The maid didn’t turn and look at her as she usually did whenever speaking. Instead, she kept her gaze locked on the open drawer of the dresser. “I believe Himself is in his solar, my lady, entertaining Commander Ferris.”
Her back against the headboard in the middle of the abundance of pillows that Gryffe loved, Emily hugged her knees and chewed on her bottom lip, ruminating about the mess she had made by succumbing to a bout of overly emotional homesickness. But in her defense, even though Gryffe was like the last missing piece of her personal puzzle, that didn’t mean her feelings about her family and friends could just be flipped off like a light switch. She wished he could understand that, but even more, she wished he would give her a chance to explain.
She scrambled out of the bed. “I am going to go talk to him. Don’t wait up.” She could change out of her twenty-first century clothes and into her nightclothes all by herself.
“Ye will not be able to enter the solar,” the maid called out before Emily even reached the door.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Has he placed guards at the door to keep me out?”
Inalfi finally looked up from the stockings she was rolling into neat little wads and tucking into the drawer. “Wards, my lady. Not guards.”
Emily stared at her in disbelief. “Wards? As in…like…magical stuff that blocks evil? He thinks I’m evil?”
“Ye wounded him, my lady. Mortally so.”
“You think I’m evil, too.” Emily could see it in the maid’s eyes. Gone was every last ounce of affection, admiration, or friendship that had ever been there, replaced with chilling disdain.
Defeated and now even more isolated, Emily hissed out a heavy sigh, but she had to admire the girl’s loyalty to her chieftain. “I suppose I can’t really blame you. You only tolerated me because he ordered you to—I am really sorry, Inalfi.”
She snatched up her hiking boots from where they were drying on the hearth, put them on, and yanked the laces tight while reviewing her dwindling options. It was time to go. She didn’t know where, but she couldn’t stay here. Everything was falling apart, and she had ripped the proverbial seams wide open all by herself—yet again. She should’ve handled things better. If she bundled up and got far enough from the keep to protect it from harm, she could work on her spells until she shot herself somewhere else. Hopefully home. At least if she started any fires, they would stave off the cold, wintry weather. She had lost her cloak in the Dreaming, so she pulled the extra blanket off the foot of the bed and tied it around her shoulders.
After a long moment of staring at the angry maid still rolling stockings and shoving them in the drawer, she decided just to leave without saying anything more. In Inalfi’s eyes, she had betrayed and unnecessarily hurt Gryffe and damned if the petite little firecracker wasn’t right. She swept out the door and charged down the hallway.
Grimalkin loped after her and shook the place with a thunderous roar, the likes of which Emily had never heard the cat make before. She spun around and pointed at the panther. “If you want to come with me, then come, but no more of that noise. All right?”
The monstrous beast roared again, baring her fangs as if warning that she was about to attack.
Gryffe exploded into the hallway with his sword drawn, appearing ready to unleash the powers of hell. His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of her. “What is this? Why are ye not in yer nightclothes? In bed?”
“Do not talk to me like I am a child up past my bedtime.” She gathered the heavy wool blanket more regally around her, fighting to gather up every last shred of composure she could pull together. “I wanted to come talk to you, but it came to my attention you had placed magical wards around your solar to keep me out.” She wouldn’t rat out Inalfi. The loyal Fae maid deserved better than that.
“I shall be heading to the watchtower,” Ferris said as he sheathed his sword and passed behind Gryffe, shoving around him to disappear into the nearest stairwell.
Gryffe just stood there, glaring at her with a dark, unreadable expression. The muscles in his squared jaw flexed enough to make the dark richness of his closely trimmed beard seem to ripple in the hallway’s torchlight.
She jutted her chin higher, determined to stay strong and be the voice of reason. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Can we sit down and have a conversation? Clear the air between us?” She needed him to say yes. He had no idea how badly she needed him to agree, and to really listen and forgive her for being such a sentimental, sobbing mess. “Please?”
He pulled in a deep breath, making his broad chest swell even broader, then he sheathed his sword, bowed his head, and motioned for her to enter his sanctuary.
“Don’t you have to deactivate the wards or something?”
With a weariness and sorrow that pulled at her to comfort him, he slowly shook his head. “There are no wards, my precious one. I would never block ye from coming to me. Not ever.”
So, Inalfi had lied. Wasn’t that lovely? With the now quite smug panther at her side, Emily drew in a deep breath of her own and entered the solar, or the chieftain’s lair, as she had come to call it because the room was unmistakeably male from its dark wood paneling, rich leather furniture, to its weaponry and shields on the walls. Suppressing a nervous shiver, she went to the pair of sumptuous chairs in front of the massive stone fireplace and took a seat. Grimalkin stretched out on the hearth and promptly went to sleep. Apparently, her roaring fit had worked as she had wished, and now she was going to celebrate with a nap.
“Would ye drink anything?” Gryffe asked as he closed the door.
Not normally a drinker, she wondered if a glass of wine might help level out her nerves. “Do you have any wine or something not as lethal as whisky?”
“Aye.”
She clenched her teeth and blinked against the sting of tears. No. She would not cry even though every word he said, every mannerism, screamed of his despondency and pain. She swallowed hard against the knot of emotions making her throat ache and locked her gaze on the fire, determined to sit in this room until he understood and realized she loved him, and that her desire to reunite with her family didn’t diminish that love in any way, shape, or form.
“Yer wine, my lady,” he said in a voice so soft and dear she almost melted.
