Because I’m not stupid enough to give up wealth like that. My descendents are set forever. If I ever have any, but whatever, that’s not the important part. What matters is that I’ve miraculously escaped poverty and there is no way I am going back.
Dyfri raises one eyebrow. “Very sensible.” The gleam of respect in his dark eyes is making me stupidly proud. “I can tell you are fey,” he adds.
And another wave of pride hits me. Along with a stupid sense of belonging.
“What would a fey do in my situation?” I blurt.
Dyfri’s eyes narrow. “Get revenge or accept defeat. Or pretend to accept defeat in order to plot a more satisfying revenge.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rise and goosebumps form on my skin. Dyfri said that with a passion that burns. Perhaps the fey truly are my people. All belligerent and nasty.
I suck in a breath. I need to pull myself together. Dyfri is in a question answering mood so I need to take advantage of it.
“So, I can just move into Windsor Castle and never see him again?”
Dyfri nods. “He will pester you and try to win you back, but take off his collar, and yes.”
My hand flies to the collar around my neck. I had forgotten it was there. I don’t think I’ve given it much thought since he distracted me with a kiss and put it on me.
Oh my stars. I assumed it was locked into place. Immovable. The click as he secured it certainly hadsounded final. But Dyfri is implying I can simply take it off.
A shudder wracks my body. I don’t want to remove it. My neck would feel cold and bare, even though a moment ago I had completely forgotten it existed.
“I can take it to him now, if you’d like,” offers Dyfri sweetly as he holds out his hand.
A blush creeps across my cheeks and there is not a damn thing I can do about it.
“I…um…need to think about it!” I stammer.
Dyfri simply smiles and nods, with an all too knowing look in his eyes. Actually, scrub that. That’s not a smile. That’s a smirk. An evil, all-knowing smirk. And now I feel as if he knows all my secrets and understands exactly how much of a mess I am. I’m also convinced that he can see how I have no clue about what I want to do, and the little git finds that highly amusing.
I snatch my gaze away and stare down at my feet before he reads even more of me. I hear a faint chuckle and then he starts walking. I blindly stumble after him.
Heaven help me, because someone needs to.
Chapter sixteen
Ican’t believe I’m sick. On top of everything else. Why does life never give me a break? I never get ill, and now when it is really inconvenient, here I am with a throbbing headache and waves of dizziness and nasty shivers. It is miserable. I’m miserable. Even curling up in my borrowed bed isn’t helping.
Is this what the flu feels like? I always thought people were being babies about it, but this is awful. I am genuinely surprised that people don’t whinge more when they are unwell. I’d love to whinge right now, and cry. And that’s not like me at all.
Maybe it is fey flu, and that’s why I have it when I’ve never caught the regular old human flu? Urgh, just my luck. Find my people. Find their germs. It flipping sucks.
The bedroom door opens and I duck down under the covers. It is not going to be Jamie coming to check on me, because he has abandoned me to kiss and make up with his husband. Which is lovely and all, yay for them, but it means I’ve been dumped on poor Selwyn, who I barely know. And now I’m dying of the flu on the unfortunate man and the whole thing is super uncomfortable.
“Are you still sick?” he asks in heavily accented English.
“Yes. Sorry.”
Hopefully, he understands that I’m keeping my head under the covers in an attempt to not breathe germs on him, and it’s not that I’m trying to be rude or anything.
“I’m trying to find a healer who has experience with nisnys,” says Selwyn.
Why would he do that? Why be so nice to a stranger? Actually, thinking about it, it is not nice at all. It is very practical. He doesn’t want me to die in his guest room and have to deal with my corpse. It all makes perfect sense.
“Oh, it is true. The pet is sick. What a shame,” says a new voice, in Fey.
I didn’t hear the bastard come in. The fey sure are all sneaky shits. This one sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place him.
