Millicent raised her voice as she stepped into the crowded room, skirting tables and wandering hands. “If they make it through the crystal cavern… Yes, I rather imagine they will follow us to the city, Nell. A predator doesn’t give up his prey so easily.”
The smart old woman answered with a cackle. “And ye’re hopin’ the Undergrounders will finish ’em off fer us?”
“Aye.”
“Finish who off?” growled Bran, his finger in a tankard of honey, his long brown hair flowing over his broad shoulders onto the bar. He took in her borrowed clothing, Nell’s rattier-than-ordinary appearance, with only a raised brow. A large man, with a tendency to think before speaking, and speak his words slowly when he did, he was one of the few predators in the Underground who managed to run a profitable pub.
Millicent stepped up to the bar. “I’m in a bit of trouble, Bran.”
“When aren’t ye?”
“That’s unfair,” piped up Nell, her red head barely managing to clear the stained counter. “She’s a good gel, is our Millie.”
Bran ignored her and kept his gaze fixed on Millicent. “Ye took off with nary a word. I’ve had thirteen fights I’ve had to break up meself since ye been gone. Annoying, that.”
Millicent nodded. She didn’t have time to argue. “The Duke of Ghoulston took Nell, and I had to… acquire something to get her back. And now I… I can’t get rid of it, and I’ve got half the world chasing after me. From below and… above.”
Bran slowly licked a sugary finger. “Half the world, eh? That’s a fair amount of enemies fer a gel who usually minds her own business.”
Millicent breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t appear too angry. He seemed to understand that none of this was her fault.
“Abovegrounders, ye say? And I suppose ye led ’em right here?”
She grimaced and shrugged.
“Well now, at least it’s a fight I won’t be minding havin’. Be good to have some competition fer a change. I suppose it’s best if ye two take the back way out.”
Before Millicent could utter her thanks, the door to the pub flew open. She felt surprised to see the baronets in the doorway, for she had counted on the duke’s minions to make it here first. At least the predators looked decidedly worse for their adventures, their fur scraggly with blood and more than a few sporting splinters of crystal.
Bran raised his bushy brows as he stared at the intruders. “Lions and tigers! Crikey, ye’re full of surprises, gel.” And before his patrons could notice the threat at the door, he turned to a narrow-faced man and said, “Hey, Joseph. Thomas Weezel called yer mother a whore.”
Millicent grinned. Thomas sat slumped over the back of a chair, so deep in his cups she doubted he felt the fist that knocked him out of it. But he managed to shift quickly enough, his face elongating into a weasel, his retaliating strike so fast that Joseph barely managed his shift to jackal before Thomas struck. Both shape-shifters crashed into the table next to them, and the chaps sitting there erupted from their chairs, indiscriminately swinging their fists.
“Too easy,” muttered Bran as he launched his bulk over the bar into what now looked like the usual Saturday evening brawl. The baronets pushed their way into the midst.
“Idiots,” muttered Nell for the second time that day.
“Just out of their element,” replied Millicent. “Let’s go.”
As they made their way out the back door, she watched Bran direct the fight at the abovegrounders like a man orchestrating a symphony. The small tavern soon became a seething mass of fur, teeth, and fang. Nell cackled a laugh, took a step out the back door, and a creature of green slime and knobby limbs caught her up in its vine-like arms.
Millicent glanced back. A lion swatted a weasel aside, his golden eyes intent on her and Nell. The beast took a step toward her, hampered again by the weasel, who had wrapped his sharp little teeth around the lion’s leg. She turned and faced the duke’s men, far less appealing to the eyes, but if she had to choose between two evils, she preferred to choose the one she knew.
“Don’t hurt her,” she ground out between clenched teeth. It frustrated her to give up so quickly. But Nell already looked blue in the face from the monster’s tight grip. “I’ll come along without a fight.”
They dragged her and Nell back to the duke’s lair. Oddly enough, Ghoulston barely gave them a glance as he ordered Selena to take them back to the burgundy prison. The duke appeared preoccupied, which bothered Millicent more than if he had been furious by their attempted escape. He also allowed Nell to stay with her, and as Millicent fell asleep on the perfumed bed, she wondered if that might portend something even worse for her dear friend. And to her chagrin, found herself worrying about Gareth, as well.
He came to her at night, while sleep still shadowed her thoughts. Millicent could hear Nell’s snoring from the other room, even through the closed door. The perpetual twilight that lit the Underground filtered through the open window of the duke’s castle, outlining Gareth’s golden hair with a halo of half-light. He wore the clothing she’d first seen him in, his sword at his side, his body healthy and whole.
“You are alive,” she breathed, relief making her voice tremble.
He sat on the bed, rustling the burgundy-silk covers. He smelled of fresh linen and moonlit nights. “Did you doubt the strength of the curse?”
“No.”
He lowered his face to hers, waves of gold strands falling down his forehead, across his cheeks. “Alas. Could it be possible that you worried for me?”
“Yes—no. Nell said you would be fine.”
“The ladybird is more than she appears, I think.”
She could feel his breath on her lips, the warmth of his body through the thin silk sheet.
Millicent trembled.
He frowned, shadows playing across his straight nose, his full lips, the angles of his cheeks. “I would never harm you.”
“I—I’m not afraid of you.”
“Then you will not fear if I do this.” And he pressed his mouth against hers, gently, hesitantly, as if he touched some delicate object that would shatter with the slightest pressure. Millicent’s eyes drifted shut as all of her senses focused on that caress. On the warmth of his mouth and the sweet slide of his tongue across her lips. She knew the moment she saw him standing nude in the pond that she wanted him, no matter what arguments her mind managed to conjure. Because of her mother’s habits, Millicent had seen many a naked man, and not a one had caused such a response within her body.
Gareth groaned and pressed closer to her. She could feel his muscles tremble as he fought to keep his touch gentle.
Millicent buried her fingers in his hair and showed him she would not break. Perhaps… perhaps the moment she had truly known she would make love to him was when she had thought he’d died. When she had felt such an overwhelming grief that she would have blindly rushed forward to save him if it hadn’t been for Nell reminding her that he was immortal.
Or was he?
Millicent easily pulled his face away from hers, heard him catch a breath at the reminder of her were-strength. “I cannot break your curse. I do not have enough love in my heart to do such a powerful thing.”
“I do not care.”
“So you said. But what if… what if it were possible? Will time catch up with you and turn you to dust?” Her voice cracked, betraying her emotions, her fear of making the wrong choice.
His eyes looked like twin pools of midnight, the light blue barely discernible. “I do not care.”
“I will lose you either way.”
“Are you sure you want to keep me?”
“I—” Millicent frowned. She did not know what she wanted beyond this moment.