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“Don’t you already know?” I gritted out. “Don’t you know every damn thing I think before I know it?”
“I don’t, no,” he replied in a cool tone. “As you well know, you are frequently as much of a mystery to me as I am to you. Tell me what you’re thinking or let me see.”
The cat in me didn’t like that. She prowled up, irritated, reflecting my despair. Or did my emotions come from her? I couldn’t tell and, at the moment, I didn’t care.
“Is this all a lie?” My planned demand came out plaintive. “Is this all just the long con, to rope me in and put me under your control? Under her control?”
“Gwynn.” Rogue said my name on a long sighed breath, carefully not colored with the sense of how he felt, which spoke volumes in and of itself. “How can I convince you? I don’t know how to give you the truth in any other way.”
“Tell me abouther. The part you’ve been so meticulously avoiding.”
Chapter 8
It Ain’t Just a River in Egypt
‡
Though I’d known that I grounded much of my thinking in scientific method and the reliability of empirical evidence, I am discovering how difficult it is for me to believe in something I can’t quantify through an objective method. My kingdom for oneamniocentesis!
~Big Book of Fairyland, “PrivateNotes”
Rogue’s shoulders, hiswhole body, sagged in weariness. Damn me, but I felt bad for him, for what I drove him to. I steeled myself against it. I might sound the jealous girlfriend, but I needed this information. This tortured me, too, as I most certainly would be happier not knowing.Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not plotting against you.
“What do you want to know?” He met my gaze, the blue somehow young and without guile. In a flash, I recalled some images I’d seen in his mind once. Him, as a boy, running on a beach, black hair streaming, while raven’s feathers filled the air.
“Did you have sex with her?” I made myself ask. I didn’t like it about myself that I had to know, but I did need to, for myself or for him, I wasn’t sure.
“What difference does it make?” He opened his eyes, blazingly dark. “You came after me anyway. You knew then. Don’t tell me you didn’t.”
The stone in my stomach sat heavy, making me ill. I had known. But I hadn’t wanted it to be true. “Because she forced you,” I whispered, barely audible, but he heard me.
“Because I had no choice,” he qualified. “That’s part of what she won. If you want the truth, then don’t dress it up as something else. Yes, I was her plaything and I had no reason to believe that would change. She wanted me and I…” Unusual for him, he fidgeted, picking up the rubber ducky that had lived on my workbench since I found it in my tribute stores. I kept it around as a reminder that some things did cross the Veil. Besides myself.
“What?” I prompted, when he’d dwelled on his dark thoughts for too long.
He pinched the ducky, the soft plastic rebounding under his long fingers. “You’ve been in a similar place,” he said finally. “I might not have been bound in silver, but I was no less her slave. With no ability to resist, you just go from moment to moment, unable to hope for anything. It…altered me. I’m not sure I can explain more than that.”
Aching for him, moved that he’d trusted me with so much—more of an insight than I’d ever had into his labyrinthine psyche—I pressed my lips together, afraid to say the wrong thing.
“Who gave you this thing?” he asked, a clear attempt to step away from the painful subject.
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask Athena.” When he raised questioning brows, I added, “She has a gift for knowing where objects come from. She’s been compiling alistfor me, of all the tributes given me and who sent them.”
He smiled a little at my emphasis on “list,” but his thoughts remained shuttered and his gaze opaque. “What else do you want to know?” He clearly meant Titania.
“We don’t have to discuss it.”
“Will you attempt to protect even me?”
“I only meant that—”
“No, Gwynn. Ask your questions. Better that than letting them fester between us, once again poisoning your heart against me. I’ll hold you to your vow to marry me, regardless, but I still would rather not have you hate me, if I can avoid it. Ask.”
I hated that it bothered me, but he was right. If I didn’t ask, I’d always wonder. “What about those other times, when she visited, knowing this place so well?”
“Then too,” he said, gaze steady on me. “Long ago.”
“When?”
