curved through the sound. They weren’t giving her definitive answers. Fin had definitely hedged his in uncertainty while Maddox immediately sought a way to soothe her. She required neither coddling nor lies.
Fin didn’t know the answer nor did Maddox. The only way to know was to go into the sun and find out what it did. Hauling the door open, Rogue strode inside. The hot humid air billowing in the room wrapped around him. While he preferred it cooler, the heat was also tolerable.
Fiona stood near one of the large hearths, backlit by the flames. Though damp, her rich, red hair seemed to glow as it curled at the ends. A large dressing gown dwarfed her figure, and even though she was backlit, there was no mistaking her crimson eyes for anything other than her transitioning state. They were brighter though.
That was at least a positive.
“Come with me, little sváss,” he ordered.
“Woah,” Fin said as he stood. “Rogue…”
Maddox was already sloshing out of the pool. If Rogue possessed more patience, he would have rolled his eyes. As it was, he met the rebellion in Fiona’s gaze head on. “Unless you want to wait for them to decide what you can or can’t do.”
Predictable. She pursed her lips, shot a glance toward the others, then to him. Weighing. Measuring. Who was the greater threat?
Who could she get what she wanted out of?
Did she even know what she wanted?
Fiona took a step toward him as Maddox cleared the edge of the pool. Uncaring of their nudity, they were across the room to catch her, but not before Rogue swept her up and then he raced her away.
Their curses followed him.
He really didn’t want to have the argument with them. As it was, the armful of soft curves cuddled up to them had already brought them more than her weight in trouble. The keep’s layout was oblong, tucked against a mountainside and preeminently defensible. A barrier wall and proud gates along with natural obstacles made them difficult to approach overland.
Most of their enemies who would seek them out were not human, however, and those defenses were mostly for show.
The true defenses were soaked into the stones and grown in the cracks between when they’d built the fortress. Magic, power, and blood inlaid all of the spellwork. From the most complicated and delicate to the most basic and plain spells for discouragement, the keep warded them against those who didn’t belong with a giant fuck off essentially that turned away all but the most determined.
Hence the message he’d left for Alfred. Fiona had already begun to corrupt his brothers, even as she aroused Rogue in a manner he’d never experienced before. Already, the craving for her had begun to wind its insidious grip through him. He could still resist the influence.
Maddox and Fin hadn’t even tried.
Still, the keep also had two courtyards. The outer near the main walls and the inner, where Alfred had once cultivated a garden. It was to that one he took Fiona. When the keep was closed up, most of the exterior windows were sealed and shuttered. Eventually, they might concede to install the generator Fin wanted to add, but for now, torches and candles more than sufficed his need for any light.
Fiona scowled at him when he stopped before the garden doors.
“Fuck that’s cold,” she complained, and he glanced down to see her bare feet against the stone.
If the stone was cold, the garden would likely be even worse. It was still late winter in the mountains. Frigid, even when the sun was high.
With one hand braced to keep the doors closed, he reached down and removed one of his boots, then the other, and set them in front of her.
Carelessly pushing a lock of her hair behind an ear, Fiona glanced from him to the boots, then back. Rogue said nothing, he only waited.
It was her move.
Touching her tongue to her teeth, she put a hand on the door for balance, then picked up one far too delicate foot and shoved it into one boot. It dwarfed her, so she would be hard pressed to move in those.
Might make running a little more challenging for her.
Intrigued, he waited until she had the second boot on and shuffled a step. A snorting laugh escaped her. “You know what they say about men with big feet.”
“No,” he said plainly. “I don’t. What do they say?”
Amusement flickered across her face as she tilted her head up. Intrigued, Rogue studied her, uncertain