Page 11 of My Fae Lady

All I had to do was find a way to siphon enough of the fae’s power into the gem while he was here.

Five

Sylvan

⊱❀⊰

Rook Manor delivered me to my quarters, a guest chamber full of overstuffed furniture and too much purple. A plate of glazed ham and roasted vegetables steamed on the bedside table.

The food was the only acceptable thing about these chambers. I scooped up the plate, shoveling meat into my maw as I padded my way back out the door and into the hall barefooted.

“Try again,” I rumbled at the house, mouth full. “That’s not my room. I want my room.”

The door slammed in my face, the manor’s form of protest. Moments later, it creaked open. The room inside was still not mine, not the chambers of a lord, but we were getting closer. The wide bed was rooted into the floor planks, the headboard made of sprouting limbs that reached toward the ceiling. The bedding took the form of soft pelts stacked high, and the draperies matched the dark furs.

No ghastly royal Seelie purple.

I licked my plate clean, then discarded it on the bedside table, which Rook Manor immediately swept out of sight. It was strange to already be so bone tired after sleeping so many years, but there I was. Giselle was a force of nature, sapping me dry with her Seelie nonsense. I disrobed completely, preferring to sleep in the nude.

I fell into the bed and hissed. The numbing ointment had caused me to forget how raw the deep wounds on my back now were.

“Wicked woman,” I cursed her, turning onto my side.

But why had she treated my wounds at all? An unwelcome warmth wormed its way into my chest. The woman hardly knew me. What was she doing helping me? Her effort made no logical sense, but perhaps she hoped to reap more tolerance for her silly Seelie customs.

I recalled those horrid shoes she’d made me wear, the manner in which she’d teased me with delicious dinner smells, then robbed me of my meal, and the warmth turned into hot outrage. As it should be with a Barton.

It didn’t take long for me to find a comfortable resting spot for my tall ear against the cushions. I slept deeply, covered in furs that smelled like the forest.

⊱❀⊰

I woke with the morning sun. Rook Manor supplied me with a hearty breakfast, and I took my time savoring every bite. Ham slathered in gravy and fried bread and grilled tomatoes cooked just the way Rook Manor knew I liked them. Then I went in search of my tormentor, scratching at archways to mark what was mine as I ambled barefoot through the halls.

The next door the house made available dumped me into a spartan workroom dominated by a large coach, turned on its side.

Giselle sat at the desk, holding a strange piece of glass between her fingers. I caught a flash of light in it when she maneuvered the shard to look through it like a lens. She used the lens to examine the old coach, the black paint chipped and peeling. One of the wheels was worn nearly in two.

That light was fae magic the same blue shade as her eyes. I spotted it again in the next fragmented bend of illumination. How clever. But what was she up to? Something diabolical, no doubt.

“Ah. There you are. I wondered when you’d wake,” Giselle said over her shoulder. Her dress was covered by a workman's apron. Her mahogany hair was twisted into a neat knot at the back of her skull, save for one curl that spilled free.

I quite fancied that wild curl. A small bit of imperfection that was not Seelie-like in the least. I had the most unnerving urge to twist it about my finger, to feel the silk of it against my skin before watching it spring back into place.

I shook my head to free it of the thought.

“House, if you would be so kind,” she said, and Rook Manor immediately supplied her with a padded stool—more velvet—situated in front of the fireplace, a stand and wash basin beside it.

She tucked away her clever piece of glass, then removed shears from the deep pocket of her apron, and she snipped them at me threateningly. “Go on and have a seat, Lord Sylvan. Half of the forest is in your hair, from the look of things. We’ve much work to do . . . What’s the matter?” she demanded when my bare feet remained inert. “You look like you’ve seen a wolverine dressed in a top hat.”

I ran a hand through my tresses, mussing the jet strands, and a claw caught in a tangle. “My lady,” I said with a forlorn groan, tugging my trapped claw free, “I have stood before warriors in full battle armor brandishing swords and axes. They were less intimidating than you are with that pair of shears.”

She scoffed. “Don’t be silly.”

“I wouldn’t dare be silly. Not about my hair.”

She rolled her eyes at me. They’d turned an expressive shade of flustered green, not quite the emerald that accompanied her hottest anger. “It’ll grow back.”

“I still don’t want it butchered.” My hair was all I had left after my wings—my pride—had been cut away from me. Stolen by a Barton. I wouldn’t eagerly submit to a new theft by another of their ilk.