Gareth frowns. “What are you about, wily changeling?”
“Come here.” I pull both males to me. “Chastain, why don’t you do that thing with gold for him? Show him you can produce gold from your fingertips?”
Chastain’s blonde brows draw together. “But I can’t.”
“He doesn’t know that,” I whisper so low that I can’t even hear myself, but fae ears can. “Just do a little bait and switch. Have the gold on you somewhere, then make it appear in your hand.”
“Deceiving a wyvern sounds like a good way to get yourself killed.” Gareth shakes his head.
“You think it would work?” Chastain rubs his stubbled chin. “If it would get him to fight for us, I can deal with the consequences after.”
“There’s no way todealwith it, Chastain.” Gareth, as always, is the utterly irritating voice of reason. “He’ll just burn you and your city to the ground.”
“Gareth is right.” I nod, then whisper in Chastain’s ear. “But what if he’s wrong?”
Gareth’s sexy scowl is in full force. “I heard that, Beth.”
I shrug. “We need to win this battle to stop any further war. What’s a little trickery thrown into the mix?”
Chastain smiles for the first time in a long time. “You and my Silmaran are sisters in deviousness.”
“She’s worse than me.”
“I don’t know about that.” Gareth pulls me aside. “You’re a bad influence.”
“Me?” I bat my lashes. “On who?”
“Chastain. He’s desperate to get back to his mate, and if you keep giving him these foolhardy ideas, he’ll never make it.”
“You think I don’t know what’s at stake?” I jut one hip out and clip my hand to it. “You think I don’t feel Chastain’s worry? But you know what I would do to get to you if I thought you were in danger?” I poke my finger into his chest. “Do you have any idea how much dirt I’d deal just to be with you?”
He raises a brow. “No.”
“All of it.” I get on my tiptoes and stare him down as best I can. “I would trick a legion of wyverns if it meant I could save you.”
He softens, his arms going around me. “Why do you make it impossible to stay mad at you?”
“I’m just kind of perfect like that, I suppose.”
“You are.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “Every bit of you.”
“I like to think that I—”
A burst of sparks blinds me for a moment as Gareth shoves me behind his back and draws his swords.
He doesn’t move, his body tense.
“What is it?” I blink against the sunbursts in my vision.
“Chastain.” He grips my hip.
I keep blinking until I get used to the darkness again. In the middle of the cave, Chastain is surrounded by the wyverns, the bull watching him so closely that his head moves with each of Chastain’s movements.
“You see?” He holds up an empty palm, snaps his fingers, and then a golden wyvern appears.
The bull snorts bright sparks.
“Spires!” I rub my eyes. He got me again.
