“Then I’ll pay it,” she gritted out, her nose practically bumping his.
Aidan laughed, rubbing a hand over his face. “If I were a lesser man, I would banish it from your skin, and cover you head to toe in the symbols of our realm, so no one would mistake where you belong.”
Elysia’s eyes grew large.
Preying on the subtle shift in her reaction, his hands wrapped around her calves, and the sensual velvet of his voice returned. “But you don’t want to talk about yesterday, and I would hate to be manipulative or disrespectful.”
His hands left her body, and then Aidan was once again on the other side of the room, faster than she could track, lounging on the couch, one ankle crossed over his opposite thigh, looking unrepentant about the little push and pull show he had just put on.
Deliver me from this man.Elysia collected herself, forcing her Crown voice to make an appearance. “That was inappropriate.”
Aidan’s grin took up his whole face, white teeth flashing and his fingers thrumming against the couch arm. “My sincerest apologies.”
Elysia straightened her back and looked down her nose. “Your bad behavior scared away your friends.”
“Good, they’re more annoying than gnats.” Aidan stood. “If you’re not ready to work together, then I have a realm to run.” And with that he walked briskly out of the room, ledger tucked into his side.
Elysia stared after him, unsure if she’d really done anything wrong other than follow her own plan instead of his. Turning herattention to the crackling fireplace, an invisible cloak of heaviness settled over her. She didn’t like empty spaces in her day. Her life had been a series of crises, one extending into the next, leaving her wound tight and uncomfortable with something so simple as sitting on a footstool in front of a fire.
The brief quiet brought up all the thoughts she’d been avoiding, causing the pressure in her chest to build and build until she couldn’t breathe. In losing Topp, she had lost both love and her oldest friend as well as the life she had expected. She’d gone on to stab a monarch only to find out she was now possibly eternally bound to the god of the dead. Her fingernails dug into the heavily embroidered footstool as her vision tunneled into the flames.
Aidan wanted to talk.
But there were words she didn’t want to think about, much less say aloud.
Her sister was dying, already living on borrowed time. And instead of being there with her, she was supposed to go treasure hunting. Dark thoughts overwhelmed the corners of her mind. Even if she knew exactly how to find the talisman, her gut sank with the terrible certainty that Beatriz would likely be dead before anything could be fixed. Her infuriating, unstoppable big sister, taken out by the ravaging decay that was a consequence of the poor choices of the man down the hall.
Elysia’s heart became heavy as a rock. She knew what it was to be lonely, but a world without Beatriz was one she didn’t care to know at all.
Chapter 11
A heavy,singular knock pounded against her bedroom door. Elysia glanced up from the book she was trying and failing to read. Begrudgingly, she pulled herself out of her warm, soft bed, and wound her damp hair into a bun as she walked over. She paused, cautiously let her magic slither out, tasting the energy of the person outside the door. After years of her magic being inaccessible, it was still strange to have it just be there, ready and waiting for her to call upon it.
Unsurprisingly, it was Aidan disturbing her at this hour.
His head thudded against the wood with exaggerated impatience, voice rumbling through the door. “Are you enjoying feeling me up?”
Embarrassed, she flung open the door. “That isnotwhat I was doing!”
“Could have fooled me.” He tossed a heavy coat at her and set off down the hall.
Elysia scrambled to grab it, running after him. “Excuse you! Are we going somewhere? I’m in my pajamas for the gods’ sake.”
Aidan stopped abruptly. “Sweet of you to think of me, but we’re just taking a short walk. I want to show you something.”
Realizing what she’d said, Elysia grumbled after him. “Maybe I was talking about the other gods.”
“Sweetheart, I’m the only god you’ll ever be talking about.”
One arm into the coat, Elysia blinked before hastily pulling on the other arm along with her boots. How did someone who looked like a fucking accountant keep spitting lines like that? It was both confusing and arousing, and she needed it to stop already.
Outside, they walked side by side, cutting through the dead winter lawn with Crusher tagging along at their feet. Elysia glanced surreptitiously at the man beside her. Hands shoved into his long wool coat with his black hair mussed and a tiny ink stain on his cheek, she hated to admit that maybe the look was less accountant and more bookie.
His gaze twitched toward her. “Yes?”
“I can’t decide if you’re an accountant who sometimes fights or a bookie who drinks too much tea.”
A blinding ear-to-ear grin split across Aidan’s face. “Do you have a preference between the two?”
