Besides, it was only a matter of time before she was discovered anyway. They'd come to spy on him, to watch him be human and humbled, and he was surprised they hadn't noticed her already. They must be keeping a bit of a distance, perhaps uncertain how long the queen intended to sustain his punishment, and wary of being too close, in case he suddenly regained his power. As they should be, he thought viciously. "So?" he demanded. "What will it be, Irish?"
"I need to think." she said tightly.
"You have one hour."
10
Well that had to be the shortest-lived plan in history, Gabby thought peevishly, as she paced back and forth across her bedroom, periodically glancing at the clock that was devouring her precious minutes tick by greedy tock.
Right— she was going to learn about him, lure him into revealing a weakness. A whopping two questions into her dazzlingly expert interrogation, thrown off-kilter by his comment about the way she looked at him, she'd blurted the first tiling that had popped into her mind, only belatedly realizing that he hadn't known. Hadn't had any clue that the city was thick with other fairies. She'd just assumed that he was either too proud to ask them for aid, or they'd already refused to help him. Never had it occurred to her that he couldn't even see them.
She just kept digging herself in deeper.
And he was right. It wouldn't take long, as he'd threatened, for him to smoke her out. Merely being spotted walking down the street with him would give her away to any watching Fae.
She could either willingly help him, hoping he'd truly protect her (and that he could somehow save her from the formidable Aoibheal), or refuse and be abandoned to other Fae, who she knew wouldn't lift so much as a smugly superior finger to help her. At least this way she had the hope of getting a fairy indebted to her, if that counted for anything among fairies.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know was another of Gram's favorite adages.
"Barely." she muttered.
Puffing her bangs from her eyes with a frustrated breath, she pivoted and paced to the window. Propping her elbows on the sill, she stared blindly out, eyes narrowed, thinking hard.
He'd been furious. Up until now, every seeming emotion he'd displayed since she'd first encountered him, she'd instantly discounted as mimicry, mere trickery, part of his calculated seduction.
But what she'd just seen had looked all too real. Intense, deeply felt, and genuine.
She'd seen not just anger, but wounded pride, and something else, something deeper that had seemed to flash involuntarily through his eyes when she'd made her comment about "iridescent-eyed, soulless, deadly fairies."
Was it possible, she wondered, bemused by the notion, that since he was in a human body he was actually experiencing human emotion? That all the emotions she'd thought she'd seen had been real not faked?
She had no idea what was possible and not possible when a fairy was in human form. She'd never stumbled across anything like this in the O'Callaghan Books. And— she glanced at the clock again— she highly doubted he'd give her any extra time to do some searching.
She could only pray that he was feeling, and feeling enough to make him keep his word to protect her, because, unfortunately, her back was to a wall.
Like it or not— and she didn't— she was going to have to help Adam Black.
* * *
"Okay, I'll do it, but we need to discuss terms," she said flatly as she walked back into the kitchen.
He'd showered and dressed while she'd been up in her room and was once again leather-clad and sexy as all get-out, long legs outstretched, boots propped on the kitchen table, arms folded behind his head. He no longer looked angry but was once again coolly, almost lazily, at ease.
"A wise decision, ka-lyrra" His dark gaze swept her from head to toe, a palpable, erotic caress that reminded her that, no matter how dead-set she was against him, her traitorous body was all for him. He inclined his head regally. "I am pleased you will aid me, and will consider your terms."
She bristled at his princely demeanor but refused to be baited. Her terms were critical. "First, I will only approach a solitary Fae. I'll reveal myself to no more of your kind than I have to."
He shook his head. "You won't find a solitary Fae. Have you seen any alone since they arrived in your city?"
Gabby thought about it for a moment. Now that he mentioned it, no, she hadn't seen any alone. They were always in groups, or at least pairs. Even the one that had walked between her and Marian Temple, blowing her dream job, had only broken away from a small group that it had rejoined when it moved on.
"Why is that?" Her brows drew together in a frown. There was so much she didn't understand about the Fae.