The tiger-striped kitten, whom she'd christened Sexpot (after apologetically peeking beneath her tail) because of the way the little tyke sashayed about as if outrageously pleased with herself, hungrily devoured a tender fish filet, then busied herself scrubbing her whiskers with little spit-moistened paws while Jane puzzled over her situation.
She'd been astonished to discover Aedan had no idea what a kiss was, but the more she thought about it, the more sense it made.
Aedan not only didn't know he was Aedan, he didn't remember that he was a man, hence he didn't recall the intimacies of lovemaking!
She wondered if that made him a virgin of sorts. When they finally made love—and there was no doubt in her mind that they would, one way or another, even if she had to ambush and attack him—would he have any idea what it was all about? How strange to think that she might have to teach him, he who'd been her inexhaustible dream tutor.
He certainly hadn't liked being provoked, she mused. He'd grown increasingly agitated when she'd mocked him for obeying his king and had visibly bristled at the idea of being a mere servant. Still, despite such promising reactions, he had a formidable shell that was going to be difficult to penetrate. It would help if she knew what had happened to him. She needed to make him talk about his "king," and find out when and how they'd met. Were there indeed a "fairy king," perhaps the being had enchanted him. The idea taxed Jane's credulity, but, all things considered, she supposed she couldn't suspend disbelief without suspending it fully. Until she reached some concrete conclusions about what was going on, she would be unwise to discount any possibilities.
Whatever had happened to him, she had to undo it. She hoped it wouldn't take too long, because she wasn't sure how long she could stand watching her soulmate glare at her with blatant distrust and dislike. Withholding kisses. Refusing to let her touch him.
You have one month here with him, no more, a woman's lilting voice whispered.
Sexpot stopped grooming, paw frozen before her face. She arched into a horseshoe shape and emitted a ferocious hiss.
"Wh-what?" Jane stammered, glancing about.
Cease with your absurd protestations that this place is not real. You are in the fifteenth century, Jane Sillee. And here you may stay, if you succeed. You have but one full cycle of the moon in the sky to make him remember who he is.
Jane opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again, but nothing came out. Sexpot suffered no such problem, growling low and long. Gently smoothing the spiked hairs on the kitten's back, Jane wet her lips and swallowed. "That's impossible, the man will hardly speak to me! And who are you?" she demanded. I'm talking to a disembodied voice, she thought, bewildered.
I'm not the one who doesn't know. Worry about him.
"Don't be cryptic. Who are you?" Jane hissed.
There was no reply. After a few moments, Sexpot's back no longer resembled a porcupine's, and Jane realized that whoever had spoken was gone.
"Well, just what am I supposed to do?" she shouted angrily. A month wasn't a whole lot of time to figure out what had happened to him and to help him remember who he was. She'd like to know who was making up the rules. She had a bone or two to pick with them.
Aedan appeared in the doorway, glancing hastily about the chamber. Only after ascertaining she was alone and in no apparent danger did he speak. "What are you yelling about?" he demanded.
Jane stared at him, framed in the doorway, gilded by a shaft of silvery moonlight that spilled in the open window, his sculpted chest bare, begging her touch.
She was suddenly stricken by two certainties that she felt in the marrow of her bones: that as the woman had said, she truly was in the fifteenth century, and that if she didn't help him remember, something terrible beyond her ability to imagine would become of him. Would he live and die the icy, inhuman creature he'd become? Perhaps turn into something even worse?
"Oh, Aedan," she said, the words hitching in her throat. All her love and longing and fear were in his name.
"I am Vengeance," he snarled. "When will you accept that?"
When he spun about and stalked from the chamber, Jane sat for a long time, looking around, examining everything anew, wondering how she could have thought for even a moment that she might be dreaming. The reason everything had seemed so real was because it was so real. She fell back onto the bed and stared at the cobwebby ceiling through the shimmer of silent tears. "I won't lose you, Aedan," she whispered.
Hours later, Vengeance stood at the foot of the bed, watching her sleep. He'd passed a time of restless slumber on the floor in the hall and awakened intensely agitated. His rest had not been of the kind he'd known in Faery—an edgy, mostly aware state of short duration. Nay, he'd fallen into deep oblivion for far longer than usual, and his slumbering mind had gone on strange journeys. Upon awakening, his memory of those places had dissolved with the suddenness of a bubble bursting, leaving him with the nagging feeling that he'd forgotten something of import.