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“I know you’re not,” she said impatiently, “but I’m not the only one here with magic, remember? It isn’t sensible for you to walk anywhere alone without witnesses.”

Was Lorelei actually concerned about his welfare, or was this just another scheme on her part? He studied her expression, searching for any hints of deeper strategy.

“Oh, don’t give me that look.” She shook her head at him pityingly. “We all know you’re a terrifyingly impressive warrior—everyone who’s watched the tournament so far is well aware! But you still don’t have any magic of your own, and it’s hardly an insult to say that you’re vulnerable to a magical attack.”

“Clearly,” Gerard agreed. “After all, a powerful magic-worker abducted me from my bed only two nights ago, as I recall.”

“Ugh!” Spinning around, Lorelei started to stalk away from him but then stopped, only a few feet from where he stood, her back braced with tension and her hands clenching by her sides as if she were fighting an internal battle.

As he ran everything she’d said through his head, pieces clicked into place with satisfying exactness. “Just how did you know I wasn’t plotting an escape?” he asked, already certain of the answer.

Her shoulders barely twitched in reaction. But Gerard was watching her closely—Jovar forgive him, when had he not, across the last seven years of this growing obsession?—and he knew every one of Lorelei’s tells, even as she turned to smirk back at him with perfectly played condescension. “Really, General. You don’t think I know your stodgy ways by now?”

“No,” he said, “I think you were listening to my private conversation with Lord Oberon, and that explains why you’ve been stalking me ever since.”

“I have not—!” Crossing her arms, Lorelei scowled up at him, looking—although he wasn’t self-destructive enough to say it—as ferociously adorable as an enraged kitten. “I’ve been trying to protect you, not that you’ve made it easy for me. You are my prisoner. It’s my job to keep you safe!”

“Really?” Gerard gave an unimpressed shrug. “It would be an easier task if you didn’t feel a need to hide from me as you went about it.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits of hot blue flame. “I do not hide from anyone, much less from you.”

“But you’re afraid to be alone in a tent with me tonight.” Gerard stepped closer, all his muscles bracing for any sudden appearances of magical thorn whips or throttling vines. Still, he kept his gaze fearlessly locked on hers as he leaned down to speak directly to her, close enough for their breaths to mingle. “You didn’t dare even talk to me all evening until I finally tricked you into it.”

“You—!” From the look of fierce turmoil on her face, he could have equally well believed she was about to drag him the rest of the way down for a kiss or stab a sword of thorns through his heart.

Instead, she gritted through her teeth, “I am not afraid of you,” and then turned to stalk, barefoot as always, across the darkened field, back towards the tents beyond.

“And yet you’re still running away,” Gerard called after her.

“No,” Lorelei snapped without looking back, “I’m leading you, because you seem to have lost your sense of direction along with all of your sense. I’m not afraid of sharing a tent or hearing any of your questions. But if you want to talk, you’d better be prepared for what I’ll ask you in return.”

“Understood.” Following behind her through the darkness, Gerard stretched his lips into a grin of keen anticipation.

Challenge accepted.

The moment she stepped into the tent—the exact same tent they had shared last night, curse it, with all of its unsettling memories hanging in the air like prickling warnings of danger and bad decisions—Lorelei scooped out the sealed jug of fae wine that she’d been hiding all evening in a bag cloaked by illusion. At the time, she hadn’t dared drink anything that might dampen her senses, but she’d planned to indulge herself once she had surrounded Gerard’s separate tent in a protective shield of thorns.

Now she sat cross-legged on the silken floor of her own tent and plunked down the jug as an act of war. “It’s time for a game of truth,” she announced.

Gerard’s gaze shifted from her to the jug and back again as the flap of the tent fell closed behind him and Lorelei’s rustling shield of thorns and magic grew around the silk to cage them in together. This tent was perfectly spacious, but even so, his big figure seemed to draw all the energy in the room as he loomed over her, bringing back hot, perilous memories from hours ago. “A drinking game?”

She shrugged, yanking the cap off the jug with more violence than it required. Sometimes it hurt to resist temptation! “You must have played plenty of those at military academy, judging by the stories I’ve heard.”

“Stories of other men’s experiences, perhaps.” He lowered himself to the floor to sit across from her, cross-legged, in the soft light of the will-o’-the-wisps. “My time there was far less festive than you might imagine.”

His voice was perfectly steady and uninflected, but as she looked up from the newly opened bottle to meet his eyes, she caught sight of something in his expression that made her first response—“Even then, you were determined to make yourself a saint?”—die upon her lips, unspoken.

“Do you not drink?” she asked instead. Of course, she knew he would never drink to excess. Still, she could swear that she had seen him sipping glasses of wine at various events across the years. Or had he only been pretending? Sighing, she sat back, leaving the wine untouched between them. “Never mind. We don’t need to—”

“Explain the game,” Gerard said firmly, cutting off her retreat. “The alcohol wasn’t what I was referring to.”

Aha. He’d meant the games themselves, then. Lorelei’s mind flashed back to what he had revealed the day before about his time spent alone in his school library.

Gods, but children could be vicious to anyone who didn’t fit in! Biting down an entirely inappropriate wave of protective anger, she picked up the open jug and said, “Well, then. Consider this your initiation.”

The words came out in a throatier tone than she’d planned, and his eyes darkened in response. Damn it, how was she supposed to stop flirting with him now, after so many years of practice? Fighting the urge to inch closer, Lorelei continued as if she hadn’t sensed the erotic charging of the air around them. “This is the simplest possible game to begin with. We’ll take turns, each of us asking a question. In response, you may either answer honestly or drink. But no lies may be spoken in the game. We both swear to it.”

“Is that an official fae bargain?” Gerard’s voice was low and smooth, and it curled deep inside her.