Page 96 of Harnessed in Gold

“I didn’t tell her,” I rush to say. “I mean about you and Nàdar and all that.”

“There’s no rule saying you can’t.”

“Oh. There isn’t? Then why do I feel like there is?”

“Only you can answer that.”

Yeah, maybe it’s a ruleImade, not the fae. But I’m not about to do the psychoanalysis required to understand why.

The wine sloshes as I swirl it in my glass. “Okay, I’ll tell you what happened with Liv, but you have to promise not to get mad.”

Leo’s smile is slow. “You’re clairsentient, Betts. If I get mad, you’re going to feel it, no matter how I act on the outside.”

Well, crap. Then I suppose I might as well come out with it. “I did some hedge riding. Alone. And Liv found me and had to pull me out.”

Leo blows out a breath and drags a hand through his hair. “How hard did she have to work to get you out?”

“I… I don’t know,” I stammer, rattled by his spiking anger. Or maybe that was his blood pressure. “Hard enough to really upset her?”

Jaw ticking, he takes my glass from my hand. “Come on.” Toting both drinks, he leads me around the corner and into his room.

Rime’s voice echoes down the hall, “Anything you two need to do, you can do?—”

Leofirmly shuts the door.

“Sit,” he orders me, pointing to the foot of the bed.

For a moment I freeze, braced for Rime to storm our fortress. But Leo doesn’t appear the least bit concerned. Maybe faeries have better manners than humans when it comes to privacy.

Once my shoes are off and I’m sitting cross-legged on the bed, Leo hands me back my drink. Half-leaning, half-sitting on his dresser, he folds an arm across his chest, takes a sip of his wine, and asks, “Why?”

“Why did I hedge ride?” When he nods, I answer in a rush, “Because of what happened with the snowdrops and the holly. And what Jean said.”

“What Jean said about your power?”

“Yeah, and that whole ‘in your blood’ thing. That’s why I did the meditation. I was hoping maybe my ancestors had some answers because, you know, blood as in bloodline.”

I recognize the moment all my blather comes together for Leo. His chin lifts and his brows rise. “And did you get any? Answers, I mean.” He drops onto the bed beside me, forcing me to spin on my rear end to face him.

“Not really. I just found myself in the same place I was when we did the ritual at Avery’s.”

His eyes widen. “The river?”

I take a generous gulp of wine and relate what happened during the meditation. Patiently, Leo listens, taking in every detail. When I finish, he considers the man who joined me by the rock. “Was there anything about him that looked or felt familiar?”

I shake my head.

“And he talked to you?”

“Yeah, but I don’t remember what he said, or even what language he used.” It was his emotions that spoke to me, not his words.

“What about his clothes?” Leo asks, like a detective trying to profile a suspect. “Could you get an idea, maybe, of the time period you were in based on what he was wearing?”

A nervous little laugh tumbles out of my mouth. There’s no dating my ancestor by her lover’s outfit. It spans the ages.

“Betts?”

I meet his eyes and bite my lip.