using words, it was still unmistakably an affirmative.
She let go of his shirt and smoothed the material over his chest. “All right,” she whispered. “I think I’m beginning to get it. If they find out you’ve been helping me, they might order you to stop. And you would have to stop, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t have any choice.”
“Think further,” he replied softly. “If I’m ordered to hurt or kill you, I will. They must never know who helped you. Do you understand? They must never discover our connection. If you’re questioned, do everything you can to keep from giving them any information. Don’t lie—that would be the worst thing you could do—and you would have to tell them something, but think of ways to misdirect them. Practice those answers until they come out naturally and easily. Create your own version of truth, and stop trying to discover who I am.”
Her heart was hammering as hard as his. She swallowed and managed to reply, “Understood. It took me a while, but I get it now.”
His chest moved under her hands as he took a deep breath. “I’ve got to leave. I got here late, and I’ve stayed as long as I can.”
Her heart sank. Despite her doubts and fears, his presence was so vivid and comforting he pushed back the cold darkness while he was here. She could even feel his body warmth as they sat beside each other on the cot. The thought of him leaving again was almost unbearable.
In an attempt at lightness, she asked, “You sure you can’t accidentally leave the door unlocked when you go?”
That came out a lot more taut and desperate than she had meant for it to.
He cupped the side of her head. His touch was warm and gentle. “Believe me, if I could, I would.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. Biting her lip, she was grateful for the concealment of the darkness as she swiped it away. “Eh, well, had to ask.”
He stroked her hair once, a light, passing caress, and then he gathered up the canvas bag at their feet and stood.
Slipping off the cot as well, she followed him to the door. When he paused, she stumbled into him. As she felt him turn to face her, she stepped forward deliberately to wrap her arms around his waist.
She whispered, “I appreciate everything you’ve done, so very much. I especially appreciate that you’ve done it despite the danger to you.”
His body went rigid as she hugged him. Then, slowly, his arms came around her. As they tightened, she let her head rest against him for a moment.
She had already known he was bigger than she, but that was no surprise since most men were. Now, coming flush against him, she got a real sense of the size and breadth of his long body. He was tall and powerfully built. The chest under her cheek was broad and thick with muscle, and so were his biceps. Her head fit neatly underneath his chin.
A weight came down on her. She thought it must be his cheek.
“You’re welcome, Sidonie. After the guard brings your breakfast, try to get some sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can after the evening round.”
As she gave him a quick squeeze, she felt an odd thickness underneath his shirt near his waist and ran her fingers lightly over it. It felt like a bandage, as if he had taped his ribs. She thought back to how she had struck him, and his response.
He had said he wasn’t well. It appeared he was injured in some way, and she had struck him there, twice. She felt a brief remorse then shoved it aside. At the time, she had believed she was fighting in self-defense.
Stepping back, she whispered, “See you tonight. Be careful.”
“Always.” He slipped out the door.
As she heard a small mechanical snick when he turned the lock, she put her hands on the door.
He might be forbidden to help any prisoners escape, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t escape on her own. If only she had some way to block the bolt from sliding into the hole in the frame when he locked the cell door.
If she was very quick, maybe she could slip something into the hole when he was coming or leaving. A big wad of chewing gum might do it, except she didn’t have any gum. All she had was the food he had left with her and the clothes she was wearing. And her shoes.
There would be seeds when she ate the cherries, but that seemed iffy. She could try shoving cherry seeds into the hole, but she would have to act very fast and they would probably fall out again.
There were also the rubber soles on her tennis shoes, but the shoes were constructed to carry her weight over almost any terrain for months, if not years. She had nothing with which to cut the rubber, and she doubted she could chew her way through a piece, even through the thinner section at the edge of her toes.
She could try knocking him out. She winced from that. It felt disloyal, especially as he had healed her and brought her food and water at some risk to himself. He was doing so much for her, and here she was contemplating an act of violence against him.
Then, deliberately, she pushed through the discomfort to really consider it. Yes, he was helping her as much as he was able. Yes, she would regret hurting him. But she needed to think of ways to save her own life, because despite his help, sooner or later, she was going to die down here in the dark if she didn’t find a way out. She didn’t have any doubt of that.
After pushing through the emotions, she turned analytical. Could she do it? Could she knock him out?
After her first stalker, she had taken self-defense classes at Vince’s urging and discovered she liked tae kwon do. The moves were suited to her slender body structure. Because of her long habit of running, she had built up enough power to get a decent height in the leaps. She was good at the leg work and spinning kicks, and it might be the one skill she had that could be useful while she was trapped here in Avalon.
But she had only practiced tae kwon do in a studio. She’d never needed to use it in real life. She was critically hampered by her lack of sight, whereas her benefactor was tall, powerfully muscled, and could see better than she could in the dark.
Also, while he was being as kind to her as he could with whatever constraints he was under, her kidnapper Robin had considered him deadly. Since she considered Robin deadly, that gave her serious pause.
No, trying to take down her benefactor in the dark was akin to considering how to attack an armed soldier in the wagon train… all but suicidal. If she attacked him and wasn’t successful, she risked alienating virtually the only ally she had.
And even if she could manage to figure out a way to block the door lock, or knock him out and escape, what then? She couldn’t see a damn thing.
He had never used a torch when he came. The light would give him away instantly. He slipped in and out, as stealthy and quiet as a thief. If she got out of her cell, she wouldn’t be able to follow him when he left. She couldn’t see a damn thing, and she couldn’t track him by scent like some Elder Races creatures could.
She had no idea of the layout of the prison tunnels or where the guards’ station was. More than likely, she would simply get herself caught again while stumbling around in the dark, and they might break her hands all over again.
Drumming her fingers on the door, she thought, no, I’m not going to be able to escape like that. And clearly, whoever he is, he won’t be able to help me.
Determination hardened into a burning knot in her chest.
I’ll have to find some other way to get out.
One way or another, I’m not just going to survive.
I’m going to thrive.
* * *
This time as Morgan slid out of the underground passageway, it was predawn. The open areas he had to traverse were still dark, and other than the night guard, there was a stronger likelihood no one else was awake and about.
He also had enough energy to cast a strong cloaking spell over himself, so he strode with some confidence to the small gate he had fashioned centuries ago in a remote corner of the castle wall.
Like the entrance to the tunnel that led underground, he kept the gate shrouded in subtle spells that urged the eye to travel over the area to something else more interesting.
Once he passed through the gate, it was a mile-long walk to reach the small one-room cottage hidden in a deep tangle of bramble bushes high in the hills in the unkempt area above the sprawling castle and town. Normally the walk was an easy one along a steep, narrow path, but at the moment, the wound in his side didn’t make it easy to climb.
More spells of obfuscation draped the cottage like a thick layer of invisible spiderwebs. He had built the cottage himself, a very long time ago, and nobody had ever discovered it.
Isabeau knew he was a master at cloaking skills. She had commanded him to cloak the crossover passageways to Lyonesse to imprison Oberon’s Dark Court and the ones to Avalon for defense. But for all that, her utter self-absorption left her curiously myopic at times.
She was cunning and unbalanced, which made her dangerous, but she also lacked a certain depth of insight for anything that might not pertain to her. She had never once considered ordering him to reveal what things he might have cloaked from her.
At least not yet.
Inside the cottage, he started a fire in the fireplace and placed a pot of water on an iron rod over the growing flames. While he waited for the water to boil, he ate.
He had saved the other half of the chicken, along with fruit, bread, and some of the soft cheese for himself. Once the empty knot in his stomach had eased, the water in the stewpot had reached the boiling point.
Wrapping a cloth around the handle, he carried it to the small table. Then he shrugged out of his shirt, unwrapped the bandages at his waist, and checked the area underneath.
The skin around the wound was a mess of puckered scar tissue that had turned livid red. Dark streaks radiated out from the sutured entry point. Fingering one of the streaks, he frowned. Usually when skin blackened around a wound, it meant the flesh had turned necrotic. At that point, the only way to help the wound heal was to debride it, or remove the dead flesh.
But he didn’t sense any dying skin. He had kept the new wound scrupulously clean from the very beginning, even down to sterilizing the silver knife before the ghoul had stabbed him, and he was taking antibiotics strong enough to heal a horse.
No, this wasn’t a normal bacterial infection. This had something to do with the silver in his system. The only way to heal that was to tough it out. It might take him longer to recover the second time around, but eventually his body would throw off the effects of the silver poison.
At least it would this time.
If he kept reinjuring himself and never gave his body a chance to fully heal, he would never throw off the silver poisoning. Next time he wouldn’t heal as quickly or as well, and he would be slower still to recover the time after that.
His magic would be slower and slower to return. Eventually, it might never return to its full strength.
Releasing his breath in a long sigh, he faced the truth. This was only a temporary reprieve. Sooner or later, he would have to make a choice—either succumb once again to Isabeau’s geas, or let the silver poisoning take him.
He had to find his way to freedom before that happened.
Getting down to business, he cleaned and dressed the wound, then bandaged his ribs again and swallowed pain pills and antibiotics. With food, water, medical care, and shelter, he’d met his needs for survival.
He had brought the books he had gathered for research. They sat in a pile on the table, waiting for his attention, but they would have to wait another day or two. Stretching out on the bed located in one corner, he let himself relax. Like the rest of the cottage, the mattress was musty and needed to be taken outside and beaten, but that too could wait.
For the first time since the ghoul had stabbed him, he could rest for an entire day. Tonight, he would slip back to the night market to get more food, and he would go to Sidonie again. He could heal and feed her, and he could even offer any comfort she might be willing to accept, but there weren’t any long-term solutions for her in that either.
But if he could win enough freedom for himself from the geas, perhaps he could find a way around Isabeau’s orders enough to free Sidonie too.
Sometime over the past few days, his point of focus had shifted, and it was time to acknowledge that. Instead of fighting against the urge to help her, now he wanted to. He even needed to.
When he had discovered her in the prison cell, her utter devastation had shot past all his barriers. The spirit that carried such joyous, bright creative energy had been crushed. After he had spelled her unconscious, he had sat with her broken hands in his lap and absorbed the enormity of what had happened, the wisdom in Isabeau’s cruelty, the profound depth of Sidonie’s pain.
He would not abandon his quest. He couldn’t. But now, taking his revenge against Isabeau and Modred was no longer enough. Destroying them for the sake of all the people Isabeau and Modred had killed so long ago was no longer enough.
Now he had to fight for Sidonie’s sake.
The drugs kicked in, and he closed his eyes. As the narcotics opened doorways in his mind that were better left closed, he spent the heat of the day restlessly twisting in slumber as he dreamed of people and events long past.
Kill them.
Kill them before they destroy your king and everything you love.
Kill them before they destroy Sidonie for good.
The refreshing cool of the evening air woke him.
Rising stiffly off the dusty bed, he fueled his body with food, water, and more pills. This time he only took the antibiotics. At this point, coping with the discomfort was better than enduring the narcotic-laced dreams.
Drawing more water from the well outside, he washed, dressed, doused himself with the hunter’s spray to disguise his scent, and headed down to the city below to steal clean clothes for himself and enough food for both him and Sidonie.
He didn’t like taking from the hardworking merchants, and he had plenty of money, but he was also too well-known. He didn’t know what orders might have been sent down to the city, and he couldn’t risk running into any castle guards or possibly running into Hounds.
So theft it was.
As always, the night market was crowded. Torches and lanterns provided plenty of golden light that threw deep shadows and was a pickpocket’s delight. The aroma of food, spices, and fragrant oils mingled with the scents of overwarm Light Fae bodies, along with the occasional human, ogre, Hound, and sprite.
After having lived so long as a lycanthrope, he had gotten used to the assault such places were to his sensitive nose and had learned how to identify and filter through the mélange of hundreds of scents without giving it much conscious thought.
But then he caught a hint of something that made him pause.
That scent.
That shouldn’t be here. Not down in the night market.
Just as it had in London, he could feel the magic that bound him shifting uneasily again as the various orders Isabeau had given him clashed. Familiar with the strain, he stiffened and waited to see which one would gain supremacy.
When the geas settled again, he relaxed as his imperative remained clear. Isabeau’s last order was still the strongest. He did not have to obey any earlier orders.
He tried to follow the scent back to its source, which proved elusive. Either the source had left some time ago, or it was remarkably wily and knew how to dodge Morgan when he was on the hunt, even cloaked as he was.
After a short while, he abandoned the effort. Every moment he spent at the market was a calculated risk. Once he had gathered everything he needed, he made his way back to the cottage to pack the canvas bag, leave the clean clothes for himself, use more of the scent-masking hunter’s spray, and fill the water flasks. Then he walked down to slip through the gate in the castle wall and into his tunnel.
Sidonie was waiting by the cell door when he arrived. As he picked the lock and eased inside, she rushed to him, touching his cheek, his shoulder, and the front of his shirt in rapid, agitated movements.
She told him in an explosive whisper, “I don’t know how you kept yourself sane down here for a whole year. I’m going crazy!”
One corner of his mouth lifted. The feeling of pleasure as she touched him seemed incongruous with their surroundings, and inappropriate, but he had no intention of squashing it.
“I never claimed to be sane,” he told her drily.
Her snort was adorable. “You’re a lot more sane right now than I am. I can’t stop imagining all kinds of monsters locked up in the cells. There’s something down here that won’t stop sobbing, and I keep hearing rats.” She turned her head as if to listen. “I think you scare them away. I never hear them when you’re here.”
He was the worst, most dangerous monster she could ever face down here in the dark, but he didn’t tell her that.
Instead, he captured one of her hands to press her fingers against his mouth. They were long and slender, those clever, strong fingers of hers, and callused in places. He liked that, liked the evidence of how hard she worked at her craft.
As his lips touched her skin, she froze.
He froze too, listening as her breath hitched, and that was when his conscience caught up with him.
What was he doing? She was a prisoner in this ugly place, and he was her only lifeline. The balance of power between them was wildly skewed. He had no business indulging in such gestures. She would most likely feel she had no choice but accept them or risk angering him so he didn’t return.
His hold loosened, and her hand slipped away.
“I survived because I didn’t have any other choice,” he told her, turning toward the cot. “You’ll survive too, for the same reason.”
Sitting, he opened the canvas bag and pulled out a flask. As she sat beside him, he nudged her hand with it. “Water first.”
She didn’t argue. Opening the flask, she drank until she drained it. Heaving a sigh, she capped the flask and handed it back to him. “Having the fruit during the daytime helps, but I’m not used to going so long without access to water,” she said. “Especially after I exercise.”
He nodded in approval. Excellent. She wasn’t giving in to despair. “I exercised every day I was down here too.”
“This time I got smart about it,” she told him. “I slept for the first part of the day and waited until this evening to jog my five thousand, one hundred steps.”
He cocked his head. “Why five thousand, one hundred steps? Why not just five thousand?”
“According to my running stride, five thousand and one hundred steps is three miles,” she told him drily. “And God forbid that I do anything else, like five thousand and ninety-nine. Jogging in the evening, I had less time to wait for the water.”
“Good thinking.” He smiled.
Despite her musical brilliance, in many ways she was just a normal human. She was completely out of her depth here, like any normal human would be, but she was still using her mind, still thinking of ways to make the precarious situation work for her. She was stronger than she thought, and smarter than she realized.
This time, too, she was not quite as desperate for food, and she chose to clean up first. He hadn’t wanted her to feel uncomfortable about undressing in front of someone she didn’t know, so while he hadn’t exactly lied to her—not exactly—he could see rather more in the dark than he had led her to think.
Leaning back against the cool stone wall, he enjoyed watching the play of shadow on shadow, which suggested rather than revealed her lithe, slim form. He was walking a fine line between baser instincts and his better self. If he had been able to see anything more, he would have been forced by his own conscience to either warn her or look away.
When she had finished, she sat cross-legged beside him on the cot. Then he pulled out the foods he had brought—meat and potato pies, more fruit, boiled eggs, and a plain baked potato to leave with her, and sticky pieces of maple-pecan candy.
“I haven’t eaten supper yet,” he told her. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you.”
Her voice warmed. “No, of course not.”
For a while they ate in silence, and he focused on enjoying the food. There were plenty of pies to satisfy even his appetite, and they were still slightly warm from the oven. The outside crust was buttery and flaky, while inside, a filling of rich, fragrant gravy coated the meat and potatoes.
Odd, he thought. Despite the fact they were each in a terrible situation, Sidonie caught in her trap and he in his, as they sat together and shared a meal, the silence was almost companionable. Enjoyable.
He didn’t have friends anymore. All his friends were long dead. Mostly now he had a smorgasbord of enemies, from those in the Light Court who looked on him in fear, to Isabeau and Modred themselves, whom he loathed with an undying passion.
Then there were the members of Oberon’s Dark Court, who all hated and feared him, and with good reason, and a smattering of unfortunate people all over the world who had learned, through him, what it meant to get on Isabeau’s bad side.
A couple of Isabeau’s Hounds had been decent men before she had ordered him to change them as she had taken and changed Morgan. But more often than not, her Hounds had been bad men and mean fighters, and turning them into lycanthropes had exacerbated both qualities.
As their captain, Morgan often had to command through force. It was his responsibility to make sure they obeyed orders, and he’d had to put Hounds down when they refused to learn how to control their beasts. The dynamic didn’t make for cozy relationships.
He had gone without for so long, he had forgotten some time ago to notice his lack of friends until this very moment. Carefully he brushed the crumbs off his fingers after finishing his last pie.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He sighed. “It’s my pleasure. You don’t have to thank me after every meal, Sidonie.”
“You can call me Sid. Most people do.”
Sid. He liked that. It was quirky. He liked her full name too. It sounded like her, feminine and elegant.
When he nudged her to take a candy, she did and popped it in her mouth. After a moment, she stirred. “You still haven’t told me why you’re helping me.”
He didn’t take a candy. Instead, he whispered levelly, “Remember what I did tell you.”
She gestured impatiently. “Yes, I know. It’s too dangerous for you to tell me anything. I’m not supposed to know who you are. Only I don’t buy it.”
He murmured, “I was just thinking how smart you were. Don’t prove me wrong.”
Her shadowed face lifted to his. “I’m not asking you to tell me your identity. I’m asking you for something more personal than a label or a name. I’m just asking why. Why are you helping me? Being down here has got to bring back bad memories for you. You could be anywhere else right now. Why are you here, sitting and eating with me in this awful place?”