“Then wish yerself home now. I’d have you lost to me rather than risk yer safety by taking you with me.”
He was nothing if not honest with her. She owed him no less. It was time to confess.
“It won’t work. I already tried. You’re my only way home, Colin. I don’t understand all that much about Faerie Magic, but I do know I can’t go back without you at my side. I’d be happy to wish us both back, if that’s what you want.” In a heartbeat.
“I canna. And I’ve yer oath you’ll no try it without my consent.” He drew his head up from her, pain evident in his face. “Can you no understand that I couldna live with myself if I thought I’d let my kinsmen die without even trying to save them?”
“I do.” Her oath was all that kept her from saying the words to send them home right now. “Can’t you understand my need to be at your side?”
“I do,” he answered in an echo of her own words, sweeping an arm under her legs and lifting her off her feet like a small child. “Truce, then. We’ll share the bed this night, me to my side and you to yers, aye? I swear to you that I’ll make him-with-no-name behave himself.”
When he gave her that almost smile of his, she had to force herself not to drag his face down for another kiss. How could she not agree to his offer? Even in his annoying efforts to leave her behind, she knew his goal was to keep her safe. He’d hidden nothing from her.
“Truce, then,” she agreed, rolling onto her side to blow out the candle next to the bed.
Candles. Her eyes fluttered open, the word niggling at some uncomfortable spot in the back of her mind. What was it about . . .
It’s no so very different from the great steaming tub out back of yer own home, though we’ve no so many candles for you to light.
“How did you know about my hot tub? You didn’t go into my backyard when you were there.”
The pause before he answered seemed to last an eternity.
“I returned later. I saw you there, with yer candles lit all about you.”
“You spied on me? You hid out in the bushes and spied on me? Why would you do that?”
“I needed to see for myself that you were . . .” Another pause, as if he had changed his mind about what to say and was hunting for new words. “I wanted to see you were safe.”
Perhaps she’d been too quick to conclude he hid nothing. Too quick to assume his honesty.
“And you never thought to tell me about that?”
“I thought it for the best.”
The finality in his tone told her their conversation was at an end.
Her thoughts, on the other hand, raced. If he had kept something like that from her, what else might he be capable of in pursuit of what he thought best?
A truce, he’d offered, a truce she’d accepted. But that didn’t mean ignoring her common sense.
Truce, but no trust.
She lay very still on her side of the big bed, waiting until his breathing slowed and deepened before climbingout of the bed to find her clothes and dress. The little knives were too much of a hassle in the limited light of the dying fire, so she compromised by sticking the smaller of the two into the bust of her gown.
Once ready, she retrieved the bundle of bedding from the floor and carried it to her side of the bed, slipping it under her covers. She tiptoed to the door and quietly let herself out into the hallway.
Dropping to her knees, she propped her back against the doorway and stretched her legs across the opening.
Truce but no trust.
In the last twenty-four hours, Colin had tried every tactic she could imagine to avoid taking her with him tomorrow. Only sneaking out without her was left.
After seeing the sincerity and pain in his eyes tonight, she had little doubt but that he’d try that one, too.
And when he did? He’d find her waiting.
Truce but no trust.
