I wouldn’t say that they were helpless against her charms, but only because I didn’t want to be that lame guy observing the obvious out loud. When Lara crooked a finger, a lot of people came running. They couldn’t help it. She was the next best thing to a succubus, and I wasn’t sure even one of them could have been more dangerous.
And here I was, engaged to her.
We hadn’t been on a date or anything, unless you counted the fights we’d had beside (and against) each other. Given my record with women, I honestly wasn’t sure which column to put them in. We were, however, to be married in just under a year, by decree of my boss, the Queen of Air and Darkness.
I mean, I know politics makes strange bedfellows, but this was ridiculous.
I realized that I’d been sitting in my room and staring blankly at the wall for about twenty minutes while I went over all these thoughts. Mybrain just wouldn’t get moving. Maybe I needed caffeine. I took another five minutes to think about that and was interrupted by a knock at my door.
“Hmm,” I said, with no particular emphasis.
“Harry, it’s me,” said Molly. “I’m coming in. All right?”
“Hmm,” I agreed.
The door opened, and a tall young woman came into the room. She was wearing dark blue leather pants that didn’t creak and a purplish drapey top that showed off her collarbones. She looked like she’d skipped a lot of meals, her blue eyes were sharp, and her long hair, silver-blond, hung down to her lower back. Molly liked changing her appearance a lot.
She took one glance at me and winced. “Oh, for the love of…Harry, are you all right?”
“Fine,” I said. “Just…you know.”
“Let’s assume I don’t,” she said quietly, and came to sit on the bed beside me. She generated subtle tension by doing it. I noted it and let it go right on by. Just as I always had.
“Hey,” she said. Then a few seconds later she said, with gentle emphasis, “Hey.”
I blinked and looked up at her. “Oh right. Sorry. I haven’t been sleeping so well.”
“I know,” she said.
“How’s that?” I asked.
“I feel it when you dream. You haven’t done much of that. None of it is very friendly.”
Molly was the Winter Lady, a genuine faerie princess. She’d been simply mortal once, but that time was past. Now she carried Power, and a lot of it, and she had responsibilities I wasn’t sure I understood completely. Power was a dangerous thing to hand to anyone. It makes people more of what they already are. So far, Molly had been more focused and more disciplined, but there were times when I wondered how much of her was still that person I’d known since she was a kid, and how much of her was the Winter Lady.
She took my hand and held it in both of hers, and I felt some tension I hadn’t sensed ease out of me. Today, at least, she was just Molly.
“Look, maybe I can get this delayed for a while,” she said.
“Get what delayed?”
“Your date with Lara?” she reminded me gently.
“Right, right.” I shook my head. “Mab seemed pretty insistent last time she came by.”
“You’re in no shape for it,” she said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I mean the arm has a ways to go, but other than that.”
Her hand squeezed mine. “Harry, come on.”
I closed my eyes and bowed my head. “I just keep seeing her die, Molls.”
She put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward her.
I leaned in. She felt warm and kind, and part of me whispered that I didn’t deserve such comforts after all the things I’d done wrong.
That’s what pain sounds like when it talks to you.
