Touch (Touched by the Fae 3)

Instead, I try to poke holes in his grand plan.

“How?” One of the techs will recognize me, or a nurse. It’s bound to happen. “What if I see Amy or Penelope? One of the nurses? I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Don’t worry about that. I can glamour you enough that no one will know it’s you.” Gillespie disappears for a moment, returning with a bag in his hand. He drops it over the edge of the circle. “I can do faces, but not clothes. These scrubs will make it seem like you’re just another tech.”

He’s thought this all through. He’s… he’s serious about this.

It’s not just a cruel tease. I’m finally getting the hell out of here.

This is actually great news.

I have a chance.

Easy, Riley. Don’t mess this up.

I try to hide my excitement, keeping my face as tired and aggravated as it’s been for days as I remind him, “How am I supposed to leave? Don’t know if you forgot, but your fancy salt over there won’t let me anywhere near it.”

“I’ll let you free on the condition that you follow me home. Once you’re there, I won’t even have to lay the salt down. My wards will keep you inside.”

If he says so.

“Okay,” I lie.

He’s a halfling. He has to know that, as a half-human, my word doesn’t mean shit. I could promise him the stars and the moon and if he believes me, that’s his own stupid fault.

Or maybe I’m the idiot for believing that I’m fooling anyone.

He wags his finger at me. “Don’t get any funny ideas, either, Riley. There’s nothing I won’t do to take you with me. No one is indispensable. And even if you tried to hide…” Gillespie slips his hand beneath his shirt, yanking on a slender, leather twine that’s hanging off his neck. Another tug and there it is: the necklace with the pale pink crystal, the rusty nail, and the donut-looking seeing stone. He taps that one with his finger. “You know I’ll find you.”

I almost stop breathing as he tucks it back into place.

He has it. Thank fucking God. He has it. I don’t have to wonder about where he’s kept the crystal, or if all of this was for nothing. If I can figure out a way to escape him after I get my hands on his necklace, then these last few days of hell would’ve been worth it.

I’ll do anything I have to to get that necklace, even pretend like he’s worn me down.

“I’ll behave,” I tell him. Then, to prove that I mean it, I crawl across the room, snatch an old, shriveled grape from the plate and pop it in my mouth. “See?”

All my years of practicing how to fake taking my nighttime meds come in handy. I squish the nasty grape into the gap between my molars and my cheek—and, jeez, it’s super mushy once it’s in there—before opening my mouth and showing him that it’s gone.

He tosses the bar at me, the magnanimous lord throwing scraps to his dogs, before telling me to get some rest because I’m going to need it.

As soon as he locks the door again, I hop up from the floor and spit every last bit of the grape out of my mouth. I cup tap water in the well of my glove, rinsing my tongue, my teeth, my lips so that I don’t swallow anything I shouldn’t.

Once I’ve gotten the taste of the grape out of my mouth, I gobble the bar down. It’s some kind of oatmeal, granola, chocolate chip mix and it’s the best thing I’ve had in ages. I need the sugar. I need the energy. One way or another, I’m going to get myself out of this mess because being moved to a second location is the biggest no-no when it comes to being captured.

He’ll do it, too. I have no doubt in my mind that Gillespie means every threat he so casually puts out there. He might’ve shown me his necklace, but I still remember the switchblade the outwardly prim and proper doctor keeps stowed in his pocket.

If I don’t do what he wants, one of the asylum’s patients or staff will pay for it. I can’t let that happen.

I can’t let him take me from this place, either.

When Nine first found me in the asylum, he tried to explain how—at that exact moment—Rys was a bigger threat than Melisandre because he was sure that I was supposed to be his mate. His ffrindau. When it comes to a fae claiming their lifelong partner, nothing can stop them.

I learned that the hard way. Up until the second Nine claimed me in front of the Fae Queen’s Court, Rys kept trying to convince me that I should choose him. He stopped short of grabbing me and dragging me to Faerie with him, but I suspect that that would’ve happened eventually once he realized that I was never going to go with him willingly.

Now it’s been weeks since I’ve seen Rys. I thought my biggest problem was trying to figure out how to save Nine, then hide from Melisandre. Trying to steal Gillespie’s crystal was supposed to be the easiest part of my plan.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.