She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees as he did. She had taken a moment to braid her hair, rather haphazardly, and the long dark silken rope slid forward over her shoulder.
“I’m so angry, I can barely speak to him in a civil tone,” she replied. “It’s incomprehensible to me how he could create such an overwhelming trap, not only for him but for us as well. Can’t he see how his actions have affected others—how they’ve affected me, and now you?” Her eyes filled with sudden liquid. “Does he think so little of his life?”
He needed to touch her so badly it clenched in his stomach like sickness. Malphas mentioned dancing. The Djinn had allowed for them to touch, and that might have been the cruelest part of the bargain.
Slowly, Graydon reached out. When she placed her hand in his, his fingers tightened around hers.
He said, very low, “I can understand wanting and needing something so badly you’re ready to gamble your life away for a chance to have it.”
Her gaze slid sideways at him, and he caught a glimpse of the anguish he had seen in her expression earlier. “This is my fault. I should never have taken your offer of help. I should never have paid his debt the second time, or the third. If I’d only—”
A different kind of pain cut through him. Taking her hand, he held it to his chest, committing the feel and the weight of it to memory, the sensation of her slender fingers curling around his, the softness of her skin. Then he released her, and stood.
“That’s where you and I differ. I could never wish away making love to you.” Despite himself, a note of bitterness entered his voice. “No matter what else happened, or what the cost.”
“Gray,” she said softly, “that wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” If he looked at her, he would kiss her. He closed his eyes. “Can you sense the connections Malphas attached to us?”
She hesitated. “Not really. I felt his Power shimmer when we agreed to the bargain, but now . . . I can’t feel anything. It’s not anything like what I felt in Ferion.”
He knew better than to entertain any foolish hope that Malphas wouldn’t be able to sense if he and Bel made love. The Djinn would not have demanded terms he couldn’t enforce.
He strode to the doorway of the receiving room. The fire had taken hold with a vengeance. It was small satisfaction. When the blaze grew large enough the smoke would attract people from the nearby town, but they had several minutes before that happened.
Outside, the country air was clean and sharp like a knife. He went around the back to find Ferion emerging from the stable, leading a saddled roan. As he approached the Elven male, he noted how terrible Ferion looked, his normally youthful-looking face lined as if with age.
Graydon wanted nothing more than to unleash his rage on the other man, but the thought of what he had said to Bel remained with him. Need for her ran through his veins, turning part of him into a traitor with ugly thoughts, urging him to do anything it took, just so that he could be with her again.
The predator in him had taken note: nowhere in the Djinn’s bargain had it said Graydon couldn’t kill Ferion and be done with Malphas once and for all.
That same predator took note of Ferion’s inattention and relative fragility, the vein pounding at the side of his neck, the way his hands shook as he handled the reins.
Graydon would do almost anything to be with Bel again, except take from her what she loved the most.
Turning and crossing his arms, he faced the house. Silently, Ferion led the horse over to him and stood by his side.
After a moment, Ferion said, “I’m appalled at my own actions and offer you my most heartfelt apologies. I make no excuses for what I’ve done.”
“That would be wise of you.” Graydon used the most neutral tone he could manage. At the moment, his control was fragile at best. If the Elf had started down that path, he didn’t know what he would have done. He said, “If this hasn’t made you hit bottom so you realize you’ve got to change, I don’t know what will.”
“It did.” Ferion’s voice was so quiet, even Graydon almost didn’t hear him. “It happened when Malphas confronted me. When I truly realized I had no other way to pay my debt. Nobody else could take my fate from me, and he—fixed the lien inside of me. I—I didn’t realize such a low point could exist.”
As he listened, unwilling sympathy took hold of him, dissipating his rage.
Ferion whispered, “Always before, this voice inside my head compelled me on and on. I convinced myself that when I won, I could pay any debt I accumulated. I could even pay back my mother everything she had spent on my behalf. Once I won that big, I could quit whenever I wished.” His raw gaze cut sideways to Graydon. “I knew that voice was crazy. I just couldn’t seem to stop listening to it.”
Graydon rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the knot of tension that had taken residence between his shoulder blades. He acknowledged, “I reckon I have a version of that voice in my head too.”
Only his voice had urged him to make plans to fly down to South Carolina once a month. It whispered to him that somehow the arrangement would have made it acceptable for him to mate with her, that he would survive each interminable month, as long he knew he would get to see her again.
Even as part of him had known better—that eventually something about the arrangement would have crumbled—it hadn’t stopped him from trying because he would have done almost anything to be with her again, including mating in silence and giving her a kind of devotion she had not asked for, and likely wouldn’t have welcomed had she known.
“Whatever happened between you and my mother,” Ferion said, “I’m doubly sorry about that.”
“We’re not going to talk about that,” Graydon said between his teeth.
Off to one side of the house, Beluviel came into view. She walked toward them.
Ferion whispered, “I saw how you looked at each other. I also know she hasn’t chosen to be with anybody in a very long time, so while we might not talk of it, I wanted you to know—I’m so sorry for that too. More than anyone else I know, she deserves to be happy.”
As soon as Bel had come into sight, Graydon’s attention fixed on her. Hungrily, he soaked in every aspect of her appearance.
She looked composed and calm, her dark gaze focused. As he took in her settled demeanor, he recognized the distance that had been growing between them was now complete.
He told her telepathically, You realize Ferion can no longer be trusted. Malphas might not be able to resist compelling him to do small, sneaky things. Whatever he thinks he might be able to get away with, he’ll do.
The full, generous curve of her lips tightened. She replied, I know. I’ll have to keep watch.
If there is anything I can do to help, don’t hesitate to send for me.
Giving him a steady look, she shook her head and told him in a gentle voice, You are good-hearted and generous to the very end. I will not send for you, Graydon. It would hurt too much to see you.
A violent pain flared. How sensible she sounded, how emotionally honest and yet dismissive at the same time.
In one corner of his mind he knew he wasn’t being fair, but the uncivilized beast he fought to hold in check wasn’t interested in fairness. It wanted to snatch at her and rage against the world.
But she was not Wyr. She couldn’t know how his beast rebelled at the thought of being sensible. Of leaving her.
He made himself breathe evenly and loosen the fists he had pressed against his sides. “So, we hold our ground.”
“And Malphas wins,” said Ferion bitterly.
Bel gave her son a look of rebuke. “Holding one’s ground is not passivity. It takes its own kind of strength. Sometimes the hardest part of a battle is holding one’s ground. At most Malphas has gained a standoff. He has not won anything yet.”