“Not just my castle!” he exclaimed. “I need a human baby!”
“Well, what you got was….” She blinked. “What are they again?”
“Sprites!” he bellowed. “Pixies, imps! You have dozens of names for them.” He rounded on her. “And they belong on Earth, not in Fairyland.”
“Huh,” she said as she leaned back against Beau’s cage, laughter in her tone. “Well, I guess that sucks for you.”
She ought to take this more seriously, because each pixie was now the size of a bus and was happily destroying everything in sight. The fireworks were getting larger by the second, and every boom shook the foundations.
“Are we safe in here?” she asked.
Bitterroot nodded, his expression grim. “I told you before that I reinforced the nursery. The entire realm can fall to ashes and we would still be safe in here.”
Well, that was reassuring. “And the others in your realm?”
“The minions will dissolve and reform, as will everything else.”
That was true. She had seen it happen more than once. He snapped his fingers and everything disintegrated in a fall of sparkly lights, only to reform as something else. Don’t like the castle? How about a high-rise tower? Not into penthouse living? How about a beach house complete with an ocean and dolphins? Everything was constructed from Bitterroot’s will.
Everything but her and—apparently—the pixies. And that made her happy enough to grin.
“Guess we’re stuck in here for a while,” she quipped as she pulled out a chair and sat down to watch the show. The cheese-like pixies released the slingshot and… wham! Dead shot right at the nearest spire. The tower crumpled to the ground as if it had been hit by a boulder.
She chuckled. “Are you going to remake it for them?”
“Why? They will just destroy it again.”
That was likely. Especially since they were now aiming at the next tower, this one a little farther away.
“Hangnails and hobgoblins!” he suddenly spat.
“What?”
“I cannot take revenge on them.” Then he closed his eyes in the first show of weakness from him she’d ever seen. “And I cannot bargain for another child.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be trading for babies like they’re cans of beans.”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. “You do not understand. I need a human child. It is the only way to save this place. To save all of it.” His wave included everything.
She didn’t care so much about the castle or its rapidly falling spires. But she did care about the nursery and the dragons. And, of course, herself.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Of course you don’t. You have not tried to learn about me or the problems I face while you play with my pets.”
“That’s not true!” she said. But it was true. She’d come here so angry with him for forcing her into this situation that she’d turned her back on him the second she’d arrived. She’d focused on learning her job—how to take care of the baby dragons—and had steadfastly refused his invitations to dinner, for walks, for anything except what was absolutely required of her as a mother of dragons.
Except now she wondered just how much she had missed. What didn’t she understand?
“Why do you need a human child?”
“It is the only way to preserve what I have here, but I have sworn not to get another child. I cannot go back to Earth and get one.”
She nodded. “That’s a good thing, Bitterroot. Humans shouldn’t give up their babies.”
“He would be a king in Fairyland!”
“He belongs with his human parents.”
Bitterroot turned his attention back outside. The cheesy pixies were having trouble with the second spire. They’d only half destroyed it, so they were loading up again with what looked like triple the payload.
“It’s the only thing that will save my home,” he whispered.
“Well, you’ll just have to find another way, instead of kidnapping somebody’s child.”
He nodded. “Such is the law. What I have sworn, I must obey.”
“Good.”
He turned to look at her, and his expression was calm, determined, and a little bit scary. Actually, it was more than a little scary. The way he looked at her had turned into an intense scrutiny or a desperate challenge. And she didn’t like where either of those thoughts were leading her. Or him.
“Bitterroot…,” she said, though she had no idea how to finish that sentence.
“You are a human woman,” he said.
“Er, yes. Yes, I am.”
“You can give birth to a human child,” he stated. “In fact, you said you wanted one.”
“Someday! I said someday. And with the right man.” She straightened off her chair and started backing into the cage room. Except there was nowhere to go. Not with the dragon cages behind her and Pixie Armageddon outside. “Bitterroot, I’m not having your baby.”
“I know,” he said softly. “I am of Fairy, and I need a human child.”
Oh shit. That sounded a lot worse.
“I’m not having a baby just so you can use it!”
He exhaled slowly and his expression turned cunning. “Well,” he drawled in that really sexy, really annoying way he had. “I guess that means we have a lot to discuss.”
“What?”
He gestured outside. “We cannot go out there until the sprites get bored and settle down.”
She frowned. “How long will that be?”
He shrugged. “The last pixie invasion lasted a thousand years.”
She swallowed. “That’s a really long time.” Good thing her contract was for only another ten months. But she didn’t want to spend all that time locked inside with him. She’d go mad for sure and likely do something really, really stupid.
Meanwhile, Bitterroot grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and dropped it down in front of her. Then he sat and set his chin on his fist. It was a casual pose and one that never failed to freak her out, mainly because he was a pompous asshole of a fairy prince except in
