Magnus released Nyri from a headlock and chucked her under the chin. “Aye, I’ve got a few actually.”
It meant something to her that they were being so welcoming. It did. And it was obvious they were basking for themselves, released of worrying over Baldrir, but Lunara couldn’t take it.
Not for another second.
She’d run out of things to say or feel, and the awkwardness of the Demon Son’s silence was too much.
There’s only one thing for it.
Lunara slipped a hand under the table, so as to not give herself away. “By all means, I would love to hear some of them.”
More lies.
Magnus settled into his tale, but she didn’t hear a word. Rubbing her fingers together, she called the tiniest bit of power from that deeper place. All she had to do was make it look like she was listening.
A flick of her wrist and magic tingled over her skin, imprinting her rapt likeness in the chair. Easing forward, Lunara gauged the group’s reaction. Just in case, and at the risk of looking like she’d lost her mind, she spun on King Lyriat and stuck her tongue out.
Not so much as a twitch.
Lunara laughed, free at last to slump back and relax with no one the wiser. It was worth the deep ache in her gut to steal a few minutes and recenter. She could get more blood and moonlight—she couldnotcome back from offending a Realm Ruler because she’d run screaming from his table.
The first thing she did was fix her eyes on the ceiling, her mind emptying. She stared at the beams and the glass and the trees, all silvered by the moons’ light above, her breaths evening out as she came back to her peace little-by-little.
Maybe that’s what she should do when she got home. She could build herself a gigantic hall, tall enough that the endless cobwebs and piles of dust would be too far away to see, and she’d never have to clean again.
Everyone shouted and Lunara shot upright, sure she was caught, but the others were firmly focused on Magnus as he waved his arms about, his face twisted into a dramatic grimace.
And then she felt it, the tingle in her cheek that shot down her spine like lightning tendrils.
She lifted her gaze across the table, and?—
Lunara didn’t bother stifling her gasp. No one would know she’d done it anyway.
Brandir aht Bordoroth was staring directly at her with a look of such unbridled longing that it stole her breath right back away.
He’d propped his bearded chin on one fist, tilted slightly away—easier to pretend he’d been looking somewhere else all along, the sneak.
His other hand flexed before he seized his goblet and emptied the contents in one gulp. Instead of slamming it down as she’d expected, he placed it gently back in place, twirling it against the tabletop.
All the while, his eyes were trained on her, brows pinched with something akin to agony.
His throat bobbed once before his mouth opened, as if he was about to speak, and Lunara leaned in—until he snapped it shut again, teeth clenching and nostrils flaring.
Hmm.
Lunara sent out one more thread of power, happy to accept the invisible knife scraping along her ribcage when she was greeted with the sound of his furiously drumming pulse.
Oh.
Shite.
Just like that, it all made sense. His silence, and that expression. The darting looks the others had been giving him. Their rushed words and interruptions. The way they’d steered the conversation from the moment she’d sat down.
He was anxious and they were shielding him.
Fromher.
Lunara could relate to that uneasiness far more than she’d like to admit. Knew the chokehold of those more insidious thoughts all too well.
