"Hush," Zoe urged, not daring to stroke his cheek, he was so cut up. Her heart was breaking for his injuries; to have him hurt was to hurt herself. Tears began to roll unstoppably down her face. "Alex figured out you were a fairy. He found some old newspaper stories about men riding through the falls. You just lie still, and we'll call for help."
Bryan was already digging out his cell phone.
"No," Magnus said in a voice so firm it caused all of them to blink. "I can heal this quicker with no doctors watching. All I need is rest and orange juice. And to get these arrows out."
"I'll get the juice from your house," Bryan said, obviously eager to be out of there. "And a blanket in case you're in shock."
Magnus was shivering in her lap, his torso as heavy as a load of bricks. He closed his eyes and got heavier. "I can't believe you found me."
"I can't believe you were trying to convince your mother you were me! That is what you were doing, isn't it?"
His hand found her upper arm and squeezed. "You deserve more of this lifetime, love. You've hardly made a dent in it."
That made her cry harder. "You're an idiot. I have defenses."
"Not against my mother. She's rather more bloodthirsty than you're used to."
"No kidding." Zoe sniffed and dashed her tears away angrily. "Tell me the truth now, Magnus—no stories. Is your being from Fairy the reason you and I couldn't… be intimate the way I wanted to?"
He opened his eyes to smile at her with them, seeming relieved to be asked. "I made a magical agreement, so I could stay in the human realm. I had to win a new heart with each full moon and then give it back. I knew if I took yours, I'd want to keep it. I knew I'd never want to sleep with anyone but you. I would have been sent home as soon as the month ran out. I might never have seen you again."
"So when I thought you didn't trust me, that you didn't love me—"
Magnus took her face between hands that were sticky with his own blood. "I'm so sorry that's what you thought, so sorry I caused you a moment's pain. My heart was yours the day I laid eyes on you. Those other women were all that allowed me to be close to you."
"You could have told me the truth!"
"And risk enraging my mother?" Magnus shook his head. "I can't regret anything I did to keep you from facing her."
Zoe had to bite her lip to still its trembling. Maybe it was too soon, but the words I love you were an explosion waiting to break free. Magnus saw them in her expression, and his smile deepened. His beautiful, glowing eyes said everything she'd ever longed to hear from him. He loved her, too. No matter what appearances had suggested, it was there in his warm green gaze.
"Not to break this up," Alex said in an acid tone, "but what are the chances your mother is going to try for Zoe again?"
Magnus waited a beat before shifting his gaze to him. "I don't know. Realizing she almost killed her son may shock her out of more attempts for a while."
"For a while." Alex shook his head, his sea-blue eyes as hard as Zoe had ever seen them. "I'm sorry, Mr. Fairy Guy, but that's unacceptable."
"Zoe is as protected as any human can be."
"And you wouldn't, oh, I don't know, just go home like your mother wants?"
"Alex!" Zoe's cry drew neither of the men's attention from their stare off. "Magnus almost died for me."
"Magnus put you in danger in the first place."
"It's all right," Magnus said, touching her arm before she could speak again. "He deserves an answer more than most. I don't go home because my mother wants me to shore up her shaky rule. One faction would love that. Another hopes I'll depose her—preferably violently. The remainder would like it if I magically split the realm so that nobody ever has to meet anyone who disagrees with them. That was my father's choice, and, given the current situation, I can't say it worked. People simply find new things to fight about. At the moment, I appear to be the only one who knows the cure for Fairy lies not with me, but within each individual fairy heart."
"Which means what?" Alex said, his arms flexing with muscle as they crossed atop his navy polo shirt.
Magnus seemed to recognize the posturing for what it was. The corners of his mouth curved up. "It means magic should be shared and not hoarded. The universe makes room for every fairy's wishes to come true. If everyone understood that, Fairy could support a hundred thrones, including my mother's. But they'd rather believe one person or philosophy must reign supreme, and so they split into parties and sharpen their swords. Live and let live is not a model they understand."
Wincing slightly, Magnus shifted until he sat higher in her lap. With a grunt of effort, and a ruthlessness that made Zoe blanch, he pulled the most uncomfortable of the arrows from the ridged belly muscle where it had lodged. He panted for a moment before continuing. "I cannot rule my people because, in my heart, the only person I believe I have the right to rule is me."
"You could tell them that," Zoe said.
"Love," Magnus said gently, "I lived in my homeland for centuries. Everything I've told you, my people have heard from me and others more eloquent. Change will come one fairy at a time, when and if each chooses."
"A convenient attitude," Alex observed, but not as confidently as he had before. It was, after all, difficult to scold a man who looked more like St. Sebastian than the poster boy for selfishness.
Magnus smiled as gently at Alex as he had at her. "Perhaps we should table this debate for another time. I doubt any of us want to be here if those minions return."
The debate was tabled altogether, in being all too obvious that Zoe and Magnus wanted to be alone. Alex drove himself and Bryan back to their new hotel, where his grumpiness was not improved by what they encountered in the blandly modern lobby.
Admittedly, Alex's last progress report had been a little vague—and wasn't likely to get clearer, given today's events—but he hadn't expected to find Mrs. Pruitt living in wait for them. She looked ten years older than when they'd seen her last, and she hadn't been her freshest then. Circles shadowed eyes that were tired beyond what sleeplessness could cause, and her clothes—jeans and a pastel sweater set—were creased from traveling. The only real snap of life about her was her thin-lipped frown. She was pissed, Alex saw, and gearing up to get pissier.
Far more troubling than her mood was little Oscar's presence. Mother and son both slid from the lobby's blockish ecru chairs when they caught sight of him and Bryan.