"There's another thing." I'm grasping at anything to remain afloat. "He's kind of a mass-murderer. Why would any Hero anywhere find him worth saving?"

"Really? That's the best you can do? You know why he fights." She laughs.

"Yes." I clamp my mouth shut. Deep down, I acknowledge that he hasn't been the monster I thought he was since he told me what's at stake.

I'm drowning. Breathing gets harder and my dream ripples as if someone tossed a stone into the middle of it.

"Oh, to activate the medallion, you need to "

She's gone, along with the dream and whatever secret she meant to leave me with.

I'm getting sick of learning pieces of the puzzle without being able to see the full picture.

My eyelids open to reveal the stone ceiling of a hold. Or castle. Fortress. Whatever it is. I'm just happy I'm inside. I can't imagine we're still at the Red Knight's, but I also don't think I was in any shape to be moved. At least I'm neither achy nor hurting when I wake up this time.

"You live."

Couldn't give me a moment to myself, could you? I roll my head to see the Shadow Knight and my eyebrows shoot up.

His nose is crooked, one eye black and his cheekbones bruised. Despite this, his rugged, chiseled, masculine features become more compelling every time I see him. From the beard growth along his jaw to the intent way he looks at me to his muscular body, I can't get over how incredibly good looking this man is.

"In better shape than you," I reply, unable to resist the dig after he yelled at me on the roof. I sit up. I feel really good, possibly the result of the magical medallion and my natural resiliency to death and dismemberment here.

"You gave your life for me. I will allow your sharp tongue."

Rolling my eyes, I start to protest.

He thrusts a mug of something at me. I sniff at it. It smells like tea. I shift to drink without spilling and notice I'm not wearing the dress I had on when I fell. I'm in a nightgown again.

"Where are my clothes?" I ask a little self-consciously.

"You were in too many pieces to stich it together."

I lower the mug. "Oh. That sounds horrible."

He nods. Accustomed to blood, the Shadow Knight is unconcerned, but I can't help feeling a little rattled about being dead. His multi-hued eyes are on mine, his thick body clothed in leather pants and a tunic.

I don't like the way he's watching me, the way lionesses hunt gazelles on those nature shows on the television.

"Where are your weapons?" I ask, gaze lingering on the outline of his shapely thighs, visible through the snug pants.

"The gaoler did not allow me to keep them."

"We're in jail?" The room resembles a bedchamber. Although I notice the room is round, like we're in some sort of prison tower from a fairytale. "So you didn't defeat the troll and Knights?"

"I beheaded the troll at great cost. The Red Knight brokered a peace. It was necessary to save your life." The Shadow Knight's answer is clipped. "And we are here."

He's not telling me something. The instinct that wants me to go home and resume my pitiful, miserable life digs in its heels.

I don't ask why there's a flicker of sadness in his pretty eyes, but it takes effort. Diving off a cliff for a man you barely know seems easier than talking to him when he's looking directly at you like this.

I take a drink of the tea instead, not liking the idea he allowed himself to be taken prisoner instead of . . . I don't know. Leaving me. Beheading everyone.

"Are all women of your world hairless from the waist down?"

I choke and spew tea everywhere, my face hot. Coughing hard, my eyes water. It takes me a moment to quell the fit, but there's nothing that will take the heat from my cheeks.

"How do you know that?" I demand, humiliated. "Were you . . . doing things to me when I slept?"

"Aye. Cleaned up the blood. Stitched pieces of you back together. Dressed you." He's calm and factual.

I'm speechless.

He points to the corner nearest the bed.

I look, if only because I want to hide my red face. "Oh, god."

Rags soaked with rusty blood are piled in the corner, knee high and a good two to three feet wide.

That's my blood. I can assume when I hit the ground that I probably exploded or something but to see evidence of it . . . "How am I alive?"

"You are indestructible." He stretches forward to grab the mug tilting dangerously from my hands and sets it on a trunk beside the bed. "You should be grateful I cared for your womanly blossoms and not the squire. His hands are not steady enough."

Could this get any worse? I cover my face. I've been naked with men before, of course, but this is him. The man with the sexiest body on the planet, who's also engaged to someone else, whose hands I've already experienced over every inch of my body and loved it.

If only I weren't unconscious when he touched me this time. If that's not the most embarrassing experience ever, then I don't know what is. Did he notice the dimples in my ass in the full light of the room?

"Let me guess. You prefer hairy women," I mumble. I throw off the blankets and walk away to a window that's shuttered. It's locked from the inside, and I fumble with the mechanism to open it, needing air.

"I had not thought of it, so long as a woman is a woman," he says. "The smoothness is pleasant. How came you to have no hair?"

A glance at him is enough to show me he's amused and regarding me with intense interest I find even more disconcerting. I've had the sense more than once since meeting him that he's teasing me.

Seeing the glint in his gaze, I start to suspect I was right. He's been screwing with me subtly. I'm not used to being teased and don't expect someone like him to have a sense of humor at all. I wish he hadn't chosen something so . . . personal.

"It's . . . ah . . . Jesus why won't this open?" I yank at the shutters. I'm fevered and embarrassed, about to cry, because I'm waiting for him to make some horrible joke about the birthmark on my hip or the fact my chubby thighs touch.

I hear him approach but am more concerned about the window. If I can open it, I can breathe, escape, or jump to my death before he says something to hurt my feelings.

"Because you are not calm enough to open them." He rests a large, warm, calloused hand over mine and I freeze.

The Shadow Knight sweeps my hands down and unlatches the shutters with his other hand. His heat and strength are at my back, close enough for me to feel his muscular presence, his scent winding through my senses. Brownies have been a source of happiness since I was old enough to eat them and his smell calms me.

He pushes open one shutter, his hand remaining over mine on the sill. His left hand goes to my hip and he moves close enough for his hips to rest against my backside.

Do I move or stay? I'm so embarrassed, I don't want him to see my face, but standing so close does things to my insides that make me feel like I'm crushing on my first love in high school.

I can't feel this way. I know he's taken; it's pure physical attraction. Nothing else. It'll fade when I see him with Disney Princess.

A cool breeze sweeps by me, distracting me. It's a foggy midafternoon, judging by the muted glow of the sun ball overhead. The sexual tension between us is too heavy, makes me nervous.

"I was supposed to get married in three days, so I had a . . ." Brazilian. He's not going to understand that and my face gets hotter. ". . . had all my hair taken off because I'd never done it and thought it seemed like a neat thing to try, since you're only supposed to get married once."

"Married. Bonding between man and woman?"

I nod.

"But you did not."

"No."

"Why?"

"Why do you want to know?" I say in irritation.

"You are my battle-witch. I should know."

"Fine. I disappointed him."

"Ah. He wanted a capable battle-witch."

Anger floods me at the implication I'm not good enough for Jason. "We don't have battle-witches!" I almost shout. Turning to face him, I lean back against the wall and glare up at him. "There's no war or magic or anything in my world! Can you get that through your head?"

He's too close. Feeling it is one thing. Seeing the width and thickness of his impressive body is another. He appears unaware that he stands in my personal space or maybe he doesn't care. He rests his hips against mine once more, one hand on my hip, the other going to my collar. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was considering doing something stupid like kiss me.

It doesn't seem likely, given what he thinks about a battle-witch being pure. I can't stand it, though, being so close but not close enough, knowing there's an invisible woman and war between us even when our bodies touch.

"He just didn't like me. You think I'm a terrible battle-witch and everyone where I'm from thinks I'm an equally lacking person in pretty much every way," I hear myself say. "Now. You got something smart to say to that?"

I've never in my life spoken to anyone the way I do this man. My own words shock me because of everyone I've ever known, I should want to stay on the good side of the Shadow Knight. He's strong and powerful, the ruler of a world.

Tilting his head, he seems to get my meaning, because he's silent.

The tension between us is too much for me.

"He rejected me. So I drank too much wine one night and woke up here and have been failing at being what you want me to be since then. But I'm done with that and you and him. Think I'm a shitty battle-witch? Go find another one!" Upset and babbling, I slide out from between him and the wall and march across the room.

My whole body is wired, edgy. My hands tremble and my insides are shaking. None of this should be upsetting me this much, and I struggle to rein in my emotions and figure out why it does.

Jason. It has to be that issue along with being sick of people for judging me and not accepting me for who I am, even if I suck at almost everything I do. There are days I don't know who I am, either.

I don't want him to think of me the way everyone else does. The fleeting thought resounds deeply inside me, surprising me by its force. Why should I care what the Shadow Knight thinks?

Because I like him a little bit more than I want to consider.

"If you want hair on your blossoms, so be it. If you do not, so be it. A battle-witch answers to no one." His response is soft, still amused, his tone warmer than I'm used to hearing from him.

"Thank you," I say with some vindication. Now stop talking about my body. I stretch my neck back and work on calming down.

"Though a man likes not to be choked by hair when he pleasures a woman with his mouth."

The image of his glorious body naked between my legs, gazing at me with the intensity he often displays in battle, preparing to unleash his tongue on the most sensitive part of my body . . . it stirs a primal part of me, one much stronger and instinctive than a high school crush.

Fanning myself, I start to think I'll never be able to calm down.

"This Jason . . . you care for him?" he asks casually.

"I did. Why?"

"You think of him often," he replies. "Besides, I have spoken to no one in four days. This place is driving me mad."

"So you're in my business because you're bored. That's fantastic," I say sarcastically and rest a hand on my hip, unimpressed with his explanation. "One day, someone will genuinely give a shit."

"I cared for you for four days, did I not?"

And saw me completely naked. "That's different. You want something from me, but you don't really care what I think or feel or . . ." Embarrassed by the words and aware I'm inviting criticism I can't handle today, I shut up.

The jackass who murders whole armies is listening intently. "Jason was not good to you," he observes.

This room is way too small for the two of us. "I didn't enter another world to talk about my horrible luck with men!"

"Mayhap if you appreciated your unique gifts rather than pitied yourself, you would not have settled for a man who sees you as disappointing." His gaze is traveling down my body as he speaks, which makes me think he's talking about physical gifts.

I can't summon a response. Is he really giving me relationship advice by telling me to stop wallowing in my misery?

He's not the first person to tell me this. My mother did, too. The only person who always found me beautiful, no matter what, she used to tell me I had to stop settling for men who didn't think of me in the same way. She liked Jason but still told me to find someone who didn't make me cry once a week.

If I don't put some space between us, I'm going to throw myself out the tower window. "How do we get out of here?"

"Can you fly?"

"No."

He's opening the windows. "Can you swim better than you ride a horse?"

"Maybe a little."

Perplexed by his questions, I return to the other side of the prison and peer out of a window. I noticed the sky before; this time, I look down.

"Holy shit. How is this possible?" We're in a floating tower over a bay deep enough that its waters are almost black, the nearest beaches a hefty mile swim. There are five more towers evenly spaced and suspended between the beach and us.

"Magic put us here. It must free us," he answers.

"But we don't . . ."

He gives me a knowing look and crosses his arms, exposing the roped lengths of his forearms and the strain of his biceps inside the sleeves of his tunic.

There's no door at all to the room, a ceiling supported by wooden beams and a floor of massive blocks covered by rugs. I don't think we'll survive if we jump to the sea below. It's too far.