She felt his breath on her face. When had he gotten so close to her? Millicent’s eyes flew open and she took a step back. “I hope you don’t. She shifts now only when she’s threatened or furious.”
“Verily?” He looked into her eyes. He had very large, very blue eyes, his lashes several shades darker than his hair, outlining them so they appeared even larger. “It bothers you, doesn’t it? The thought that age might rob you of the ability to shift.”
“Of course. How would I protect myself without my were-form?”
“Perhaps you will have someone to protect you.”
“Not bloody likely.”
Gareth curled his hand into hers and tugged. “Come, I want to show you something.”
Millicent allowed him to lead her through the multicolored glow of the forest, his touch no longer a threat to her senses, but somehow comforting. As if she didn’t feel so quite alone. Although Nell sometimes acted like a grandmother, they rarely touched each other. And no man would dare attempt to. But Sir Gareth seemed so casual about reaching out and making a physical connection, as if he couldn’t help himself. She supposed that after centuries of seducing women, it came as natural to him as breathing.
That thought bothered her and she twisted her hand out of his grasp. “I can’t leave Nell for too long. She might wake or—”
“Don’t worry, my lady. It’s not far.”
The willowy trees opened onto a small clearing of sand that butted up against the wall of the cavern. A small hump of pitted rock sat on the left, steam billowing from the center. The temperature of the pools varied, and this one must be boiling. The vapor swirled about them, picking up the glow from the trees and creating ribbons of emerald, turquoise, and violet. A small path led up the side of the wall onto an opening.
Millicent followed Gareth into the tiny cave and stopped and stared. It felt cooler and dryer than the forest below. Three beds had been made with layers of foliage, separated by walls of branches for privacy. A flat stone near the front of the cave made a table of sorts, with three low stools clustered around it, made from branches tied with stiff plant fiber.
The middle of the stone table held a cluster of opalescent flowers in a hollowed-out gourd. Millicent didn’t know where he got them, but the flowers gave off a more intense glow than that of the trees, lighting the cave with soft, pearly splendor.
“You did all of this?” she whispered.
Gareth bowed. “Your new abode, my lady. Do you like it?”
Millicent didn’t answer his question. She couldn’t. No one had ever done anything like this for her before. It felt like a home. Could he even guess that she’d never had one? She stroked the petals of the flowers. “You’ll have to show me where you picked these. Although this place is no illusion, magic surely went into the making of it.”
The knight sighed, as if he hadn’t truly expected her to thank him, and took a step toward her. “The wizard who made it must have missed the ocean.”
She looked at him blankly.
“You’ve never seen the ocean, have you? It’s a large body of salty water, where enormous fish and plants live. There are even shape-shifters within its depths, men and women who can transform to fish.”
Millicent bristled. In the few months she’d spent with the duke above, she’d seen only a bit of London and most of it looked little different than her twilight city. Abovegrounders always thought their world was so superior. “We have lakes down here. Black lakes with creatures living in them.”
“Ah, but you’ve never seen sunlight sparkling on waves of water, foam crashing against the beach.” His eyes shimmered with sadness and his voice lowered to a husky murmur. “I barely remember it, myself.”
Then his eyes cleared as he studied her face. “You’ve lived in the darkness as much as I have, haven’t you, my lady?” Again he reached out and touched her, his fingertips as soft on her face as the touch of a fairy’s wing. “I wish I could take you there.”
Millicent suppressed a derisive laugh. “Wishes are for fools and dreamers, and I am neither.” She turned and scurried back down the path. If he kept it up, the man would have her mooning after dreams herself. But he still had hope that his curse would be broken. She’d lost her hope of a happy ending to her life many years ago.
Sir Gareth called out to her and she shifted to panther so she couldn’t answer him. For a moment there, he’d almost had her convinced that he cared about her. She’d never heard of a man seducing a woman by making her a home from a cave, but if he’d thought to soften her heart, he’d managed to come close to figuring out how.
She reached the patch of sand where she’d left Nell and shifted back to human. “No thanks,” she muttered.
Nell rolled over and blinked up at her sleepily. “No thanks to wot?”
Sir Gareth strode into the clearing, one of those hard-shelled creatures in his hands. “It appears that my lady is not satisfied with my attempts to see to her comfort.”
Nell sat with a wince, her knobby hand rubbing the small of her back. “Crikey, did ye say comfort? I’d give a sweet shilling to get off this hard sand and away from the little gnats that live in it. And what’s that ye got in yer hands?” The nostrils of her beaked nose flared.
Gareth set his offering before her and cracked open the round top, exposing fleshy meat. “I don’t know what it’s called, Lady Nell, but when cooked it tastes like lobster.”
Nell smiled at his use of the honorific, and without further ado, dug into the food, pulling out strings of moist meat and popping them into her mouth.
Millicent’s own mouth watered. While her were-cat preferred raw meat, the food smelled heavenly to her human nose. “How did you manage a fire?”
When he took a step toward her and she quickly backed up, he stopped and frowned. “I didn’t need one. That small pool cooks these to perfection.”
“Of course. Well, it’s nice of you to bring Nell some food, but I can take care of her myself.”
“I never said you couldn’t, my lady. I just thought you’d be too tired to hunt this morning, and sought to make things easier for you.”
Nell’s sharp eyes flew back and forth between the two of them while she continued to munch.
“I don’t need anyone to make my life easy. I don’t need to get soft.” Millicent spoke her next words slowly, as if to a simpleton. “I don’t need you.”
“Nay, I fear you don’t. But I can’t say the same.”
“Dammit, I’m not the one, I tell you. Can’t you get that through that thick skull of yours?”
They stared at each other, the very air seeming to crackle between them. Millicent felt peculiar, though. Oh, she was mad at his stubbornness, right enough, but her anger made the beast within her shiver with sultry heat. What madness had overcome her cat?
Nell set down her shell of food, gave a satisfied burp, and leaned back. “Millicent, if this here lad can follow us, the duke’s men can as well.”
“He didn’t follow us.” She held out her arm and pointed at the band of silver circling it. “He comes out of here. No matter how far I go, I can’t get away from him.”
Nell rose unsteadily to her feet, a few bones creaking with the effort, and took her arm, studying the jeweled bracelet. “This is the relic ye spoke of before. And it’s tied to this lad? I think it’s past time ye told me what the duke had ye up to, my gel.”
Millicent took a deep breath and told the entire story, while the trees continued their gentle sighing and the fans above pretended to cool the air. By the time she’d finished, sweat trickled down her legs and within the valley of her breasts.
Gareth watched her with a half smile, looking cool and comfortable in nothing but his linen drawers.
Nell turned to study him and suddenly he didn’t look as composed. “Well, lad, I must say the relic picked the wrong gel. Me Millicent won’t have nuthin’ to do with ye, despite that sinful smile of yers and that sleek, muscled body. Now me, on the other hand…” She cackled at his blush.