I took the warm cup Orlaigh handed me before I sent her for more milk, then watched my mortal waken. The way she stretched sinews and muscles sent a tingle through my limbs.

It extinguished when blue eyes narrowed at me with contempt. “Why are you here?”

“I have no reason to be elsewhere,” I said. “My kingdom has become so dreadfully dull ever since I denied your dead entry, the bit of effort it takes to rest the beasts is negligible.”

She shifted away from me underneath the furs, but no further than my arm hooking around her waist allowed. “Did you sleep beside me all night?”

“My form requires little of it.” Sleep only ever came to me in those rare moments of calm and completion, which had last been over two hundred years ago, my mind weary beyond exhaustion. “But I watched you throughout, yes.”

I had stroked hard flesh that hadn’t known touch in just as long, shaft jerking with the desire to spill my seed deep into her womb. So long since I’d bedded a woman. Still, I understood she required her sleep and so, I hadn’t disturbed her.

I allowed my mortal enough freedom to prop herself up onto her elbow before I handed her the cup. “Warm milk with honey. Orlaigh also brought us fried apples, buttered bread, and cured ham.”

“Us?” She hesitantly took the cup, sweetening lips that had been so skilled around my cock. “Do I have to eat breakfast with you?”

“Whyever not? Even if my form doesn’t require it, I enjoy good food like any mortal.” I broke off a piece of bread and held it to her lips. “Eat. We both know you’re hungry.”

A frightened woman would have refused with an excuse. A docile woman would have eaten from my fingers with a thank you on her lips. And a naïve woman would have slapped the bread from my fingers with a snarl.

But not Ada.

Snarl, my little mortal did.

But then she reached for the entire platter of bread, draped ham over one slice, loaded the edges with fried apple, and started eating even before she lowered it to her lap.

Too proud to accept food from my fingers.

Too smart to refuse it altogether.

After all, escape required strength.

It didn’t displease me as much as it should have; no, it charmed me more than was rational or sane. A dull companion slowed time only further. What an intriguing creature this mortal was. How could this woman hold my gaze with her chin held high, while guilt brittled her bones and shame soured her flesh?

I devoured the piece of bread, moaning at the smoothness of freshly-churned butter coating my gums after such long a time. “How did your husband die?”

Her gaze immediately dropped, going adrift somewhere in the furs. “Climbed the falls over at the Fork of Almach searching for pinweedle moss. The rock was wet and he slipped. A fisherman found him at the bottom of the falls, his body trapped between rocks. Said he drowned, but I think he died the moment he hit the rock. Took a chunk of his head out.”

An accident, yet I sensed how guilt infested the marrow in her bones. “You’re blaming yourself for his death. Why?”

Her head sunk, along with her voice. “Because I sent him up there.”

Neither flesh nor bone were free of failure. Why blame herself for the slick on the rock, the cutting breeze along the fall, or the misstep of a limb? She did to such a degree that the weight of it cumbered even my shoulders.

“Had you love for your husband?”

“What I had was a roof over my head, food in my belly, and my own garden.” She grabbed another slice of bread, eyeing me warily, observing, thinking… scheming. “Even without love, I had it better than most. Only took his belt a dozen or so times.”

“And what offenses deemed pain an appropriate punishment?”

She shrugged. “Talked back in front of the townsfolk, mostly.”

Yes, she was a mouthy little thing, but I quite liked it. It made for excellent entertainment. “Have you not been quiet and obedient?”

My little one shoved the bread around in her mouth as she spoke, lacking all the graces of nobility, but they’d started to bore me a good while ago, anyway. “I’ve sometimes been quiet. Now and then, obedient. I’ve certainly never been both at the same time.”

“And did the punishment correct your… defiance? Should I fashion a belt from the next beast coming to the Pale Court? Maybe it’ll cure your desire to escape.”

“Nothing cured in our home but the salted ham hanging from the rafters.”

My chest ached as neglected muscle pushed a faint laugh from my lungs. “So outspoken, your loyalty to a man this rotten confuses me greatly.”

“John was a good man.”

“So good, he only took a belt to you a dozen times? I despise pain, Ada. But not as much as I despise those who inflict it without mercy.”

“Because you have a right to speak of mercy?” Shaking her head, she tossed what was left of her bread onto the platter, the blood in her veins thickening with dismay. “Yes, my husband whipped me, as do all others. But he never kept me under lock and key, never forced himself—”

“Calm your heart.”

“—on me, even when he swayed home drunk from port, and he certainly didn’t push his length up my… my burning arse…”

Her voice trailed off as I slowed her compromised heart, tampering her anger into the faintest tingle beneath her skin. Ah, my little one hadn’t liked it when I took that hole. A little too roughly, too, since she’d torn but, oh, how tight that untried muscle had been around my aching cock.

“You did that.” She pressed a hand against her chest, but only until her blazing eyes snapped to mine. “So, it’s not enough to take the last bit of pride from me, but now you have to steal my rage?”

“A good little mortal gets my mouth on her cunt.” I cupped her cheek, relishing how the weight of her head pressed into my palm because I made it so. “A bad little mortal who runs from me gets my cock up her ass before I pull out and spend my seed all over her face. Or perhaps, welts on her hide after all?”

“Take a belt to me if you have to, but it’ll achieve nothing.”

Or I might just chain her to my throne. “Will you run from me again?”

Lips trembling, she braved my gaze. “Yes. I’ll hide in the back of beyond until my hair’s gray.”

Her honesty pinched me somewhere. “You should have lied.”

“No point in making myself a liar if we both know you won’t believe me, anyway.”

Eternity already scraped its claws over my mind, the thought of losing her chilling the blood in my veins. Perhaps I needed to break her neck after all? But then she would be cold…

Against my better judgment, I caved to the desperation manifesting in my core. “What will it take to make you stay?”

A swallow dragged down her throat as her brow lifted, undoubtedly judging my sincerity. “Spread rot and let the dead in.”

“I won’t break my oath to see yours spoken.”

And I better remember it.

She tortured her upper lip long enough, I wanted to suck it between mine to make her stop. “Then rot my husband’s body.”

The bones of a bastard who’d beaten this woman, and even now, who burdened her with the false responsibility of his death? For him, she would give herself away like a fool?

I had only known this mortal for a short while, but I could tell she was no fool. That made her a liar after all, whispering promises from the most tempting of lips, only to ensure her escape. Had I hoped differently for a moment?

“I won’t rot your husband’s bones, little one.” I rolled out of bed. “How can I make my home more comfortable for you? Should I send Orlaigh to gather books? Paints, maybe?”

The mortal’s posture stiffened, the innocence in her eyes not matching the deceit in her voice. “Can we leave the Pale Court? If only for an hour so I can… see the sky—”

“The sky.”

“—and birds, and trees—”

Did I look so easily fooled? “You’ll get books and paints.”