“Why?” he hisses ferociously.
“Because you are still healing from a chest wound!” I snap.
Llywelyn blinks. Then his brow furrows. Finally, he chuckles wryly. The blue-soaked dagger falls to the floor with a loud thud.
Llywelyn breathes deeply. He drags his arm across his forehead, smearing the blue blood. When his golden eyes fix on me again, they are hazy. Unfocused. Exhausted. He sways a little.
I step forward and swoop him up into a bridal carry. He doesn’t resist. He rests his head against my shoulder and lets out a contented sounding sigh.
The crowd part like the sea before me. Nobody tries to stop us. Nobody is even making a sound. I think they are all still too shocked.
I pick up the pace and escape the throne room. I’m going to carry Llywelyn all the way back to his bed.
He never should have left it.
Chapter thirty-eight
I’m gasping and fighting the covers. The last remnants of the dream fall away, and I find myself sitting up in bed. In the middle of the night. Alone.
My heart hammers. Where is Llywelyn?
I clamber out of bed. There are guards at the door, to keep Llywelyn under house arrest, but I’m sure they also wouldn’t let anyone in.
Nevertheless, terror claws at me. I hurry into the main room and see him, sitting curled up in the window seat, watching the waning moon.
Relief rushes through me. Hard enough to make me shake.
I walk up to Llywelyn, and he turns his head at the sound of my soft footsteps.
“I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to disturb you,” he says.
I smile and join him in the window seat, facing him. He goes back to staring at the moon. My gaze stays on him. He looks amazing in the moonlight. His gauzy white nightgown looks as if it has been painted in silver. It could be spun out of moonbeams. His golden hair looks pale, and the sharp angles of his face catch the sparkling light.
He really does look ethereal tonight. A magic being from another realm. A fey from the old tales.
My lover is woven of myths and legends. Magic. Majestic. I’m proud and honoured to have caught his attention. Me, a mere mortal.
As I drink in the sight of him, my eyes track over his pointed ears, and then the absent antlers. I see the sad droop in his shoulders, and my heart twists.
He may be magical and otherworldly, but far more importantly, he is very… human? I guess that’s the wrong word for it, but I can’t think of another. Humans have known no other sentient beings, at least not for thousands of years. We don’t have the right words for it in our languages.
Saying that Llywelyn is a person, doesn’t convey what I mean. Whatever the terms for it, I’m feeling it so very strongly. Despite the things that seem different about us, we are the same. Two souls who feel the same emotions. I hate that I ever thought of him as something ‘other’.
I watch him in the moonlight and my heart swells. I could stare at him forever.
“I’m in so much trouble,” he whispers sadly, startling me from my silent adoration.
I shake my head to clear it further. “Everything was fine when you killed the servant.”
Llywelyn sighs despondently. “That was different. It was just a servant. And I didn’t stab him in the back.”
I ignore my flash of annoyance at his ‘just a servant’ comment. Llywelyn is a fey prince, he has been brought up with some truly awful ideas. Now is not the time for a lecture on equality. I have the rest of my life to teach him better ways. Right now, I need to focus on the very big problem in front of us.
Llywelyn murdered Prys in front of hundreds of witnesses and is facing trial tomorrow.
I swallow. Stabbing someone in the back is considered extremely dishonourable amongst the fey. I sincerely think everyone is more pissed off about that, than the actual murder itself.
“I stabbed him a lot,” Llywelyn says as he turns to me with wide eyes.
