Playing With Fire - Katie MacAlister [40]
‘‘Everyone was doing it then,’’ she said, her mouth tight. ‘‘I just wanted you to be happy. You seemed so lonely then. You still do.’’
‘‘I appreciate the thought now as I did then, but rampant sex with anything bearing the appropriate equipment and a libido to match has never been—and alas, never will be—my idea of a path to happiness.’’
‘‘But why didn’t you just tell me that?’’ she implored, slapping her hand down on the bed. ‘‘You should have just told me that you didn’t want me to try to set you up with someone. When I think of all the trouble I went to finding men for you . . . and later women . . . I could just cry, Mayling, I really could.’’
‘‘Cy!’’ I said, spinning around. ‘‘I did tell you. Repeatedly. But every time I brought up the subject, you started screaming and ran away.’’
She blinked at me in stupefied disbelief. ‘‘I did? Mayling, I’ve never once screamed and ran away when you talked to me about men, or the lack of them, in your life.’’
‘‘No, not men, man. As in one man. The one man who is the reason why I can’t have casual relationships with anyone, man or woman, not that my tastes are anything but traditional in that line.’’
I knew the moment she understood what I was talking about. Her face turned cold and hard, her eyelids drooped down, shadowing her eyes as she turned her head from me. ‘‘I don’t want to talk about it.’’
I was silent for a few moments, sharing in her pain. ‘‘It doesn’t matter,’’ I said finally, moving toward the door.
‘‘Mayling, wait . . .’’
I turned. Her eyes were bright with tears now, her face flushed.
‘‘It does matter. And you’re right, I have avoided . . . that subject . . . but what happened to me has nothing to do with you.’’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘‘I’m here. I think it has something to do with me.’’
‘‘No,’’ she said sharply, her color deepening as she bit her lower lip. ‘‘You’re right, you always are, and I see now that I’m partially responsible for you feeling you couldn’t be open with me. But that’s all over. We can talk about it.’’
I raised my hand and let it fall with a sense of futility. ‘‘I don’t see that any good will come of talking about what’s past. What’s done is done, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.’’
‘‘But, Mayling, you don’t see,’’ she said, scooting out of the bed, taking my hand and giving it a little squeeze. ‘‘Just because I was . . . I had . . . because Magoth . . .’’
‘‘You were enthralled, about to be made consort,’’ I said, finishing the sentence she was so clearly unable to say for herself.
‘‘Yes. And because of that, you were created, not that I’ve regretted that at all. You’re like the sister I never had.’’
I couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes I wondered what she would have been like if she hadn’t given up her common sense.
Her expression turned dark, her gaze dropping as she added in a lower tone, ‘‘And . . . people died.’’
‘‘It’s over, Cy.’’
‘‘No,’’ she said stubbornly, shaking her head. ‘‘I have to say it. Because Magoth enthralled me . . . because I had given in to him, he made me kill my lover.’’
I watched as she wrapped her arms around herself, sinking onto the edge of the bed. I hated for her to indulge in emotional flagellation, but she needed to understand once and for all just what sort of situation I was in.
‘‘But that doesn’t have anything to do with you,’’ she said after a few moments of silent weeping.
I handed her a box of tissues from the nightstand.
‘‘My downfall, my sins, are not reflected on you, you know that. And just because you work for Magoth doesn’t mean he’ll try—’’
‘‘He already has,’’ I interrupted.
Her eyes grew large as she looked up to me in horror.
‘‘No, he hasn’t succeeded yet; I’ve managed to keep my wits about me despite his seductions. But it’s been a very close thing the last couple of times, Cy, and to be perfectly frank, I don’t know that I’ll be able to withstand the next one.’’
Her mouth formed a perfect O.
I nodded. ‘‘So you see why it is that I can’t get involved with any man. The minute Magoth pulls me into his thrall, he’ll use me