There was a lot Katie didn’t know. She didn’t know how she’d gotten back to her white room. She didn’t know it was the same room, come to think of it. She didn’t know what the Matil had given her, that she could straighten her right arm, that she could bend and twist it. She was bemused it didn’t hurt anymore, because she was still wearing the bracelet. She didn’t know how she was sitting up normally, how her head was clear, how there was only a deep-looking scar on her wrist to show what she’d been living through.

  It was so anticlimactic she was almost disappointed. I guess I came pretty close to dying. She gulped back a scream of rage.

  Katie didn’t know a lot of things, but she knew to jump when the door chime went off. She made a graceless spluttering sound as she found herself on her feet. Nothing wrong with my reflexes.

  The chime sounded again, a soft, but cutting ping. “Who is it?” she asked, still ringing in every limb, taut as a startled cat.

  “It’s me, darling. Are you all right?”

  Surprise rang louder into her tension. Fox? “Uh… yes?”

  “May I see you?”

  If it made him happy, fine. He’d stuck up for her when it hurt him to do so. Her heart stitched with the memory. What had he done with Captain Itef? For me. For my sake. She wanted to cry, but she said, “Sure.”

  The door chimed again. Before it was even fully open, Fox came past in a rush of white silk. He hadn’t bothered to put on clothes—just silk boxers and a matching bathrobe—but he swept to her like he wore a robe of state and took her left hand in both of his. Like Eagle checked him, she thought, staring into his face while he caressed her unwithered arm. His touch was slightly too hot.

  “Oh, my dear,” he said, raising her hand to fiery, soft lips. “My dear. I was afraid for you.”

  “You—you were?” She sounded stupid, but in her defense, she was kind of stupefied. She made no attempt to recim her hand, and he rained kisses on it like it was something holy. “Fox, I—” But what could she say that wasn’t just as stupid? She shook her head, cmping her lips shut.

  He sounded like he was going to say something, but then he stopped and looked down between them. A flush just as startling as his appearance crept visibly up into his cheeks. His white silk robe almost enveloped them both.

  Fox squawked and started back, jamming the robe around himself. With shaky hands, he tied the belt.

  She tilted her head back and ughed. He had a nice chest, pierced nipples and all, but if all her hallucinations about him had been true things, he wouldn’t be interested. Dude didn’t even have half a chub, and she would’ve known in those boxers.

  “You’re so nice,” she said, when she’d wiped the tears from her eyes. They weren’t all mirth. It had been a long time since Katie had felt like anybody would miss her enough to—to—

  She didn’t even know.

  “I didn’t mean to arm you,” he said, a little injured. “I’m truly sorry. It’s only—only that—” Words seemed to fail Fox for the only time in her memory. He darted her a single, pleading look from his mesmerizing amber eyes.

  She spread her hands, trying to tell him, I don’t have any answers. He didn’t look particurly fragile; Fox wasn’t a small man, especially by Sidhe standards, double especially by Katie’s. Suddenly, though—he just looked like he’d fallen in on himself. So delicate she could break him with a word.

  “It’s okay, though, right?” she tried, even if she wasn’t totally sure it was. “I mean—it’s not hurting me anymore. Even if I don’t know how they did it.”

  “Ah.” Fox lit up again: I know that! She wanted to put him in her pocket. “They’re using a very specific localized force field.”

  “They are, huh?”

  “Yes—look here.” Fox took her hand, but only in one of his this time. He traced his pinky across the ft iron bracelet. Was that blood under his fingernails? “It’s filled the etching, do you see? Like enamel.”

  She’d barely noticed the roses etched there before, but now they were midnight blue.

  I can’t escape his colors even across the gaxy, she thought. Across the—who knows how many gaxies? Tears burned for attention. She didn’t know whether she wanted Beri’s colors, deep blue and close enough to silver, to remind her of what she’d been—or whether she never wanted to see the two together again.

  Fox tipped her chin up. Even through the blur, his eyes searched.

  It cleared as suddenly as it had fallen. “I picked him again,” she blurted. “The wizard boy,” she added, not expecting to expin much of anything, except Fox nodded ruefully.

  “Of course, I appreciate how it must look. You must think I’m terribly forward. And you, too—would you like my robe?”

  “I’m fine.” Katie really saw herself for the first time, but it wasn’t anything sexy, just a tank top with a deeply appreciated degree of support and a pair of yoga pants.

  His brow wrinkled in thought. She could practically hear the gears whizzing.

  With another ugh, she reached up and flicked his forehead. “Don’t worry. You and me are fine, just fine.”

  “But I don’t understand your taboos,” Fox insisted. “If you’d only expin to me, I’m sure I could get it right.”

  “Don’t even think twice about it,” Katie insisted right back. When he opened his mouth, she pointed her right index finger at him like it was a saber. “I command you.”

  Fox swept a deep bow, but in the middle of it he cracked up the same way she did. “Very well, Your Glory! As you require!” He straightened up with his arms outstretched, so she ran into them without thinking. Just like she would have with Daddy, she buried her face in his chest.

  He was just past hot, and slender instead of soft, and instead of a tight hug she had an awkward one. Instead of a sweater or suit, she felt burning skin and silk on her face—but even so, it was the same. He dropped his mouth and sighed into her hair, and his breath feathered heat over her scalp, but it was the same thing.

  The door pinged again. On reflex, she jumped away from Fox, but he only looked at her with a strange pity she didn’t understand. “A thousand pardons,” he said to the air, so smooth you’d never know he was—what? Angry? “I beg you for a moment’s time with the Princess Katherine.”

  She stood next to the bed, staring. When he gnced back, she made a slick motion with her hand, and he pretended to pop his colr.

  Behind him, the doors slid apart. “Bearach. I might have known.” She’d remember that voice anywhere: the manager alien, Frixm. She’d heard him before, maybe when he wouldn’t have wanted her to hear, but what had he said?

  Fox made a little noise in his throat. “Ugh. I hope it gives you a little peace to know the feeling is entirely mutual.”

  “Captain Itef is, of course, permitted his eccentricities,” said Frixm, who she couldn’t see because Fox was in the way—to hide her, she thought. He wouldn’t have wanted to be seen with a human. “He may intend to ignore your indecency and foolishness, but I do not.”

  Fox’s stance was wide open, but he wasn’t trying to hide at all. “Whose blood do you think is under my fingernails?” he demanded. “Try me, you businesslike rat!” He stood between her and Frixm in his fucking bathrobe, his arms spread to make a wider front—like a bodyguard. If Frixm went at her like this, he’d catch Fox first.

  Her heart jumped and sang even while Frixm was talking. He’s protecting me! But he didn’t need to now. Nothing hurt, so she’d show him a thing, and Frixm too.

  She ducked under Fox’s arm and popped up in front of him, as close to Frixm’s face as possible. Dismayed, Fox murmured a protest, but she didn’t slow her roll now that she’d gotten started. Realistically, Katie was short, but when she got in your face, she made sure you’d know it.

  She shoved him mid-chest with her little bitty hand, and it rocked him back a step. “I don’t know you very well, but I don’t like what I see. Step off before I kick your ass.”

  Frixm’s thin, snaky lip curled. He didn’t have any fangs at all. “I have no intention of ignoring any indiscretions in the future.”

  Katie wasn’t listening. Behind her, Fox was watching, but a quick gnce showed her a smile.

  She’d listened enough. Even Fox thought so. She rolled onto the balls of her feet and put her fists up. “Come on now. I know you wanna fight me. Do you hate my guts?”

  “Oh, yes.” Frixm looked like he wanted to eat her—and not in a sexy way. He didn’t even blink.

  Good. She didn’t like him. “What’s the matter, then? You’re not big enough to fight me? I’m just a little girl.”

  “You,” he said, “are so far beneath me—”

  She saw it in his eyes less than an instant before he shed out. He whiffed her perfectly-styled hair (fucking aliens!) as the strike passed, and again on the lightning backswing—nothing more. She saw the other hand too, and much sooner.

  A few quick dance steps and she was back where she started. With the wide space of floor and the furniture, this room would be perfect to run him around all day if she wanted. “At least make me break a sweat.”

  They danced a little more, back and forth, up and down: him trying to grab her neck, her having none. All she had to do was keep dodging. Katie broke a sweat after all, but he didn’t because his snake ass probably couldn’t.

  After a couple more minutes, she got bored. It got easier and easier to avoid him, and she was fine. She tripped him and sent him face-first into the arm of a couch, just because he’d put Fox in a prison. Fox had been good to her—so good. She remembered that more than anything else. Frixm fell heavily, smacked in the face with his own momentum. With one st ugh, triumphant and nasty, she turned away.

  “So,” she said to Fox, fists on her hips. She really did feel much better. “What’d you think?”

  “Hmm.” Fox seemed to be trying not to ugh. “I think Eagle couldn’t have done it better, except perhaps one thing.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “Very well.” Fox pointed over her shoulder. “Eagle wouldn’t turn his back on Frixm.”

  “Oh, well, that—” Katie smmed her elbow back. Sure enough, it met flesh. Sor plexus, unless she missed her guess. Nice.

  Frixm made a funny noise again. “Gak.”

  “Maybe Eagle has trouble with that,” Katie said innocently.

  Frixm picked himself up off the floor and beat a hasty retreat. She didn’t turn around again until the doors whooshed shut behind him, and then it was only for an instant.

  She turned back to Fox, spreading her hands: well?

  If she had her phone, she’d have taken a picture of his face right then. The absolutely wicked glee that lit him from within made her want to squeal with delight. He had his arms crossed and he looked like a supervilin, and she didn’t care. If a supervilin could put it in their fucking teeth, she was with him, and she had zero doubt Fox would try. Hadn’t he just told her what they did to the bracelet with barely a gnce? He was fucking magic.

  “Princess Katherine,” he said gravely, “in better health, you are a joy to behold. I hope you’ll allow me to extend my hand in what I believe will be a highly fruitful association.”

  She grinned up at him with all her strength. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  They shook on it.