If everything went according to my plan, I would draw the witches in, and my chance to get to Maeve would come, all while fulfilling Daigh’s plan and remaining in his good books.
It was a win win win, and all the wins belonged to me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ROWAN
Even though we were downstairs in the Great Hall, we all felt the shudder in our bodies as Arthur kissed Maeve.
My whole body tingled with electricity. I shoved my hands under my thighs to stop myself lashing out when Arthur came back.
Flynn looked as murderous as I felt, his pale skin reddening as his hand trembled around his glass. Corbin’s expression fell. He looked completely defeated.
Of course – he expected Maeve to choose him. We all did.
All three of them had a fair shot with Maeve. They talked her ear off at the pub, and took over the tour of the house. I’d managed about four-and-a-half sentences in the kitchen before Flynn whisked her away. Theyknewthat I couldn’t talk to her when they were around, that she’d never look at me twice with them joking and flirting.
And then Arthur had to go swinging his blades around and being the chivalrous knight in the field tonight. We all fought valiantly, but it didn’t matter.
She’d chosen and it didn’t matter how I felt.
I barely even had a chance.
But I’d hoped.
That was my mistake. I should know now not to hope.
Arthur returned a few minutes later. He wasn’t smiling nearly as much as I would’ve been.
“Go on,” he said, slumping down on the couch. “Ask me about it.”
“Let’s go to the library,” Corbin said. “We have a lot to discuss.”
We filed down the hall to the library. I stopped at the door, as I always did, unable to step foot in the room until I had counted the spines of all the books shelved in the cabinet on the right. As earlier, when we’d taken Maeve on a tour, there were 194.
I exhaled the breath I’d been holding.
I was grateful that the others hadn’t pointed out what I’d been doing to Maeve during the tour, but I guess it didn’t matter now.
They waited for me to finish. I took a seat next to Flynn on the leather chesterfield. Corbin sat behind his desk, leaning forward on his muscled arms. With his stern face, he reminded me of a school principal. I’d seen a few of them in my life – when I was forced to attend school – all stern-faced and furrowed brows as they tried to force me to talk, to explain why I did the things I did, to find out why I didn’t have shoes or a lunch box or where a bruise on my arm had come from or why I wouldn’t give them a home address. They usually had bookshelves in their offices, and I just counted the books until they stopped asking questions.
But that wasn't going to work here.
“Tell us all about it, you rawny bastard,” Flynn said, breaking the tense silence between us.
“She didn’tchooseme,” Arthur sighed. “She kissed me, but she hasn’t chosen me yet.”
“Why not? You bite her or something?”
Arthur frowned. “It wasn’t about me and her. I don’t think it mattered to her who kissed her. I just happened to be the one who carried her upstairs. She’s still reeling from the deaths of her parents. She kissed me and she started to cry, and I realized I needed to get out before I tried to take things further.”
“She cried after kissing you?” Flynn shakes his head. “Boyo, you’re doing something wrong.”
“How do you know she didn’t choose you?” Corbin asked.
“I know because we can all still feel the pull of her. Right?” Arthur glanced at each of us in turn, his eyes lingering on mine. “If she’d truly chosen me, the tension would have gone away.”
I rubbed my arm, my fingers grazing over the raised scars on my wrist. Fire burned under my skin.
