A familiar voice spoke into the ringing quiet. “I suppose making you aware of my presence would be the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“Laurie! What are you doing?” Glaring at him, I snatched up the nightgown and held it against me.
Across the room, Laurie stepped into the slant of firelight, and the sight of him made my mouth go dry. He wore a white linen shirt, the buttons at the collar undone. He stood with his hands shoved in the pockets of a pair of jeans. I’d never seen Laurie with his hair wet, and there was something deeply masculine about how it had been raked back. Those silver strands gleamed in the light, and they looked darker than usual. Almost as dark as his eyes. Seeing them, something deep inside me shivered.
The sensation quickly abated when I remembered that Laurie could sense arousal. Panicking, I pressed the nightgown even tighter against my body and pointed at the door. “Get out.”
Laurie didn’t move. His gaze never left mine, even when I accidentally exposed a breast. “You saved my life back in those tunnels,” he said.
I was so flustered that I didn’t know what he meant at first. When I remembered that he’d been stabbed less than two hours ago, heat spread through my cheeks. Damn, it had been a long day.
“Yeah, well, letting you die would’ve put me on Mab’s shit list,” I countered, finally turning away to yank the nightgown over my head. My voice was muffled as I added, “And your mother is downright terrifying.”
I faced Laurie again, running a hand through my own wet hair. This was the part he should’ve smiled or acted like I’d offended him. But the look on his face was like a static shock, and the tiny smile hovering around my lips vanished.
It had become second nature to spar with this faerie prince, but it also served another purpose—it kept things between us predictable. Distant. Safe. He was Laurie, my friend, my backup, my warmth. The one I could depend on for amusing commentary or a pithy remark that was sure to piss everyone off.
The look on his face made it clear that tonight was different.
Keeping his hands in his pockets, Laurie closed the space between us. Unease whispered through my thoughts. What is he doing? I almost gave in to the urge to back away, and only stubbornness kept me there. I stood like I was rooted in place, ready for battle. As Laurie neared, I arched my head back and met his gaze.
He searched my expression and murmured, “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget the sound of it.”
“The sound of what?” I asked, still striving to act normally. To pretend that I wasn’t affected by his proximity or the intoxicating scents coming off him.
“Your voice,” Laurie answered. The fire popped and crackled behind him. “You asked me if I could heal, and even though I wasn’t able to answer, I heard you. I almost didn’t trust my own senses. Fortuna Sworn was afraid… and she was afraid for me. I’ve only heard you talk like that on one other occasion.”
Other occasion? I echoed silently, confused. It was difficult to think over my frantic heartbeat, and it took an additional moment or two to figure out what Laurie meant. He was talking about the night Collith had died. That mind-numbing, awful night I’d let the darkness inside me win and I had become someone my parents would’ve been ashamed of.
Now tremors ran through my frame that had nothing to do with Laurie. “Do you want a drink?” I asked impulsively, spinning away.
His silence didn’t deter me. Feeling jittery, I went to the bar cart and plucked the top off a decanter. There were four glasses on a small shelf, and I poured amber liquid into two of them. Listening to the trickle of the whiskey had a calming effect—it would be easy to close my eyes and pretend I was back at Bea’s, running between the dining room and the bar, going through motions that had become so familiar I could do them in my sleep.
By the time I carried the drinks back to Laurie, it felt like I was back on solid ground.
He leaned against one of the bedposts, still quiet, still watching me with that fathomless expression. His behavior was so unsettling that I almost expected him to reject the glass when I held it out, but Laurie took it without comment. I considered making a toast. The glass felt so heavy in my hand, though, and we needed to talk about tomorrow. Did Laurie have a plan? How long would we be here?
His voice drew me from a haze of worry and fatigue. “Does your mind ever stop moving? I can hear it from here.”
“I could ask you the same question,” I countered, startled to hear myself slur. It wasn’t because of the drink; I’d barely had any.
Giving in to the exhaustion, I turned and crawled onto the bed. I was too tired to care that I was in a short nightgown, and I also didn’t care when drops of whiskey sank into the bedspread. A sigh slipped through my parted lips. Resting the glass on my stomach, I stared up at the ceiling and tracked a subtle warmth making its way through my body.
“I never thought I’d find myself back here.” I said it in a whisper.
I heard the dull sound of Laurie setting his glass down. He moved to the other side of the bed and eased down beside me. That enticing smell teased my senses again, as if the soap he’d used had been imbued with bits of sage and oak. When the seconds ticked by and Laurie didn’t bring up the incident in the sewers again, I began to relax.
Then he said, “You know, I can think of a way to make you forget where we are. Well, for a few hours, at least. They expect us to, anyway. I heard some very pointed remarks in the throne room.”
I turned my head to look at him, and Laurie looked back unrepentantly. “Are you trying to make an argument that because everyone thinks we’re having sex... we should be having sex?”
“Well, it was worth a try.”
His flippancy bothered me, and I couldn’t hold back a frown. “So flattering.”
“I don’t see the problem, Fortuna.” Laurie lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Life is like a swingers party—a series of perfect strangers fucking each other.”
“Except we’re not strangers, are we?” I pointed out, stung. My reaction disturbed me even more, though.
“No. No, we’re not.” That strange softness had returned to Laurie’s voice. We looked at each other, our faces a breath apart on the bed. Then Laurie flashed his impish grin and said, “We’re not strangers, but we could certainly know each other much, much better.”
Disappointment stirred in my chest, startling me. Why should I feel disappointed? Laurie was just settling back into our roles, maintaining the status quo. It was exactly what I’d wanted a few seconds ago, and Laurie had seen that. He’d interpreted the moment I turned my back on him as rejection. Maybe it had been.
My confusion mounted, causing a restless feeling to take hold. I sat upright and nearly spilled what remained of the drink. I angled my body toward Laurie, but I didn’t look at him as I said, “We should call it a night. You may be immortal, but you still need to sleep like the rest of us lowly creatures.”
Once again, Laurie chose to remain silent. Moving faster, wide awake now, I got off the bed and strode to the door. I pulled it open and stepped aside, expecting that Laurie would sift before I’d even turned around. But he got up with a small hop, moving as though his bones were hollow. He was trying to distract me from the fact that he hadn’t poofed back to his room, I thought. My grip tightened on the glass I was still holding.