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“Sure it exists—but the ground is just a composite layer crust over a layered lava sea and probably a metal core. The earth is a planet circling a star, not a person.”
“Inyourworld, perhaps that’s so.”
“I don’t see how these fundamentals could be that different. If I can live here, then Faerie has to share some physical characteristics with the same universe. Clearly the basic laws of physics still operate—gravity, cohesion of molecules, atomic structure—so it follows that the fabric of the overall world is the same.”
“Then I shall introduce you to Mother Earth sometime and you can argue with her about it.”
“Are you teasing me?”
“Believe me, charming Gwynn, I have far more diverting ways of teasing you.” He grinned at my blush. “However, you elected to spend our time this way. Do you wish to debate further, which we could do in the comfort of our bedchamber, I might point out, or will you pursue this reckless course of action?”
“I’ll take door number two, thanks.” Determined, yes, but apparently also easily tempted. Didn’t hurt that I preferred Rogue seductive over quietly wounded. I took a moment to settle my wayward thoughts. You’d think I was twenty again and full of randy hormones.
“The magic will do that,” Rogue replied to my thought. “Already we foment that in each other, as I’d hoped.”
I nearly made a dirty joke about “fomenting,” but restrained myself. “Okay, then, teach me how to control the cat.”
He gave me a stern look and folded his hands behind his back, all set to lecture me. I smiled to myself, loving his professorial bent too. “The first thing you must remember, my forgetful student, is that you cannotcontrolthe cat. Though it grows out of you, it is not part of you. You can no more direct its growth and actions than you will be able to with the child, once it’s parted from your body.”
“Can we just leave the theoretical embryo out of the conversational equation for the time being?”
His gaze drifted to my belly, where I fancied I detected an answering flutter. Raising his gaze to mine, he stared into me. Annoyed? “Not discussing the babe won’t make it disappear.”
“I don’t want that.” Not that it wouldn’t be a resolution to innumerable problems that plagued me. “I need… Let’s focus on one thing at a time, okay?”
“It’s all of one thing.” Rogue frowned a little but dropped the subject. “So lose the idea of control. There is no defeating it. Think in terms of coexistence. A push and pull.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Unless sorely pressed by circumstances, yes.” He said this in that dry tone, implicitly reminding me of my role in some of those events. “I find that it helps to allow the Dog its time to run. That satisfies it and keeps it from growing too…hungry.”
My skin crawled a little at the word. Not precisely what he’d meant, I knew. At least, the term he’d used conveyed a sense of voracious need.
“So this is why I get the impression the Dog sometimes…escapes you.” I picked my way around the phrasing, not wanting to insult him.
He simply raised a supercilious eyebrow at me. “More than sometimes, until the beach, thanks to you.”
That night returned to me in vivid, horrific images. I’d thought the Dog had killed him, ripping itself out of Rogue’s body, leaving only tattered flesh behind. He’d lost control because I’d betrayed him. I’d thought he was dead. Indeed, it seemed he might not have been able to return to himself on his own. He might be immortal, but more and more I understood that the fae were mutable. Somehow, I’d managed to stabilize the magic and bring him back. I still didn’t really understand what I’d done, except that it had sprung from some deep instinct.
“I’m not certain either,” Rogue admitted, to my surprise. “You bring an unprecedented element to the magic, powerful Gwynn. You gave part of yourself over to me, something that I lacked. I’m hoping that you’ll be able to bring the same…ability to bear in dealing with your own beast.”
The cat, white-cold, stirred in answer, my fingers stretching as she extended her metaphorical claws into my real ones. A deeply unsettling feeling.
“She likes having them.” Rogue was still looking into me, with a peculiar unfocused gaze. “You’ll be hard-pressed to convince her to give them up. Perhaps you should consider letting her keep them, as a bribe.”
“A bribe?”
He looked atmenow. “To satisfy her enough so that she won’t push for more than you can give.”
My throat tightened as I recalled what he’d said, when the feline spirit first manifested, that she’d take flesh from mine—something my mortal body certainly could not withstand.
“You said you would help with that.”
“I said I would try. And I know you asked me not to say this, but I must point it out since you seem to be in denial of this truth—the stakes are higher. Should our efforts fail, the child will likely die.”
And, not incidentally, me along with it. “Dang—and then you’d have to go find some other human from my world to knock up. Just think of the inconvenience.”
“Do you mock me, cruel Gwynn?” he asked, voice deadly quiet.
