“Did you really bring me clothes?” she asked, looking at him almost sleepily.
“I did.”
“Real clothes, or dress me up like a doll clothes?”
The smirk he wore was real, and Rogue rolled his eyes this time. She wasn’t wrong. Fin had likely gotten her something easy to remove or very little at all. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t be fucking her regularly, so why block access? The fact that Rogue was already wondering how long it would be until she needed one of them inside of her again and calculating how often had nothing to do with it.
“You’ll see,” he said with an unrepentant grin. A bird’s cry yanked Fin’s attention upward and Maddox’s. A murder of crows descended on the inner garden, some of them alighting on the thorny vines while others took to the walls, and still a pair circled around she and Maddox lazily.
None of them moved as the crows drifted closer, then away. Those flying landed and sent others up into the air.
“Take her inside,” Rogue said, watching the crows.
“They’re birds,” she argued. “And we just got out here.”
He was very well aware of what they were.
As Maddox started to usher her toward the door, a pair of the crows broke off and cut between them and Rogue, then circled back.
Alfred?
Rogue shook his head. It wasn’t unusual for him to summon birds to be his eyes. But he hadn’t roused when Rogue had gone downstairs. Others used crows and ravens, too.
“Inside, little sváss. You will see the sun again.”
Her mutinous expression gave way as she started forward. He didn’t assume that meant she trusted him, though when one of the crows dove at her hair, Maddox snapped a hand out and knocked the bird away. They wouldn’t kill them, because it wasn’t their fault someone used their eyes, but they also wouldn’t let them touch her.
Rogue blocked the next one as Maddox got her inside, and then Rogue pulled the door closed, leaving he and Fin to face them.
The crows rose up as one cloud of black. There had to be a dozen, if not more. Then they circled overhead and through the garden once more before ascending to disappear.
“Just letting them go?” Fin asked, tracking their progress with his hands raised and likely a spell or three at the ready.
“We don’t know who they are being used by. So for now, we keep her inside, and you should check the wards.”
“They aren’t meant to keep out animals.”
“Let’s change that for now.” It may already be too late. “After you get the library open, prepare the house on the isle.”
“You want to take her to Oileán na Carraige?” His tone didn’t convey approval.
“No, but we need a fall back point.”
Fin frowned. “You think they are coming for her.” It wasn’t a question.
“You’ve had her, would you let someone take her from you?” They’d ripped her from the shadow demon, and soon, very soon, they would have driven him out of her fully.
Expression growing cold and dangerous, Fin said, “No.”
“Then expect they won’t either. Defend against what you would do, and know that your enemies might do worse.”
“She’s ours, Rogue.”
“That,” he reminded his brother. “That remains to be seen. She has to survive first.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
Still scanning the skies, Rogue shrugged. “I think you and Maddox have decided she is the one, and if she doesn’t survive, you may end up joining Alfred in sleep.”
When his brother didn’t deny it, Rogue nodded once.
“That is why I remain skeptical. One of us has to.”
A shudder rippled through the air as though someone tossed a stone into a placid pool and disturbed it.
“That was…”
Rogue was already moving, pausing only long enough to secure the doors before he raced to the hold below the keep. The doors were still sealed, but even as he listened, the heartbeat below had increased its pace.
Do you still want me to go to the isle?
Fin stood a half-dozen steps away.
Rogue nodded. It will take him time to awake fully.
I’ll hurry.
Then Fin was gone, and Rogue touched the doors. “Easy, brother,” he said. “No one has taken her yet.”
Still, the crows and now this?
They needed to know before Alfred woke fully.
With Fin preoccupied, Rogue made his way to the library and found Fiona standing in the center of it where two beams of sunlight crossed. Maddox already had most of the windows open and fires going in the hearths. She was still dressed in the oversized robes and Rogue’s boots.
The expression of pleasure she still wore flashed through him. The dust was heavy in the room, and it would take some time to clean it up, but she didn’t seem to notice them as she soaked in the light.
Fiona belonged in the light.
For her sake, he was glad she could tolerate the sun.
It would help settle her…they could hope anyway.
Though it also meant one less barrier to prevent her escape.
Well, they would just have to give her reasons to stay that outweighed the primal desire to flee.
Or chain her up.
What a sight she’d make for them.
The image threatened to stagger him, and Rogue scowled.
The last thing they needed was for him to fall prey to her, too.
One of them needed to keep his head.
Chapter 12
“A cage made of gold and silk is still a cage.” - Unknown
The next few hours passed in relative peace. Fin left and returned with food. Maddox and Rogue opened the library, and I didn’t want to leave the windows, even after the light waned from the setting sun. Torches and candles illuminated the room. They really were trapped in some other century.
I’d kill for a big screen television and a marathon of Property Brothers. Or maybe Fixer Upper. Anything. Even focusing on my house on the cliffs seemed too distant to achieve. While I consumed the saffron rice and curried chicken Fin had returned with, he’d gone down to fetch the bags of clothes he’d bought me.
The first two outfits barely qualified as clothes, unless I planned to be the main attraction as a stripper in Vegas, right down to the floss and feathers. The fact that Rogue rolled his eyes at the second outfit made me actually consider it for thirty seconds.
The third and fourth were moderately better, but both were dresses. Cute.
Not my thing.
I preferred clothes I could move in and wouldn’t likely tangle around my legs. Also, call me quirky, but I also liked dressing myself. The whole ‘guys put a woman in what they want to see her in’ thing just squicked me out. I wasn’t a possession or a prize. I dressed for exactly one person.
Me.
“No,” I said again and again in between bites as he held them up. The way he deflated with each rejection almost made me feel bad for him. Almost. If we weren’t in a dusty library that smelled of old books, woodsmoke, and age, I might have. But we were, and they had zero intention of letting me leave.
The minute I said something about going to pick out my own stuff, Fin told me to give him a list and he’d get it exact.