I actually took a step toward him, but I stumbled on the edge of my floor-length skirt. I looked down and found myself in a dress that matched the tower room. I was dressed like some fairy-tale princess waiting to be rescued. My heart climbed into my throat, so that I was choking on it.
“Meredith.” And the moment he said my name, the fear receded. I gazed up at him and found this new, more human Taranis comforting. Part of me knew that was wrong, that he wasn’t comforting, but it was as if I couldn’t think the thought all the way through.
He crossed the room and touched my cheek, ever so gently, with the back of his hand. “Come to me, Meredith, come and be my queen and I will keep you safe from all that would harm you.”
His tone was sweet, but his words jarred me, because they did not ring true with my own memories. I moved my face back from that touch and said, “You’re part of what I need to be protected from.”
He looked puzzled, as if my words made no sense. “Meredith, I would never hurt you.”
I looked up into that handsome face and thought, He would never hurt me, of course he would never hurt me. I said, “No,” not because I believed it in that moment, but as a place to start. No, he was wrong somehow. No, I shouldn’t be here. No, just no.
“Oh, Meredith, I want to take care of you, you and our children.”
I shook my head. “No … not …” Not what, I thought? What was he not? What was not true? That was it, something he’d just said wasn’t true, but what was it? Why couldn’t I think?
He touched my face again, and I started to rub my face against his hand, but stopped in midmotion, because there was nothing familiar about his hand on my face. I had so many men who touched my face, who held me, who kept me safe, but this hand wasn’t one of them. This man wasn’t one of them. Who was he then, what was he to me? Why couldn’t I think?
I shook my head hard enough that he had to move his hand. I tried to back away from him but tripped over the hem of the dress, falling to the floor hard enough that it jarred me, and I tasted blood, from biting my tongue. A single pink rose petal drifted down into my lap, and a tiny drop of blood began to fall from my lip, and it was as if time stretched forever as that drop fell in slow motion down, down, to finally land on that pink petal.
It was as if time, sound, reality all resumed with a rush that should have had a sound to it like the Doppler shift of a car speeding past me in the dark, so near that its wind ruffles my hair, tugs at my clothing, and leaves me gasping at the nearness of it.
I looked up at him, and said, “I know who you are.”
He knelt beside me, smiling. “Of course you know me, I am your beloved.”
“You are Taranis, King of Light and Illusion; you beat me and you raped me, and everything else is a lie.”
His smile faded around the edges; that pleasant face flickered, like a TV set that wasn’t quite on one station, so you got the ghost of other images, and then he was back to pleasant, smiling, handsome, but harmless. I could change my physical appearance using glamour, but I couldn’t add an emotion to it and make someone feel things they didn’t actually feel. Was that all that his illusions were, just personal glamour with the addition of being able to project thoughts and feelings?
“Meredith, Meredith, see how much I love you.”
I looked into his face and saw … love. He loved me, of course he loved me. He had always loved me … and the moment I thought that, I knew it was wrong. I remembered him beating me as a child. I remembered how terrified I had been of him. I remembered reaching out to my mother and she had turned away. It had been my grandmother, her mother, who had saved me from the king’s anger.
I shook my head. “It’s a spell, it’s just a spell, it’s not real.”
“I want you, Meredith, I need you, that is true. I swear it by any oath you ask of me.” He reached out to touch my face again.
I flinched away from his hand, but that put me almost prone on the floor, and I knew that was a bad idea, so I tried to stand, but I got tangled in the long skirts and fell back to my knees.
His hands closed on my upper arms, and he pulled me against his chest. He was so much bigger than I was, as tall as any of my lovers, and broader through the chest and shoulders than anyone but Mistral. He would be stronger than me even if he’d been human, but he wasn’t human, he was sidhe, and once had been a god. He held me against his body as we knelt on the floor of the tower and I was happy for how full my skirts were, because I could only feel his chest and stomach against my back; the skirts protected me from feeling anything lower on his body.
I was so scared I couldn’t breathe, as if the fear were squeezing my chest too tight for me to draw a complete breath of air.
He whispered my name, “Meredith, Meredith, Meredith,” and with each repetition of my name my fear began to fade, until by the time he’d said it a dozen times I melted in against his body, letting his arms wrap around me, so that his big hand held my lower arms and then wrapped my arms and his across my body, so that I was held so close, so safe.
“I need you, Meredith,” he whispered; his breath was warm against my hair and face as he bent over me and planted a kiss on my neck. His lips were so warm.
“But give me a willing kiss, Meredith, and then you will be mine.”
It seemed so reasonable. I began to turn my head back toward him, and then what he’d actually said came to me. “Willing,” I said.
He laid another warm kiss along my neck. “Yes, Meredith, willing. I want you always to be willing, so there are no more misunderstandings between us.”