Dark and Stormy Knight by Nina Mason Read Free Book Online Page A

wife?” asked the cat. “What makes you think I am married?”
    She narrowed her eyes. “Aren’t you married to Leigh Ruthven, the authoress, who also lives here?”
    “No,” he said, showing his pointy teeth. “I am unmarried and live alone.”
    Great. The cat not only talked, he also spoke in riddles. Luckily, thanks to her father, she was an ace at solving riddles.
    She took a minute to consider the clues he’d given. He was unmarried and lived alone, presenting only two possibilities. He either lived elsewhere or Leigh Ruthven did.
    “Do you live here at the castle?”
    “I do.”
    “So, Lady Ruthven must live somewhere else.”
    “Must she?”
    “Does she?”
    “Not that I’m aware of.”
    Gwyn frowned at her furry companion. “That doesn’t make sense. You can’t live alone and with Leigh Ruthven at the same time.”
    “Can’t I? Says who?”
    She racked her brain for any explanation, however remote. “Do the two of you have some sort of time-share arrangement?”
    “We do not.” The cat smiled at her in that sly way all felines do. “Come, now. Surely you can solve the mystery. The answer, as with most riddles, is an obvious one.”
    Normally, she’d get this, but her mind was jumbled by the accident and everything she’d seen so far. She took a breath to clear her head and concentrated harder. The only way he could both live with the authoress and live alone was if—
    “Is Leigh Ruthven a ghost?”
    She was talking to a cat. In comparison, a ghost seemed more than plausible.
    “While she definitely haunts me at times, she is not, strictly speaking, a wraith.”
    Crossing her arms and chewing her thumbnail, Gwyn puzzled a little longer until the obvious answer popped into her head. Jeez Louise, how could she be so dense? “You wrote The Knight of Cups and Leigh Ruthven is your pen name!”
    “The light of truth dawns at last.”
    Gwyn took a moment to process all she’d just learned. Leigh Ruthven was the pen name of Sir Leith MacQuill, a man who was obviously much more than a man.
    “Your book isn’t fiction, is it?”
    “Not all of it, obviously.”
    “Obviously.” She shifted her gaze to the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy . “Nor the whole truth.”
    “No,” said the cat. “I whitewashed some of the story to appeal to a broader audience—and to protect the innocent.”
    In The Knight of Cups , he’d been taken from Culloden Moor to Avalon by a faery scout called Belphoebe. There, he’d been made a breeding drone to Queen Morgan Le Fay—a sex slave, in other words. The gory details of his enslavement, however, were left to the reader’s imagination.
    She’d fleshed out some of them in her screen adaptation, but had no idea if the scenes she envisioned were accurate.
    Conversely, the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy described the shocking abuses and humiliations imposed upon the enslaved characters in graphic detail.
    Nodding toward the Anne Rice books, she forced her question past the growing lump in her throat. “Is that why you showed me these books? So I’d understand what you suffered in Avalon?”
    “No.”
    She furrowed her brow. “Then why?”
    The cat flashed her a Cheshire grin, but, thankfully, did not fade away. “Have dinner with me tonight and afterward, I’ll disclose my reason.”
    At that, he jumped down and trotted out of the room with his tail held high, leaving Gwyn to wonder just what kind of fractured faery tale she’d stumbled into.
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    Leith the cat slipped into the master bedchamber, spoke the counter-spell, and gritted his teeth through the transformation. A man once more, he returned to the door and flipped the latch. Hurrying to the bed, he withdrew from underneath, the hot-pink leopard backpack, eager to learn more about his intriguing guest. At this point, he didn’t even know her name.
    Not that it mattered.
    He unzipped the larger of the compartments There was what looked to be a manuscript inside. Please let it be something