Page 48 of Crown of Wings and Whispers

I was going to play hard to get, though, because it seemed to encourage his respect. Sadly, I couldn’t remember playing hard to get at any other point in my life. I was always the one trying to keep a boyfriend’s attention—usually by pretending to love what they loved, study what they studied, and never make them work too hard for my affection.

Now, I just had to do the opposite of that, right?

“You will want for nothing,” Orion said for the third time, phrasing it bluntly this time.

I knew what he meant. Wickham promised the same thing when he’d plucked me out of Idaho. And he’d delivered on that promise—I’d been given anything my heart could desire, including people I could call family. Then, a few days ago, all I’d wanted was to stay alive. And now? Now, what I wanted was Griffon, and freedom, and Orion couldn’t give me either.

“I’m a little cold,” I said. I wasn’t cold, but he didn’t know that. I was a human—until proven otherwise—and he probably didn’t have a clue what I might need or want.

He snapped his fingers and a soft white fur was suddenly draped across my bare knees, folded in half. It could have covered a full-sized bed but it felt like rabbit’s fur. “Must have been a massive rabbit,” I said out loud.

He laughed. “You’re in Fairy now.” I supposed he thought that was all the explanation I needed. “Would you like a change of clothes?”

I pulled the robe tighter, inhaled Griffon’s faint scent, and shook my head. “Not just now.”

He nodded, then watched me, like he would be able to tell when I was warm enough. It was unnerving the way his green irises rotated and shifted. So I tried to distract him.

“Tell me about this place.” I pointed to the window behind us. “And what’s with you guys and your penchant for purple universes?”

He turned in his chair to consider a view he must have studied a hundred times. “Purple has always been designated for royalty. Mortals have their traditions of pearly gates and streets of gold. You and I have this.” After insinuating I was more Fae than human, he turned his back to both the view and the discussion and gestured to the ceiling. “Won’t you show yourself to me? We have enough room here. And we have privacy. No one will disturb us.”

I hedged. “I don’t know. Looks a little small.”

His eyes widened. Did he expect me to become the Kraken or something? A giant octopus rising from the deep to destroy whatever I could reach?

Holy shit. What am I?

I made a face. “Maybe we should go outside.”

He put his hands on the arms of his glorified chair like he was about to patronize me, but then he settled back again. “I think not. I don’t wish to expose you to others until I know you are on my side, so to speak.”

Since my instinct was to appease him, I tried to do the opposite. “We may be here a long while, then.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Time means nothing here. I am confident you will understand me perfectly before we’re done.”

I nodded vaguely, promising nothing.

His eyes turned hazel, losing all traces of brightness, but his smile was patient enough. “I need your help,” he said, “to redress the greatest wrong ever done on this earth.”

“And what great wrong would that be?”

“You may find this hard to believe…” He aimed his dimples and his most lethal smile at me. “But I was deeply, wholly, and truly in love…once upon a time.” He bit his lips together as if trying to suppress some show of emotion--tender or vicious, I couldn’t tell. “To put it succinctly, she was forcibly taken from me. I will need your help…to get her back.”

He turned his head away…and let out a single sob. Then he shook his head, held up a hand to stop any comment I might have, which I didn’t. He exited dramatically, stage left, leaving me alone.

Orion, in love? Why did I doubt that?

I glanced toward the large, arched doors of polished wood at the right end of the room, but footsteps drew my attention back to the left side, where Orion had disappeared. Two of his dogs, literally dressed like Anubis in only loin cloths and armbands, marched in and stood at attention. The tallest glanced my way only once, then stared straight ahead.

Without thought, my hand went to my belt but found only terrycloth. No weapons. Hell, I didn’t even have pants or underwear. Mine were hanging on a drying rack at Thorley House in Yarmouth.

I suddenly realized how much clearer I was able to think without that pretty face in the room. The Naming Power of Beauty must have been affecting me, though Orion’s visage did nothing for me personally. When he said I’d be on his side before we left the cavern, he probably expected his powers to wear me down. All that crap about having his true love stolen from him was just to fill the time.

I had to resist. And if I couldn’t resist?

Then I had to keep him out of the room as much as possible.

More footsteps. Orion swept back into the chamber with his layers of gold billowing out around him. His eyes were green again, but he blinked a lot, trying to keep up the emotional façade.

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