Eala, mytruesister. Bound in blood, not just in love. Sired by the same father, raised by the same mother.
But the rest of it made no sense. If Deirdre had not died, then why had the wild magic of her Treasure been freed? Unless she destroyed the Heart of the Forest herself. And if she had been pregnant by the high king and lived long enough to birth me, then how and where had she raised me? And why—oh,why—would she have abandoned me in the human realm, where I would more likely be killed than kept, burned than be loved?
“It’s impossible.” My voice came out bare edged and brusque.
Irian’s candescent eyes burned. “Colleen—”
“I understand why you’d want to believe your friend still lives.” My words were sharp enough to cut. Anger welled inside me—at him, for planting this idea in my mind, and at myself, for letting it take root in my heart. “But this is a cruel tale to tell. People do not return from the dead. Tragedies do not have silver linings. And I have never been a princess in disguise.”
Irian tilted his head. “I have upset you again.”
“No.” My denial was swift. I schooled my features—I didn’t want him to see how much this had indeed affected me. “I simply know when a story doesn’t have a happy ending.”
He showed his teeth in what might have been a smile—or a snarl. “Then I fear you will dislike my next tale.”
Although the night was balmy and still, Irian’s shadows twisted and churned behind him. Again, his thumb skated over the hilt of his sword—the only unconscious gesture I’d ever seen him make.
“I have disliked all your tales, tánaiste. That hasn’t stopped you before.”
“Very well.” His eyes glittered with unfamiliar wariness. “Once—in a time of war and mayhem and dying magic—there was a boy. He was young, arrogant, violent, and selfish. He took things that did not belong to him, built things he should not have built, made decisions that were not his to make. Because of what he did, he was doomed to be alone. But neither age nor loneliness improved him—they only made him worse.”
He slid a hand under my chin, lifting my face up toward his. Heat sang from his fingertips into my suddenly sparking veins.
“I am still arrogant, colleen. I stole a kiss from you last month—I believe you liked it, as I liked it. I believe you desire me, as I desire you. And in the few months I have left of my worthless life, I am arrogant enough to believe I could make you happy. If not in love, then at least in lust.”
I flushed, praying the moonlight bleached the stain from my face. My eyes slid helplessly to his lips. Last month, he’d tasted like spilled blood and desperate desire. I wondered what he tasted like tonight.
“I am also still violent.” The blade of his jaw sharpened. “I am tempted to kill that prince of yours, simply for ever daring to hurt you. So the story I would ask of you tonight is this—why should I not?”
My tongue grew hot and heavy in my mouth. Conflicting emotions raveled me raw—desire and disquiet and the faintest feather of fear.
“Once—in a time of small hands and feet and huge, loud grown-ups—there was a changeling girl.” It was a story I’d toldmyself a thousand times, with a thousand different endings. It was shockingly easy to tell it to Irian. “She had just one friend in all the world—a little prince with whom she shared everything. Her meals, her small bed, her deepest secrets. But as they grew, so too did the changeling and the princeling change. The love they shared as friends became something more. They fought it, for they were never meant for each other. Later, they stopped fighting. But still, they were not meant for each other. They parted. But not without hurt.”
I searched Irian’s face for understanding. “Yes, the prince hurt the changeling. But she hurt him too.” I remembered his story from last month. “They left painful pieces of themselves embedded like thorns beneath each other’s skin. We have cut the pieces out. We have cauterized the wounds left behind. But… the scars remain.”
“I am also still selfish, colleen.Veryselfish.” Irian’s palm slid down my throat to rest over where my heart beat erratically. “When you give yourself to me, I want all of you. I am not willing to share.”
My green-dark pulse throbbed. I tried to think of something to say, but thorny vines of indecision twined up my spine and silenced my words. Eala’s warnings echoed through me:I would hate to see a girl as softhearted as you outwitted by a man as heartless as he. Perhaps thiswasa calculated seduction—nothing more than a predator’s illusion of candor designed to disarm. Why else would Irian pursue me? There was nothing to be gained by making love to me—I had no riches, no crown. His magic dwarfed my own.
Another voice inside me whispered a treacherous alternative, an alternative Irian himself had denied: He couldn’t beallbad. After all, he was admitting his flaws to me—his feelings. He was confessing that he wanted me. The thorny vines climbing my spine grew tiny buds of perilous desire.
A burst of daring made me sweep my hands up his chest, rigid beneath my seeking palms. I grazed my fingertips over his shoulders to tangle in the soft black hair at the nape of his neck. Hemade a noise deep in his throat and curved his palms around my waist. I tilted my face to his, registering the faint surprise making diamonds of his eyes.
He had not been sure I would return his feelings.
“Another story without a happy ending, tánaiste?” I said.
“Perhaps the unhappiest ending of all.” He bent, brushing a simmering kiss against my mouth. He tasted like caged lightning and cold nights, and my skin throbbed where he touched me. “But that does not matter so much now, with the story only just begun.”
The buds inside me blossomed, dark and lovely, their heady perfume as intoxicating as Irian’s searing kisses. And I no longer noticed their thorns scratching a resigned warning against my thrumming skin.
Chapter Thirty-One
Duir—Oak
Early Summer
Rain drenched Dún Darragh and churned the lough to froth.
