Indeed, the appellation suited her. She was certainly maddening; only the second mortal woman he’d ever encountered who hadn’t melted into a puddle of accommodating, adoring femininity for him. Even the crone Sidhe-seer had been girlishly flirtatious with him. At the end, he’d gifted her a glamour of beauty and taken her last breath with a kiss.

“Well?” she snapped, jarring him from his reverie. “What ‘uses’?”

Adam studied her. Anger had won the battle for control of her facial muscles, drawing her lips in a delicate sneer, flaring her nostrils. Still, apprehension shadowed her lovely eyes. He didn’t want her fearing him. Fear would interfere with his plans to experience human sex with her and use her as his intermediary to regain his immortality. “I told you I have no intention of harming you, and I meant it. I merely seek your aid with a small problem.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “You seek my aid? How could I possibly aid an all-powerful fairy?”

“I’m not all-powerful at the moment.” Now she would begin to relax.

“Really? Do tell.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit too calculatingly for his taste. Relaxed was one thing, but he had no intention of walking around on constant guard against those treacherous knees. “I may not be all-powerful, Gabrielle,” he said softly, “but even diminished, I am far more powerful than you. Indeed, far more powerful than most humans. Need you a reminder?” He stretched lazily in his chair, fully aware of how his body rippled and flexed.

She growled, actually growled low in her throat at him.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, lips curving faintly. Small and currently helpless as a kitten, she sported a lion’s share of ferocity; her lush, five-foot-four-inch body jam-packed with six feet of temper. “Listen well, Sidhe-seer . . .”

Gabby listened well indeed while he talked, eyes narrowing, taking meticulous mental notes.

What he told her fanned the spark of hope in her heart into flame. Not only was he not all-powerful, but he was actually trapped in mortal form.

All that splendidly masculine body is human? cooed a breathy, traitorous voice in her mind.

Oh, shut up. How was it possible that a fourteen-year-old version of herself was still skulking around inside her head?

And not only was he flesh and blood—which explained why he’d bled and didn’t have typical fairy eyes—but he’d been cursed by the full triumvirate power of the féth fiada, which, he told her, made it impossible for humans to perceive him. Effected illusion and affected memory, weaving chaos like a cloak around him. Except for her—descended from an ancient line of Sidhe-seers on whom Fae magic didn’t work the way it was supposed to.

Further compounding his problems, he could no longer traverse realms. He was stuck in the human one.

Gabby couldn’t believe he was telling her all this. He was revealing, without reservation, that he posed no otherworldly threat to her. That he couldn’t carry her off, couldn’t summon the Hunters. And he was stripped of his fairy magic to boot!

Though he refused to answer when she asked for what offense the queen had punished him, she didn’t press. She didn’t really care. What mattered was that, in his current condition, he posed no greater threat than any other human man—albeit an extraordinarily large and strong one.

She was going to survive. She really wasn’t going to die today! After all, he couldn’t kill her; she was all he had, the only one who could see him. He needed her.

That realization went a long way toward calming her nerves. She wasn’t dealing with impending death, she was dealing with impending battle, and those were two very different things.

Wait a minute, she thought suddenly, frowning as her mind latched on to an inconsistency: He claimed to be powerless, but was still able to move in the blink of an eye like a fairy. How could that be? She needed to know precisely what she was up against. “I thought you said Aoibheal stripped your powers. Why can you still move like a fairy?”

He shrugged. “It’s the only power she left me—the ability to sift short distances.”

“Why would she leave you anything at all?” she pressed, wondering if he was telling her the truth.

“I suspect,” he replied dryly, “so buses wouldn’t run me over while I was trying to adjust to my new form. She wishes me to suffer, not die.”

“But she left you nothing else?”

He shook his head and gave her a chiding glance. “Don’t think to escape me, Gabrielle. I won’t permit it. It would be unwise to think me”—he paused a moment, as if choosing his next words with care, and smiled faintly—“impotent . . . in any way.”