She narrowed her eyes and he felt her body snap rigid with icy cold. “Fortunately, I don’t need anyone. Except that bloodsucker, at the moment. And I don’t trust her.”

Gareth tossed the cloth over a brass bar. “Have you ever trusted anyone?”

“No. It’s how I’ve managed to survive.”

“Well, my lady, it appears you have no other choice but to trust Selena, if you wish to free your Nell. But what will you do when she demands the relic in payment and you cannot remove it from your wrist?”

Millicent smoothed back her shiny black hair and purred. “I’ll think of something.”

She turned and joined Selena in the parlor and Gareth followed, glancing around with regret. A room worthy of the finest brothel in London, with myriad soft surfaces to cushion the backsides of the most passionate of lovers. He had so hoped to seduce the relic-holder here.

He pulled on his surcoat and tunic while both women watched him in silence. He shook the hair out of his face and buckled on his sword belt, his hand automatically patting his empty scabbard. He felt more naked without his sword than he had without his tunics. When he looked up at the women, they both released a sigh, although with entirely different inflections. Gareth smiled.

Apparently, Selena had already rung for the guard, for the stone door began to groan. She didn’t remove her eyes from Gareth as she said, “There should be only one guard, since it’s been less than an hour.”

Millicent shifted to panther and before Gareth could move, she lunged through the opening in the door. A loud thud followed a muffled oath of surprise. Gareth entered the landing and took the sword of the unconscious guard, hefting the blade to get a feel for its balance, checking to make sure some silver laced the blade.

Selena joined them and shot Millicent a look of amusement. “You lack finesse, my dear.”

She answered with a twitch of her whiskers and an angry flick of her tail.

Gareth dragged the guard into the room and pulled the statue on the outside wall, watching the door grind to a close with satisfaction. Then he crossed the landing and peered down the stairway, seeking hidden guards within the shadows. Selena brushed her body against his as she took the lead, the black beads of her dress winking at him from the glow of the fairylights that lined the walls. She’d left her torn pelerine in the room and her white shoulders gleamed. Gareth had to admit she was truly a lovely woman. His neck ached with the thought.

Millicent brushed by him, almost making him stumble, putting her furry self between him and the other woman.

Selena’s course took them down stairways again, but this time they appeared little used, and Gareth sheathed his sword and took a fairylight from one of the sconces to light his way when he realized they’d become scarce. His night vision wasn’t as strong as the shape-shifters’.

His sense of direction told him they’d turned a circle, and as the walls grew slimy and then dripped with moisture, he realized they’d entered passageways carved into the stone mountain that backed the castle. The air grew close and thick, until it seemed as if he could feel the weight of the stone surrounding them.

Selena appeared to revel in the space, but Millicent began a soft whine in the depths of her throat. Gareth wondered if she even realized how contrary to her nature her life had been, that panthers belonged under the open sky, flourishing in the freedom of plain and meadow.

He tucked the small globe of the fairylight into his belt, pushed beside her, and draped his arm over her neck, absently caressing the longer fur at her throat. Her whine grew into a purr and they traveled that way for a time, until Selena led them into narrower, roughly hewn tunnels, and they were forced to walk single file.

Gareth bumped into Millicent’s furry backside when she came to a sudden halt.

“Stay here,” whispered Selena as she entered a slightly wider opening. Millicent ignored her and started to follow. “You owe me a dinner,” continued the were-bat.

Millicent snorted and sat on her haunches.

Selena disappeared and Gareth soon heard a man’s startled oath.

“Selena, what are you… no, damn it. The last time you barely left me enough—” A gasp followed and then the guard sighed with rapture. “Gawd, woman, just leave me enough to walk afterward.”

The sound of slurping made Gareth shudder with the memory and he took a step forward. But he couldn’t get around Millicent without hurting her and she refused to budge. She glanced behind her at him, those golden eyes glowing with annoyance.

Gareth sighed. “We should stop her now,” he whispered.

Millicent shifted to human, making him blink at how quickly she transformed. “It’s better this way. Do you think he’d prefer that I tear out his throat, or that you run him through with your sword?”

He longed to know what had been done to her to make her into such a hard woman. And knew he’d have to discover it before she would allow him to possess her. “He doesn’t need to die.”

“He has kept Nell imprisoned in that filthy cell. Do you think I care?”

The sadness that sometimes gripped him nearly choked the breath from him. Gareth picked her up, swung her behind him, and drew his sword. He crossed into the open chamber, wondering if he’d have to use his weapon as a lever to pry Selena off the man.

But she appeared to be sated, her hand covering her mouth as she leaned drunkenly against the wall, the guard crumpled at her feet. Gareth sheathed his sword and knelt down to feel for a pulse.

“I left him enough,” mumbled Selena. He glanced up at her as her black, leathery wings shifted back into her body. “The duke doesn’t like it when I drain his men dry.”

“I imagine not.” Gareth stood and scanned the chamber—a scarred wooden table with a single lantern, a few chairs, a keg of ale, and a stone slab that could be a door, although it lacked a statue to open it. Millicent already stood near it, her hands running over several holes in the wall.

“It doesn’t bother you, does it?” asked Selena as she drew next to him. “My nature, that is?”

Gareth could smell the coppery scent of blood and the musky odor of lust.

“Because if it does, I’ll stop.” She hiccupped. “I swear I’ll never touch another drop.”

“Where is the key to the prison door, Selena?”

Her glossy black eyes widened and then she grinned. “Oh, there isn’t one. The duke likes these clever doors, you see. You put your finger in the proper holes and push the release knob inside. This one just needs—”

Stone ground against stone and they both turned toward the sound.

“Hasty, hasty,” sang Selena. “If she’d stuck her finger in the wrong hole, she would have lost it.”

Gareth glanced back down at the guard. He lacked two fingers on his left hand. His stomach twisted at the thought of Millicent being hurt and he cursed at her rashness while he strode toward her. She disappeared into the black void where the door had stood.

Gareth followed, his nose stinging from the sharp odor of stale urine. He pulled the fairylight from his belt and held it aloft to relieve the absolute darkness. Red fire flashed in the corner of the dirt room, and it took him a moment to realize it was but the glow of the reddest hair he’d ever seen. Millicent crouched just above that head of extraordinary hair, and Gareth slowly approached.

“If they’ve harmed you, I’ll kill them,” muttered the were-cat as she gently touched the small woman’s shoulders. “I don’t care if the duke has a legion of men and monsters. I’ll swear vengeance and track him down like the dog he is and then—”

“Crikey, Millie, stow it,” rasped the woman.

“Can you stand, my lady?” interjected Gareth.

The redhead’s eyes widened as she looked up at him. Gareth studied her in turn. Even standing, the woman would barely reach his waist and he wondered if she had dwarven blood in her veins. But she lacked the sturdy look of those folk. Instead, she had the build of a sprite, with thin, delicate limbs. Her small, pinched face made her beaked nose look even larger. This close he could see the gray that streaked her hair and the knobbiness in the bones of her hands. Wrinkles seamed her face and her violet eyes measured him with experienced wisdom. “And who the hell are ye?”

Gareth bowed and Millicent sighed. “Nell Feenix, this is Sir Gareth Solimere, a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table…” She held up her hand to stop the old woman’s questions. “I know, but it’s a long story, Nell. I’ll explain it all when I get you out of here.”

“Hmph. Well, it’ll take the both of ye to straighten out these hollow old bones.”

He took the hint and gently grasped her one arm while Millicent held the other. They both slowly pulled her up, amid crackles and pops that made him wince. They led her from the room and Nell’s face lit when she spied the keg. Gareth made sure her legs would hold and then strode over to the table, wiping down the guard’s tankard before filling it with fresh ale. The man himself still lay in a stupor.

The old woman studied him when he walked back to her but didn’t say a word until after she’d drained the cup. “Yer eyes tell me ye’re older than me, yet ye move like a dancer I once knew. He was the best lover I’d ever had.” She laughed at whatever expression had bloomed on his face. “Can’t wait to hear this one’s story, Millie.”

Millicent frowned. “You won’t believe it even after I explain. It’s the worst thing that ever could have happened to me.”

Gareth experienced the oddest pain in his chest. This woman had the uncanny knack of wounding him in ways he’d never felt before.