Millicent followed Gareth into the tiny cave and stopped and stared. It felt cooler and dryer than the forest below. Three beds had been made with layers of foliage, separated by walls of branches for privacy. A flat stone near the front of the cave made a table of sorts, with three low stools clustered around it, made from branches tied with stiff plant fiber.

The middle of the stone table held a cluster of opalescent flowers in a hollowed-out gourd. Millicent didn’t know where he got them, but the flowers gave off a more intense glow than that of the trees, lighting the cave with soft, pearly splendor.

“You did all of this?” she whispered.

Gareth bowed. “Your new abode, my lady. Do you like it?”

Millicent didn’t answer his question. She couldn’t. No one had ever done anything like this for her before. It felt like a home. Could he even guess that she’d never had one? She stroked the petals of the flowers. “You’ll have to show me where you picked these. Although this place is no illusion, magic surely went into the making of it.”

The knight sighed, as if he hadn’t truly expected her to thank him, and took a step toward her. “The wizard who made it must have missed the ocean.”

She looked at him blankly.

“You’ve never seen the ocean, have you? It’s a large body of salty water, where enormous fish and plants live. There are even shape-shifters within its depths, men and women who can transform to fish.”

Millicent bristled. In the few months she’d spent with the duke above, she’d seen only a bit of London and most of it looked little different than her twilight city. Abovegrounders always thought their world was so superior. “We have lakes down here. Black lakes with creatures living in them.”

“Ah, but you’ve never seen sunlight sparkling on waves of water, foam crashing against the beach.” His eyes shimmered with sadness and his voice lowered to a husky murmur. “I barely remember it, myself.”

Then his eyes cleared as he studied her face. “You’ve lived in the darkness as much as I have, haven’t you, my lady?” Again he reached out and touched her, his fingertips as soft on her face as the touch of a fairy’s wing. “I wish I could take you there.”

Millicent suppressed a derisive laugh. “Wishes are for fools and dreamers, and I am neither.” She turned and scurried back down the path. If he kept it up, the man would have her mooning after dreams herself. But he still had hope that his curse would be broken. She’d lost her hope of a happy ending to her life many years ago.

Sir Gareth called out to her and she shifted to panther so she couldn’t answer him. For a moment there, he’d almost had her convinced that he cared about her. She’d never heard of a man seducing a woman by making her a home from a cave, but if he’d thought to soften her heart, he’d managed to come close to figuring out how.

She reached the patch of sand where she’d left Nell and shifted back to human. “No thanks,” she muttered.

Nell rolled over and blinked up at her sleepily. “No thanks to wot?”

Sir Gareth strode into the clearing, one of those hard-shelled creatures in his hands. “It appears that my lady is not satisfied with my attempts to see to her comfort.”

Nell sat with a wince, her knobby hand rubbing the small of her back. “Crikey, did ye say comfort? I’d give a sweet shilling to get off this hard sand and away from the little gnats that live in it. And what’s that ye got in yer hands?” The nostrils of her beaked nose flared.

Gareth set his offering before her and cracked open the round top, exposing fleshy meat. “I don’t know what it’s called, Lady Nell, but when cooked it tastes like lobster.”

Nell smiled at his use of the honorific, and without further ado, dug into the food, pulling out strings of moist meat and popping them into her mouth.

Millicent’s own mouth watered. While her were-cat preferred raw meat, the food smelled heavenly to her human nose. “How did you manage a fire?”

When he took a step toward her and she quickly backed up, he stopped and frowned. “I didn’t need one. That small pool cooks these to perfection.”

“Of course. Well, it’s nice of you to bring Nell some food, but I can take care of her myself.”

“I never said you couldn’t, my lady. I just thought you’d be too tired to hunt this morning, and sought to make things easier for you.”

Nell’s sharp eyes flew back and forth between the two of them while she continued to munch.

“I don’t need anyone to make my life easy. I don’t need to get soft.” Millicent spoke her next words slowly, as if to a simpleton. “I don’t need you.”

“Nay, I fear you don’t. But I can’t say the same.”

“Dammit, I’m not the one, I tell you. Can’t you get that through that thick skull of yours?”

They stared at each other, the very air seeming to crackle between them. Millicent felt peculiar, though. Oh, she was mad at his stubbornness, right enough, but her anger made the beast within her shiver with sultry heat. What madness had overcome her cat?

Nell set down her shell of food, gave a satisfied burp, and leaned back. “Millicent, if this here lad can follow us, the duke’s men can as well.”

“He didn’t follow us.” She held out her arm and pointed at the band of silver circling it. “He comes out of here. No matter how far I go, I can’t get away from him.”

Nell rose unsteadily to her feet, a few bones creaking with the effort, and took her arm, studying the jeweled bracelet. “This is the relic ye spoke of before. And it’s tied to this lad? I think it’s past time ye told me what the duke had ye up to, my gel.”

Millicent took a deep breath and told the entire story, while the trees continued their gentle sighing and the fans above pretended to cool the air. By the time she’d finished, sweat trickled down her legs and within the valley of her breasts.

Gareth watched her with a half smile, looking cool and comfortable in nothing but his linen drawers.

Nell turned to study him and suddenly he didn’t look as composed. “Well, lad, I must say the relic picked the wrong gel. Me Millicent won’t have nuthin’ to do with ye, despite that sinful smile of yers and that sleek, muscled body. Now me, on the other hand…” She cackled at his blush.

“It isn’t funny, Nell,” snapped Millicent.

Her eyes narrowed as she nodded. “No, my gel, it ain’t. And I’ll spend some thought on how to help ye out of this, to be sure. Seein’ as it’s my fault and all.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Ye wouldn’t have done it if Ghoulston hadn’t used me against ye.”

Millicent shook her head, damp strands of hair brushing her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter, now. What’s done is done.”

Nell nodded and straightened her shoulders. “Well, at least ye look and talk like a lady now.” She turned to Gareth. “Now then, lad. While we consider a way out of this mess, I’m not opposed to a bit of comfort meself, and I seem to remember ye mentionin’ that word. Do what ye will, Millicent, but I don’t like livin’ rough.”

The knight gave her an elegant bow. “It’s humble, Lady Nell, but I will be happy to take you there.” He strode forward and swept her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing more than a stone. The old woman wrapped her arms securely about his neck and gave Millicent a wink over his shoulder as he carried her away.

“Drat it, Nell,” Millicent muttered as she followed them. Her sweaty skirts tripped her up and she cursed the duke and his fancy clothing and shifted to panther, her fur not much cooler, but at least she could move with ease.

When they reached the cave, Nell crowed over her soft bed, which looked to be made of shredded plant fibers, and settled back with a sigh. She looked so much more at ease in the cooler, dryer air that Millicent didn’t have the heart to protest about their new lodgings. But she didn’t have to eat the food he provided.

She spun and slunk back into the forest, looking for the hard-shelled creatures he’d cooked for Nell. Millicent caught several of them, breaking them open with her strong jaws, worrying out the meat inside. But her prey had arms that ended in strong, jagged claws, and after being pinched on the lip more than once, she decided her belly was full enough.

And she didn’t trust the knight to protect Nell as well as she could.

So she returned to the cave and ducked inside to check on her friend. Gareth sat on one of his stools, twisting together tough strands of thin, long leaves to form a sort of net. Several empty shells sat on the table in front of him, and Nell snored loud enough to make them tremble.

“There’s spears, of a sort, back in the corner,” he said with a glance up at her. “Jab the creatures in the soft part between the shell to capture them. I haven’t seen any cool springs to net fish, but when I return, I shall look. In the meantime, you can use this to bag your prey.” He held up the sturdy-looking net.

Millicent flicked her tail and gave him a look.

“Your lip is bleeding,” he said. “And so are several other places on your paws. I just thought it might be easier to hunt in human form. With a spear, you don’t get close enough for them to pinch you with their claws.”

He made a good point. She turned in a circle until she found a comfortable position and sat, licking the wound on her right paw. Those claws bit deep.

When she looked up again, he had disappeared.

Millicent should have realized that the relic would take him soon. The work he’d done to make the cave a home must have taken many hours.

“So the magic man is gone, eh?”

Millicent shifted to human and turned. “Magic man?”

Nell sat up and nodded her head. “In more ways ’n one, I suspect.” She sniffed and then grimaced. “I stink.”

Millicent’s lip quirked. Leave it to Nell to get to the important things first. “There’s a pool not too far from here where the water is but warm.”

“As opposed to boiling our skin off, I suppose.” Nell rose and hobbled over to the entrance of the cave. “Although that might not be so bad. Ye know, the bastard never gave me enough water to bathe. That was worse’n the food he gave me.”

A haze of red covered Millicent’s eyes and she tamped down the fury of her cat. It took her a few moments to speak again. “Can you walk, Nell? It isn’t far.”

“Course I can. Blast, I ain’t no hothouse flower. Whichaway?”

Millicent led her down the path and through the trees to the spot she’d found when hunting. A large pool spread out and disappeared beneath an overhang of rock, only a few lazy wisps of vapor rising from the surface of the water. She helped Nell up the pitted rock sides that surrounded it, and they both slid in with all their clothes on.

They soaked for a time, just enjoying the feel of the warm water. The flowers Gareth had picked for their table grew around the pool, their pearly light dampening some of the colorful emerald glow of the surrounding forest. Unlike Gareth, Nell didn’t look one whit attractive with green-hued skin, and that red hair had combined with the emerald to make a muddy shade of yellow.

They helped each other undress and then washed their clothes as best they could, pounding and ringing the dirt from the fabric. Millicent slammed the creaky corset the duke had given her especially hard against the rocks, unconcerned about the silken sheen, only determined to make it a bit more flexible.

She envied Nell’s timeworn corset. There was an advantage to wearing cast-off clothing.

“How long we got until they find us?” asked Nell as they spread their clothing along the rock to dry as best as it could in the humid air.

“Maybe never. We’re deep into the wilds of the Underground.”

“Ach, my gel. Ghoulston won’t stop looking as long as ye wear that.”

Millicent scowled at the bracelet on her wrist. The moonstone imbedded in it winked mockingly back at her. “I should have at least a few days to figure a way to get it off.”

Nell shrugged, a myriad of wrinkles appearing with the movement. “The knight ain’t so bad, though. I could think of worse fates than bedding such a looker.”

“Not me.”

Those violet eyes studied her with unblinking intensity. “Ye won’t wind up like yer mum, Millie.”

“Hmph. You can’t know that. Once I’ve crossed that line, there’s no going back.”

“Giving up yer virginity don’t make ye a whore.”

“Are you suggesting—”

“I ain’t doing no such thing. I jest see the way ye look at him, and I don’t want ye blaming yerself if ye can’t resist him.”