Adam shoved the last tray of pasta back in a bag. It burst through the other end. Irritably, he folded the paper over it and shoved it under an arm. “In 847.”
She was silent a long, reflective moment, then, “Why wouldn’t she—”
He shot her a savage glare, eyes narrowed, teeth bared. “Enough. My life is not an open O’Callaghan Book, Sidhe-seer, to flip through as you wish and make all manner of bloody idiotic interpretations. The Tuatha Dé do not speak of Tuatha Dé matters to”—he gave her an icy sneer—“mere mortals.”
“Well, mister-mere-mortal-yourself,” she bristled right back at him, “maybe you’d better get used to it, because whether or not you like it, you need at least one of us ‘mere mortals’ to help you become a pompous-asshole-fairy-thing again.”
He tried to maintain his icy stare, but his lips curved despite his efforts and he shook with silent laughter. A pompous-asshole-fairy-thing. The indignity of it. Had any of his race ever been called such a thing? Nothing cowed the woman. Nothing. “Point made, ka-lyrra,” he said dryly. As he gathered the bags and turned to head for the kitchen, he added over his shoulder, “For the record, I’ve just told you more than I’ve told any other human in a very long time.”
“How long?” The moment she said it, Gabby wanted to kick herself. But she wanted to know. Wanted to know who the last woman . . . er, human, was who had truly known Adam Black.
He stopped and turned back to look at her. When his obsidian gaze met hers, Gabby suddenly felt a little chill in her blood. Sometimes he looked so human, while at others there was a frightening incongruity to his face, as if something terrifyingly old and completely inhuman were looking out at her from behind a Halloween mask of a youthful human face. And for a brief, strange moment she had the feeling that, were she to somehow lift that mask, she might find something very much like a . . . like a Hunter beneath it.
He made a small sound then, a tired sound. Not a sleepy sound, but an immortally weary one. Then he turned and resumed walking away.
She heard the refrigerator door open and close. Then silence. Then his deep, rich burr floated softly through the suite, “Since 847, Gabrielle.”
It was one in the morning by the time Gabby pulled out the sofa bed, still mulling over what Adam had revealed. She’d not missed the significance of the dates. Morganna had died mid–ninth century, had refused his offer of immortality and, right around that time, Adam Black had been seen by not just O’Callaghans but oodles of others, on a violent rampage through the Highlands.
Over Morganna?
Had Adam Black gone into a rage when he’d lost her? And if so, why had he permitted her to die? He’d been all-powerful; he could have forced her to stay alive, forced her to take his “elixir of life” (which was a mind-boggling concept in and of itself!).
Who was Morganna? What had she been like? Why had she refused it? How long had Adam spent with her? Had she lived her whole life with him? Woken up each morning with a Fae prince beside her in bed? Been spoiled every day by his crazy excesses, gone to sleep sated each night in his arms?
What had been so special about her that he’d tried to make her immortal?
“I could really hate that woman,” she muttered beneath her breath.
Adam Black had had a relationship with a mortal woman, fathered a son with her, tried to make her live forever.
And Gabby was feeling . . . oh, for heaven’s sake, she thought, exasperated, jealous. Envious that she kept denying herself, but Morganna hadn’t. No, Morganna had taken what he offered, plunged right into it, taken all of it. She’d touched him and kissed him and gone to bed with him. She’d played with all that silky dark hair, felt it sweeping over her naked body. She’d tasted gold-velvet fairy skin, had sizzling hot fairy sex with him. Even borne his son.
And when she died, he’d razed the Highlands. In his grief? Or had it merely been the petulance of a child denied his favorite toy?
Who cares? I wouldn’t mind being that man’s favorite toy for a lifetime, a teenage voice cooed dreamily. Beats the hell out of the boyfriends you keep picking. Why settle for normal when you could have a life full of fairy tail?
“Shut up,” she muttered. “I’m having a hard enough time without you tossing your two cents’ worth in. And spare me the juvenile puns.”
Scowling, she punched the pillows, plumped them, then snapped the blanket out, spreading it over the sofa bed. She’d just gotten it arranged when he came up behind her, slipped his hands around her waist, and pulled her back against him, her shoulders to his rib cage. The heat of his big body scorched her through her clothing and she could taste his exotic spicy scent on each shallow breath she drew.