I tucked that thought away. “Am I seeing what everyone else is?”
“Not quite. You see Lugh for who he is.” He gestured to Moira. “Ask her what he looks like.”
Moira overheard. Her brow furrowed, but she answered. “Enormous. Built like a raiding Viking. Tall, at least six four. Black hair, blue eyes.” She shivered. “Super hot. Big hands and unshaven.”
I stared at her. “Umm. What?”
Dad snorted. “Now ask Tess.”
Tess still had the blanket wrapped around her. The shell-shocked expression hadn’t lifted from her face. “He kinda looked like Ash, but with swirling blue eyes.”
He didn’t look like that to me at all. “His eyes were violet and pink, and he was tanned and lean.”
Dad nodded. “He looked like one of those ancient statues carved from marble, correct?”
“He did. That’s what he really looks like?”
“Yes. Your kind is resistant to his kind of magic, but it doesn’t mean you are immune. Smaller tricks might get past you, so be on your guard at all times.”
“You don’t think he’s gone?”
“Not at all. Returning Tess was his way of throwing you off his trail.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “He is clever but fickle. Be wary of his offers. He will give you what you want, but it will cost you everything.”
All I wanted was a week-long nap and a memory wipe. But killing Lugh would work, too. “We should go hunting then.” There was something I wanted to do first, and I didn’t want to give her the chance to slip away before I got the chance to pay her back.
Caelan stepped outside. Everyone stopped talking.
“I’m going to find Rachel,” I told him.
He blinked in surprise. “You cannot kill her. Doing so will cause war?—”
I held up my hand and interrupted him. “I don’t care.”
Caelan sucked in a breath. “Evie?—”
“Even after all this, you still care too much about toeing the line.” My voice broke. “Sheruinedus. And still you urge me toward caution.” I straightened and squared my shoulders. “She is an enemy and shall be treated as such.”
His upper lip curled, those stormy eyes flashing with gold. “You’d kill someone for stealing a boyfriend?”
“A boyfriend.” I’d said the words, but they sounded cold. Dead. Unfeeling. “If that’s all you were to me, if that’s what you think this was, then I don’t regret what I’m about to do.”
Caelan crossed his arms over his chest.
“My words from before stand. Once you step off my property, you will not be welcomed back. Whatever this is between us is finished. Right now.”
His jaw tightened. “And if I say it’s not?”
“You hold no power over me, Lord. I am no longer one of your subjects. And even if I was, you don’t get to say when a relationship is over.”
I softened my tone. “I loved you very much. What happened to you is not your fault, but you have to admit there were problems beforehand.”
“Me asking you to marry me is not aproblem.”
“Oh man,” Dad said under his breath. “It’s like trying to teach a toddler not to touch a hot stove.”
“It is when you repeatedly violate my boundaries and refuse to accept the answer.”
“This is it then?” His voice was a low, deadly growl.
