His eyes settled back to brown and he shut the door. As he approached her to take the clothing, he breathed deep and his eyes once again flared to yellow.

Lillian stepped away quickly, knowing what that change was all about--he could scent the remains of her desire, the pleasure she had allowed herself to feel for him in private. She knew her eyes were wide, not from fright, but shame for him to know that she so desired him.

He stared at her for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly, hands clenched around the fabric of the borrowed clothes. He opened his mouth, as if he were about to say something, then shut it and walked to the bathroom.

She sagged with relief, falling into the nearby chair. This situation may be more than she was capable of handling. After gathering herself once again, she restrained her emotions and pushed all feeling aside. She sat straight and still in the chair, ready to tell him what she proposed.

Henry came out of the bathroom, his long hair dry now and floating around his shoulders, which were wide and pressing out at the seams of Lucas’s borrowed tunic.

She was going to have to find him some better fitting clothes. This was almost as bad as having him naked. She could see every line of his body and what made it worse, was she knew exactly what each line looked like without clothes. The image was forever burned into her brain and it was excruciatingly pleasant. “I have thought of something that might work well, a plan of sorts to find the traitor in my colony.”

Henry gave her a look clearly stating his doubt.

She almost stopped. He was going to hate the idea, but it was better than his lame idea. There was just no way any of the elves in her colony would buy that she needed him as protection. “I think that my idea is better suited to our situation and definitely more believable.”

“Uh-huh, right. So what is it?” He sat across from her and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest and looking completely closed off to anything she had to say, as if he were merely humoring her with listening at all.

It grated on her nerves. “You know what, never mind. It doesn’t matter. You’ll just tell me it’s not as good as your idea, even though it is, stubborn male.”

He shot forward in his seat, eyes bulging out in shock. “I’m stubborn? Are you kidding me? You are the elf here. It doesn’t get much more stubborn than that.”

“Elves are not stubborn. We believe what we believe and we, unlike so many others, adhere to our beliefs. We don’t pick and choose when we want to follow our own rules.”

“Oh yeah, is that why you mated with a different species? Is that why you have a half-breed daughter out there?”