Authors: Cindy Spencer Pape
No, damn it!
He couldn’t allow it, couldn’t even think it. But here in the dark, with his body still sticky from sex and Meagan soft and warm in his arms, his greatest fear was taunting him, pulsing at the base of his brain. By all the gods, surely he hadn’t been so stupid as to fall in love with Meagan Rose.
Meagan woke to conflicting sensations. Something warm was pressing up against her chest and there was something cold and damp on the backs of her thighs. Her whole body ached and all her senses tingled. Damn, she hadn’t had a hangover in years, but she must have really tied one on last night…
Her eyes flew open with an almost audible pop as the memories flooded in.
Ric! Elves! Danger! Aidan!
Parents! Ric! Oh, God, Ric!
Moving slowly, she rotated her head. Sure enough, there he was, disgustingly wide awake, sprawled bonelessly beside her, golden eyes glowing and a broad, mischievous smile on his pointyeared face. She managed a limp grimace in return, as she flopped her head back on the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut, her head still whirling.
Ric. Right.
Well that explained the clammy dampness between her thighs, too.
If she was remembering correctly, she’d more or less passed out before she’d had a chance to clean up. And, oh, lord, they hadn’t used a condom. Again.
What was wrong with her? She’d never been careless before, but something about Ric made her forget everything she’d always insisted on. Was her biological clock trying to tell her something? Did she want to be tied to him for life? No, that couldn’t be it—not yet—though something in her heart was telling her she did want a connection to him.
“Breathe, Meagan.” One finger tapped her nose and startled her into inhaling. “That’s better, love. Let’s not start the morning off with a panic attack, shall we?”
“Uhhh, sure. I mean, no. That is…” That was as far as she got before he rolled over and put a stop to her babbling by giving her lips something better to do.
Apparently Ric was like potato chips or chocolate bars.
One taste and you couldn’t stop craving more. Without even knowing she’d moved, she wound her arms around his back, pulled him closer and returned the kiss, her whole body plastering itself against his.
The sunlight streaming through the gap in the velvet curtains was at a much steeper angle by the next time they came up for air. Meagan’s body felt like a limp noodle and she noted smugly that Ric didn’t seem much better.
He’d flopped heavily beside her, his breath still ragged and his head still pillowed on her chest.
“Goddess, woman,” he rasped. “You should be registered as a lethal weapon.”
“Huh,” she gasped in return. “Don’t blame me for this. I’m boring and mostly frigid. Just ask my last boyfriend.”
“Your last boyfriend must have been a eunuch. If you were any hotter we’d have set fire to the bedclothes.” He lifted his head and grinned. “We didn’t, did we?”
She looked around without lifting her head. “Nope, no smoke. Sure felt like it though.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” He shifted, sat up against the pillows and gathered her up against his chest. “Mmm. My favorite way to greet the day. Good morning, my Lady Rose.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head as she snuggled close.
“Morning,” she mumbled, already drifting pleasantly again.
“But now, I think caffeine is in order.” He narrowed his eyes for a second and reached his hand out to the side of the bed. A familiar plastic bottle appeared and he roused her to sit beside him, while he opened the bottle and handed it to her. She gulped the diet cola gratefully, while he repeated his actions, this time coming back with a steaming cardboard cup.
“Where did that come from?” Did Aidan really have room service here?
“A favorite coffee shop keeps these ready for me. The soda is from Aidan’s kitchen. Transporting small items is fairly easy magic, as long as you know where to pull it from.”
“Magic. Right.” Took another swallow. “Neat trick.”
“I live to please. Anything else I can get you?”
She was awake enough now to remember a few of her ongoing concerns. “I don’t suppose you’ve been pulling any magical form of birth control from your bag of tricks? Otherwise, we haven’t exactly been careful so far.”
Ric caught the coffee cup before it spilled in his lap, barely and turned to her with eyes wide. “Uh, no. I’m afraid not.”
Meagan nodded grimly. She tried to count the days in her head, but the numbers kept tangling up in her brain.
Math was not her strong suit. “Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Maybe not.” Ric set his coffee cup down and turned to Meagan, laying both of his hands flat against her lower abdomen. “Put your hands next to mine, touching them. Might as well introduce you to some of your powers sooner rather than later.” She set her soda down on the nightstand and followed his instructions, bracketing his hands with her own.
“Now concentrate on your body, your womb. Between us, we should be able to detect any changes taking place, including the presence of another life.”
She swallowed hard, nodded. Another life. It sounded so—so permanent. She closed her eyes, held her breath and concentrated.
“You have senses other than the five you learned about in school. You’ve used them all your life, but now I want you to tap into them consciously. Let your thoughts sink down into your body.”
It was weird, but she understood what he was trying to tell her. She could feel him on a mental level, feel the psychic nudge as he directed her thoughts down and inward. She could tell when he found her uterus and she could detect, in some bizarre way, its normal, nonpregnant, non-fertile state. It would be a few days before she ovulated. She breathed a sigh of relief, broke the connection and opened her eyes. “That was incredibly weird.”
He hugged her close. “But informative. Relieved?”
“Duh.” She wasn’t about to admit she was also a tiny bit disappointed. It had to be her biological clock ticking, she told herself, because no way in hell was this the right timing for
that
.
“Right. I guess I’ve some shopping to do this afternoon.” His voice was a slightly unsteady and she shot him a glance.
“Can’t you—you know.” She snapped her fingers.
“If you don’t pay for it love, it’s still stealing, even if they don’t know where it went.”
That sort of made sense. “But the coffee?”
“The owner of the shop is an old friend. We have an arrangement.”
Okay, that was more than she could ponder at the moment. “Back to the whole safe-sex thing. Isn’t there some sort of spell, or something that could cover it?”
“Yeah, well, that’s sort of frowned upon in my world.”
Ric grimaced and reached for his coffee. He needed the caffeine, having gotten absolutely no sleep the night before. While he’d enjoyed watching over Meagan while she slept, he could have used more rest than his rioting brain had allowed. “I think I mentioned that we’re not a prolific group. Population pressure being what it is, the council actually forbade the use of magic for contraception, oh, about four hundred years ago.”
“That must have made for some unhappy elves.”
“We were none of us thrilled, I’ll admit. Reliable prophylactics were a rather long time coming.” He didn’t feel like telling her he’d broken that law anyway. The queen had allowed the exception, not wanting to share his time with a wife or child. In any normal woman, her possessiveness might have seemed at odds with her threat to turn him mortal, but that was Llyris. She’d rather see him dead than lose him to someone else.
“
We
? Exactly how old are you?”
“I was born during the reign of Henry II, in 1185.”
“So that makes you…” He could see her trying to do the math in her head.
“Eight hundred twenty and change.” He finished her sentence. “More or less middle aged for one of my race. Average lifespan is a bit this side of two thousand.”
Her eyes were enormous, her jaw hung open. “Two
thousand?
”
“’Fraid so, love.” He watched carefully hoping she’d take this well. She had a lot more to absorb in the next several hours.
“How old is Aidan?”
A small chuckle escaped as he shook his head. “I don’t know, exactly. He’s older than me and it isn’t polite to ask.”
“Hah! Who cares about polite? I need to know this stuff.”
She faced him, sitting cross-legged and pulled the covers up to her chest, quite spoiling his view. Her brilliant green eyes were wide, studying him avidly.
“How about me? As a half, I won’t live that long, will I?”
“Not that long, probably, but longer than the average human. I’m not that sure how the genetics work, but I think it varies from individual to individual among halflings.”
“Halflings?” she queried. “Is that what I am? I thought that was another word for hobbits, like in
Lord of the
Rings
.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but halfling is what we call our half-human offspring.”
“
Our
offspring, buddy boy?” Her eyes narrowed. “And how many of those do you have running about?”
“None. I’ve always been careful.” Until her.
“Even when there were no, how did you phrase it, oh yeah, ‘reliable prophylactics’ available?”
“Even then. I was an—umm—unplanned child myself and it didn’t go well. I wouldn’t wish that on another. Whenever there was the possibility, I’ve always made it a point to check back and be sure there were no surprises left behind.” And he had—on those few occasions when he hadn’t used magic. He’d never have allowed a child of his to go unclaimed, unwanted. “Anyway, as I said before, we’re really not that fertile. I guess that kind of makes up for the long lifespan, keeps us from overpopulating the world.”
She obviously had a thousand more questions, but the insistent ring of Ric’s cell phone interrupted them. Since he’d turned the bloody thing off the night before, it could only be one caller. Llyris. He sighed and strode across the room in search of his trousers.
“This may take a bit.” He glanced at the display. There was no return number, just a name. The Seelie Court wasn’t exactly a Nextel exchange. “It’s Her Majesty.”
“Okay.” She nodded, lips thinning. “I think this would be a good time for me to take a shower.”
He nodded and waved her toward the bathroom.
“Good morning, Your Majesty. I have definitely found the missing heiress. She has a few affairs to wrap up here, but I’ll have her at court by this afternoon.”
“Now would be preferable.”
“She’ll come more willingly if she has time to arrange things. She’s asked for an appointment with Lord Green Oak, to answer questions about her parentage.” That was safe. Llyris liked Aidan.
“Very well.” Her tone was as cool as usual and he couldn’t detect any hint that she suspected anything untoward, but he wanted to keep this brief to be on the safe side. “You are within your allotted time. You know the punishment that awaits you for failure.”
“Trust me, Majesty. I’ve no intention of failure. The geas will be completed today.”
She cut the call abruptly and he sagged onto the mattress, his face in his hands.
Ric was off doing something when Aidan’s secretary caught up with Meagan, who was eating breakfast on the patio, amid a scattering of Aidan’s other guests. She’d almost forgotten about the house party, but it had continued. Odd, how the rest of the world kept right on going, when her life had been turned upside down.
A few of the guests she’d met yesterday had waved or smiled, but none had approached her directly. Of course that might have been because Gunter, the bouncer/bartender, had apparently been assigned as Meagan’s bodyguard. Meagan’s new super-senses were telling her that Gunter wasn’t an elf, but he wasn’t exactly human either. She wondered if it was considered impolite to ask.
Meagan heard the clacking of high heels on the slate floor of the courtyard and looked up to see Aidan’s secretary, the skinny blond ice queen. When she stalked up to the table, she sent Meagan a look so condescending that Meagan thought about telling her to fuck off. Today she wore a lavender suit that had to have cost as much as Meagan’s car. Studying the other woman carefully, Meagan thought she could detect pointed ears and elongated eyes through the glamour. Great. Not only was she perfect, she’d be perfect for hundreds of years.
“Mr. Greene would like to speak with you in his study.” Her perfectly shaped lip curled at the sight of Meagan’s bagel slathered with cream cheese and sliced strawberries.
Bite me, bitch
, Meagan thought, but she managed to keep her cool and nod. She stood to follow the secretary, but she wasn’t ditching her breakfast. She picked up her plate and her diet cola before following with deliberate slowness. Without a word, Gunter rose and tagged along, his stone-faced expression revealing no opinions whatsoever. Meagan began to softly whistle “Me and My Shadow,” as they trailed Ms. Perfect across the flagstones. She thought she heard a chuckle from behind her, but even with her improved hearing, she wasn’t quite sure.
Aidan looked up from his desk and smiled when they entered. “Good morning, Meagan. Thanks, Fianna. Why don’t you and Gunter go take a break?”
Fianna looked less than pleased, but she nodded sharply. “You do need to spend some time this morning with your guests, my lord—um—sir. The dj—umm—er, gentlemen from the Middle East have been waiting to speak with you.”
“I’m well aware of my responsibilities, Fianna. Assure the
gentlemen
,” he stressed the word, “that I will be with them at noon. In the meanwhile, please close the door behind you and see that we aren’t interrupted. Gunter, after your break, please go check on perimeter security, will you? Wallis is good, but I’d appreciate your insights.”
Who knew elves could blush? At Aidan’s subtle reprimand, Fianna’s face turned a bright pink that clashed with her lavender jacket. Gunter nodded and tipped his shoulders forward in what she supposed was a bow, first at Aidan then at Meagan. She could have sworn he winked before disappearing out the door. Ignoring Aidan’s request to shut the door, Fianna turned and followed him out, her stiletto heels clicking on the hardwood as she stalked down the hallway.