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the house. In the expansive backyard was a pretty little pond with lily pads, and a waterfall gushing down an artful arrangement of slate gray rocks. Palms and ferns flanked the circular pond.
    “No mosquitoes or biting insects. One benefit of being a shifter living in the Everglades. Your magick keeps them away,” she told him.
    Gabriel sat on the wide bench and patted the seat next to him. “Take a load off, pixie. Enjoy nature. You always refreshed yourself here.”
    Refreshment last time resulted in three wild nights and days in his bed. Sienna sat on the bench, as far from him as possible.
    “You can’t force me to have sex with you.”
    “No forcing. Of your own free will. On the night of the Blood Moon festival, everyone gets naked together.”
    “An orgy?” Sienna stared at him. “You want me to participate in an orgy?”
    Gabriel gave her a level look. “Everyone pays a price for using the spring of Danu.”
    “And that price is too high for me. I can’t.”
    “Not even to get what you think is your heart’s desire?” Gabriel’s mouth pulled tight. “All you wanted was admittance to the king’s inner circle, his exclusive little clique of highborn Elven.”
    “And if I have sex with you, I’ll be punished, again, only this time they won’t flog me and banish me for a month or two. I’ll face permanent banishment.”
    “Flogging? I’d never allow them to touch you.” He shook his head. “But banishment? Is that such a bad thing, to be exiled from people who don’t care about you?”
    She sputtered. “Don’t judge them! They’re my people.”
    “But you’d have so much more with me, someone who does care about you.” He ran a finger down her cheek, making her shiver with sensual awareness. “Someone who knows how to pleasure you all night long.”
    Sienna pulled away, fighting the urge to lift her mouth to his. “You don’t know me.”
    “But I do. I know the darkness inside you, the duality of your nature that you always fight. Your greatest desire is to become only light, a full member of the Elven of the Northern Light. All hail the great Elven who care only about themselves!”
    She shook her head. “You mock what you do not understand.”
    “I understand more than you think. You want to be rid of the power inside you so you can conform to their expectations. They need you to be pliant, the king’s Shadow Guard, a vehicle for them to use.”
    “Who are you to draw all these conclusions about my life?”
    Gabriel gave her a level look. “They want you to get rid of Terithen’s magick because they don’t want you having that much power of your own. So they tell you it will destroy you to motivate you into getting rid of it quickly.”
    Anger surfaced and she gritted her teeth, trying to control her emotions. Losing control wouldn’t gain her anything. “Terithen killed innocent Sprites and Fairies and would have killed Samantha, King Cael’s daughter, if Sam hadn’t found the strength to stop him. I don’t want to be like that. His dark power feels like cement drying in my soul.”
    Gabriel slung a hand over the bench, his gaze narrowing. “Power isn’t corrosive. It’s benign. It’s the person using it who chooses to make it light or dark. Terithen’s personality turned his magick evil. It was not the magick that was evil.”
    He’d steered this conversation onto a road she’d stepped onto at times. Deep inside, Sienna feared continuing and finding a winking gem of truth. Did King Cael wish her to cleanse her soul of dark magick because he didn’t want Sienna to become more powerful than other Elven?
    Such thoughts terrified her because it meant shaking loose every belief she’d held since childhood. It meant those she’d trusted her entire life couldn’t be trusted.
    “Terithen was corrupted by the amount of magick he held.”
    “No, he was corrupt. But his magick, held by someone who wasn’t evil, could be used for good.” Gabriel drew his brows