face. “This is damn good gumbo. Here, try some.”
He grabbed one of the extra spoons, filled it with broth and meat, and held it out to Rhianne.
The droplets would splatter all over the table. Rhianne leaned forward and quickly caught the spoonful in her mouth.
Incredible flavor poured over her tongue. A bite of spice, but not too much, savory sensations of herbs and sausage, and something pleasantly fishy.
“Oh, my,” she said when she could speak.
“Didn’t I tell you? There was shrimp in that. Here.” He took up a fork and speared a curled pink thing on her plate of colorful rice.
Rhianne opened her mouth and Ben gently slid the bite into it. Their eyes met over the fork, and Rhianne felt suddenly hot.
Was the food too spicy? Not at all. It was the sensation of Ben’s hand behind the fork, the smile on his lips, the enjoyment in his eyes.
Ben had been exiled, but he’d not forgotten how to live. He was now trying to show Rhianne how to live too.
She sat back, chewing and swallowing the mouthful. “I think I like shrimp,” she announced.
“It’s pretty awesome.” Ben retreated to his side of the table. “Humans have come up with some wonderful stuff.”
“How did they think to eat critters that crawl on the bottom of the sea?” Rhianne loaded her fork with the shrimp and rice and ate, closing her eyes to enjoy it.
“When you’re hungry, anything’s food. After a while, you figure out how to make it good. Very resourceful, are humans.”
“You like them,” Rhianne said with sudden insight.
Ben nodded. “They’re not so bad. I’ve always had to try to fit in. When I first came to this world, I figured out fast that if humans didn’t know what you were or where you came from, you were pretty much dead. I adapted. Try the beer with the jambalaya.”
Rhianne took an obedient sip. He was wise—the flavors of the warm rice and the cool beer complemented each other well. He also was trying to distract her from prying into his hardships.
“I understand why Dylan wants me to spy on Walther,” she said, returning to their earlier topic. “It’s not only because he’s worried about what a hoch alfar lord, even an ambitious one, is up to. He wants to know why my father is helping him.”
“Probably.” Ben ran his spoon through the gumbo. “If your dad’s so dangerous, why did Lady Aisling marry the guy in the first place?”
Rhianne had wondered this most of her life. “She fell in love, she told me. My father is a very handsome and compelling man. Other ladies have fallen hard for him before, during, and since their marriage. Ivor de Erkkonen is powerful, smart, and extremely confident. When my mother was young, he was irresistible, so she says. She said she fell to the delusion many women have—that she could change him into something good.” Rhianne let out a sad breath. “Maybe some women do transform other men, but my father was impossible. A man has to have some goodness in him, even if buried deep, for it to work.”
“Yeah, some of us are true sweethearts.” Ben assumed a mock modest expression, which evaporated. “Your dad, not so much?”
“I was very young when my mother sent him away, and I don’t remember much about their marriage. He certainly never had any warm feelings for me. He regarded me more like a game piece he could use when he needed. My mother kept him away from me, which I didn’t understand then, but for which I’m very grateful now. I grew up in innocence, thanks to her. She encouraged my studies, and for me to travel far from home once I’d finished university, to remove myself from his domains. He’s mostly ignored me until now.”
Again, Ben listened with his full attention, nodding along in sympathy.
“He’ll have a harder time reaching you here,” he declared. “The power of Faerie only extends so far into the human world. Too much iron. Which, looking at you, doesn’t bother you at all.”
“I’m not hoch alfar.” Rhianne took another sip of the beer. Still good. “Iron confounds hoch alfar magic, changes the very molecules in their bodies. They could have corrected that genetic flaw centuries ago, but they preferred to keep their magic as intact as possible. Becoming resistant to iron would have robbed them of some of their power. I’ve done research on the subject.”
Ben’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Read a lot as a kid, did you?”
“Pretty