Free Charming the Devil by Lois Greiman Page A

mindlessly to and fro, wanting to curl up inside herself. Wanting to forget the flaring panic she had seen in the fox’s eyes. Wanting with all her might to be unable so completely to empathize with the hunted animal’s fear. Communing with beasts was not her gift, yet she could feel the creature’s terror throb beneath her own skin. Could hear the footfalls of the hunters in the beat of her own frantic heart and knew she would be caught. Would be—
    “Where have you gone?”
    Faye’s breath rasped in her throat. She jerked her gaze toward the trail. They were coming for her. Tracking her just as they’d tracked the fox.Hunting. Without mercy. And they’d find her. They always did.
    “Mrs. Nettles.”
    She crouched lower behind the sheltering log, barely breathing.
    “Are you in here?”
    No. She squeezed her eyes closed, pretending she wasn’t there. Pretending if they couldn’t see her, she’d be gone. Disappeared. Like a wisp of smoke blown aloft by the fitful breeze. But her gifts didn’t work that way. Her gifts dealt with pain. With betrayal.
    “Are ye well, lass?” The voice rumbled through the woods from some unknown location. But the tone was low and quiet and seemed to have no edge of evil teasing. No threat of retribution. She drew a breath and exhaled shakily, remembering. She was no longer a child. No longer a pawn. She was Mrs. Nettles, polished, educated, powerful.
    Lifting an unsteady hand, she swiped her gloved fingers across her cheek, but she could yet see the fox’s wide eyes, could taste its acrid terror. And with that painful memory her stomach roiled again. She gritted her teeth, fighting for control.
    “Lass?” came the voice again. She jerked her gaze to the right, and he was there. Rogan McBain. Not thirty feet separated them.
    “You should not ride out alone, lass,” he said.
    She straightened her back carefully. “Why ever not?” she asked, and hoped to God he wouldn’tnotice that her cheeks were wet, her hands atremble.
    “’Tis not safe,” he said, and studied her face, as if she might disappear at any moment.
    “Well…” Her nose was runny, and she wished that for once she had remembered a handkerchief. Wished she could act her age, or her supposed station, or at least her species. A fox had died. An animal! “As you can see, I am perfectly fine,” she said.
    He shuffled his feet in the underbrush. They were clad in black leather boots that rose nearly to his powerful, tightly clad thighs. “All is well then?”
    Touching the back of her knuckles to her nose, she hoped to God he would not realize her shuddering sorrow. “Of course. Why would it not be?”
    Silence again, deep and pulsing, and when he finally spoke, he canted his head the slightest degree as if to judge her reaction. “You were correct, ’twas naught but vermin,” he said.
    And yet there seemed almost to be a strange regret in his solemn tone, as if he, too, had felt the animal’s fear as his own. Could that be the case? But the sight of him towering above her dashed such foolish notions, for he was strength itself. Dressed in a charcoal, knee-length coat, his shoulders looked as wide as the horizon, as strong as the oaks that towered above him. A man such as he would have no concept of fear. Therefore, this strange tone of his must be some kind of ploy. Agame she had not yet deciphered. They oft liked to play games. She stifled a shiver.
    “Surely you do not think me upset by the plight of the fox,” she said, and steeling herself, raised her eyes to his.
    Their gazes met, and for one sterling moment she almost won the battle, almost played the part, but try as she might, she had never been good at this sport. One tear, hot and fat, swelled in the corner of her eye and slipped traitorously down her cheek.
    He watched her in silence, his face like granite, his expression etched in solemnity. But there was something indefinable in his stormy eyes. “If not for the fox, then what?” he