“Why? Because I’m a siren, and I’m a sexual challenge for you? Or is there more?”
He could have her any way he wanted to. Even now, with a few murmured endearments and a little cajoling, he could have her skirts up around her waist and have her begging him to end her torture, end her madness. She’d be begging him for more and more. He knew how to fan the flames of a siren’s unquenchable thirst.
“You are right, Shayera, I cannot lie. But I can evade, and this is a question I will not answer.”
“I am nothing to you, no challenge, just a woman. You are demone, women are nothing but chattel. That lack of empathy, of emotion, it is how you can be so cruel. Isn’t it?”
Her words were soft, but they pricked his dark soul.
“Yes.” He did not look away when he answered.
And for a second her face crumpled and he knew that for all her brave words, she’d hoped for more, that if he could promise her she was different, they could go back to what they’d shared in the garden this afternoon.
But he’d shown her his heart. He wanted her, badly. “I do not know what more you want from me. I tell you that I wish to be with you.”
“And yet you say in the very next breath that you’d hold me hostage. Three months, that’s all this was supposed to be. Three.” She held up her fingers. “Months. I don’t know what these tests are, or why you subject me to them, but if you’ve any honor left to you at all, you will release me.”
“I told you three tests, one per month. I gave you no more than that.”
Her nostrils flared and when she shook her head, there wasn’t anger or fury, but disappointment. “You truly are a devil. I need to go and you cannot follow.”
Jaw clenched, he wanted to grab her, yank her to him and drown out this madness in her flesh, her touch, hear her breathy moans ripple across his skin.
“You’ve not finished your food,” he said just as she made to leave the hall.
Blue eyes full of pain and remorse looked back at him. “I find I have no appetite anymore.”
“Do you have no other questions, Carrot?”
There would be no promises of fealty from him, no sonnets or ballads. Even if he could lie, he wouldn’t have done so to her. She deserved the truth.
“I have a thousand, if not more, but I do not think my heart can handle hearing the answers tonight.”
Only after she’d gone and the echoes of her footfalls faded away did he whisper, “I wish I’d never brought you here, Shayera Caron. You are too good a person for this.”
As much as he ached to be near her, even if only to watch her, he kept his distance. It was the least he could do.
Shayera paced the long lengths of her bedchamber, but it didn’t help, it didn’t ease the terrible knowledge that she was falling hard and fast for a man who was no good. Needing space and time, needing to not be in her head, she tossed her stupid gown off and put on a bronze silk nightgown.
She knew exactly where to go. Dalia had told her that she could find her joy by looking in that bowl of water, and that’s what she needed tonight, some joy. Because right now she felt miserable and on the verge of tears.
Running down the halls, knowing no one would stop her, she raced to the room and the moment she turned the knob, the hearth flared to life. The room was empty again, with just the bowl in its center. Beside it was a cloth napkin, upon it a bowl of the asparagus soup she’d loved so much, a yeasty bread roll, and a glass of red wine.
He’d known she’d come here, and the burning anger morphed into a warmth that spread from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. Shutting the door quietly behind her, she crept toward the food and bowl with a sense of almost dread.
Mother loved her books, but most especially the classics. At night she’d read tales of strange and wondrous places to Shayera, tales of Earth and the folklore of the gods and goddesses.
Sitting back on her calves, she cocked her head and stared at the green-pea-looking soup with a mixture of revulsion and ravenous desire. It smelled so creamy and glistened with a sheen of oil on top. Her mouth watered at the smoky fragrance.
Dipping her finger into the water in the looking bowl, she licked her lips. Of all the tales Mother had read, Shayera’s favorites had always been of the Greek gods. Especially the tale of Persephone and Hades and how by eating just six pomegranate seeds she’d been tricked into spending six months with him out of every year for the rest of her days. Just six seeds.
And here she was with an entire bowl of soup. Throat suddenly parched, hand shaking just slightly, she took the glass and sipped the wine.
It was delicious and sweet, cool on her tongue, as wonderful as everything else she’d had since being here. If Rumpel was tricking her, then she was a fool and there was a side of her that just didn’t care.
There were boys and men, and then there was him. A legend. A prince. A devil.