Spellbinder (Moonshadow #2)

The refreshing cool of the evening air woke him.

Rising stiffly off the dusty bed, he fueled his body with food, water, and more pills. This time he only took the antibiotics. At this point, coping with the discomfort was better than enduring the narcotic-laced dreams.

Drawing more water from the well outside, he washed, dressed, doused himself with the hunter’s spray to disguise his scent, and headed down to the city below to steal clean clothes for himself and enough food for both him and Sidonie.

He didn’t like taking from the hardworking merchants, and he had plenty of money, but he was also too well-known. He didn’t know what orders might have been sent down to the city, and he couldn’t risk running into any castle guards or possibly running into Hounds.

So theft it was.

As always, the night market was crowded. Torches and lanterns provided plenty of golden light that threw deep shadows and was a pickpocket’s delight. The aroma of food, spices, and fragrant oils mingled with the scents of overwarm Light Fae bodies, along with the occasional human, ogre, Hound, and sprite.

After having lived so long as a lycanthrope, he had gotten used to the assault such places were to his sensitive nose and had learned how to identify and filter through the mélange of hundreds of scents without giving it much conscious thought.

But then he caught a hint of something that made him pause.

That scent.

That shouldn’t be here. Not down in the night market.

Just as it had in London, he could feel the magic that bound him shifting uneasily again as the various orders Isabeau had given him clashed. Familiar with the strain, he stiffened and waited to see which one would gain supremacy.

When the geas settled again, he relaxed as his imperative remained clear. Isabeau’s last order was still the strongest. He did not have to obey any earlier orders.

He tried to follow the scent back to its source, which proved elusive. Either the source had left some time ago, or it was remarkably wily and knew how to dodge Morgan when he was on the hunt, even cloaked as he was.

After a short while, he abandoned the effort. Every moment he spent at the market was a calculated risk. Once he had gathered everything he needed, he made his way back to the cottage to pack the canvas bag, leave the clean clothes for himself, use more of the scent-masking hunter’s spray, and fill the water flasks. Then he walked down to slip through the gate in the castle wall and into his tunnel.

Sidonie was waiting by the cell door when he arrived. As he picked the lock and eased inside, she rushed to him, touching his cheek, his shoulder, and the front of his shirt in rapid, agitated movements.

She told him in an explosive whisper, “I don’t know how you kept yourself sane down here for a whole year. I’m going crazy!”

One corner of his mouth lifted. The feeling of pleasure as she touched him seemed incongruous with their surroundings, and inappropriate, but he had no intention of squashing it.

“I never claimed to be sane,” he told her drily.

Her snort was adorable. “You’re a lot more sane right now than I am. I can’t stop imagining all kinds of monsters locked up in the cells. There’s something down here that won’t stop sobbing, and I keep hearing rats.” She turned her head as if to listen. “I think you scare them away. I never hear them when you’re here.”

He was the worst, most dangerous monster she could ever face down here in the dark, but he didn’t tell her that.

Instead, he captured one of her hands to press her fingers against his mouth. They were long and slender, those clever, strong fingers of hers, and callused in places. He liked that, liked the evidence of how hard she worked at her craft.

As his lips touched her skin, she froze.

He froze too, listening as her breath hitched, and that was when his conscience caught up with him.

What was he doing? She was a prisoner in this ugly place, and he was her only lifeline. The balance of power between them was wildly skewed. He had no business indulging in such gestures. She would most likely feel she had no choice but accept them or risk angering him so he didn’t return.

His hold loosened, and her hand slipped away.

“I survived because I didn’t have any other choice,” he told her, turning toward the cot. “You’ll survive too, for the same reason.”

Sitting, he opened the canvas bag and pulled out a flask. As she sat beside him, he nudged her hand with it. “Water first.”

She didn’t argue. Opening the flask, she drank until she drained it. Heaving a sigh, she capped the flask and handed it back to him. “Having the fruit during the daytime helps, but I’m not used to going so long without access to water,” she said. “Especially after I exercise.”

He nodded in approval. Excellent. She wasn’t giving in to despair. “I exercised every day I was down here too.”

“This time I got smart about it,” she told him. “I slept for the first part of the day and waited until this evening to jog my five thousand, one hundred steps.”

He cocked his head. “Why five thousand, one hundred steps? Why not just five thousand?”

“According to my running stride, five thousand and one hundred steps is three miles,” she told him drily. “And God forbid that I do anything else, like five thousand and ninety-nine. Jogging in the evening, I had less time to wait for the water.”

“Good thinking.” He smiled.

Despite her musical brilliance, in many ways she was just a normal human. She was completely out of her depth here, like any normal human would be, but she was still using her mind, still thinking of ways to make the precarious situation work for her. She was stronger than she thought, and smarter than she realized.

This time, too, she was not quite as desperate for food, and she chose to clean up first. He hadn’t wanted her to feel uncomfortable about undressing in front of someone she didn’t know, so while he hadn’t exactly lied to her—not exactly—he could see rather more in the dark than he had led her to think.

Leaning back against the cool stone wall, he enjoyed watching the play of shadow on shadow, which suggested rather than revealed her lithe, slim form. He was walking a fine line between baser instincts and his better self. If he had been able to see anything more, he would have been forced by his own conscience to either warn her or look away.

When she had finished, she sat cross-legged beside him on the cot. Then he pulled out the foods he had brought—meat and potato pies, more fruit, boiled eggs, and a plain baked potato to leave with her, and sticky pieces of maple-pecan candy.

“I haven’t eaten supper yet,” he told her. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you.”