“My undergarment, please.”
She holds out her palm.
I reach up and slot my fingers through hers, and then I carry her knuckles to my lips and press a kiss to them. “I’ll take extra good care of it.”
“Seriously?”
“Tà,moannan,” I say in Crow, before finishing my sentence in Shabbin. “Seriously.”
The wordmatein my tongue heightens the already rosy hue of her cheeks. My woman glows especially bright tonight. I must pleasure her more often. “Fine. Let’s hope it isn’t too gusty out on the water.” She smiles as she strides toward her doors.
For a heartbeat, I almost give in and tender the scrap of silk, but the knowledge that she’s bare under all that silver will be my only ray of fucking sunshine until we retire for the evening, together, in her chamber.
Right before she opens the door, I readjust my tender cock, then scrub a hand across my beard and through my hair.
“There’s a small bathing chamber through that door,” Daya points out.
“I’m aware.”
“Would you like to use it before we set off?”
“No.” When a slender vertical furrow appears between the bridge of her nose and her pearl, I explain, “Your scent will keep me calm. You’ll be glad I didn’t wash it off.”
She shakes her head, then smooths a hand down her dress, blanching when she feels the wet spot. “Great Mahananda, isthat…?” When I laugh softly and reassure her that it’ll dry, she skewers me with a look. “I cannot voyage through the queendom looking like such a mess. The Shabbins already don’t have much regard for me. What will they think?”
That pisses me off. “I don’t want you to care what they think. As for their regard, if they have two braincells to rub together, they’ll see mighty fast what a Cauldron-send you are to Shabbe. To the entire world.”
Though she gives her head another shake, a phantom smile plays on her kiss-chapped lips. “Objectivity isn’t your forte, is it, mate?”
I don’t just smile; I grin. “I’m tremendously unbiased, mo mila Sífair.”
She laughs as she steals her hand from mine to put some order in her wild locks. She begins to reach for the door, when I stride back to the sofa and scoop up her crown. As I carry it over, I rub my thumb over the carved golden scales and tusk-shaped diamonds. Like Lorcan’s, I suspect this one was forged inside the Cauldron, for no artisan has this much talent.
“You won’t have to wear it forever, but you should wear it tonight. Just in case Behati or Kanti have their doubts about who the Cauldron chose as a successor.”
The mention of a successor collapses Zendaya’s happiness.
“Priya bound your magic,” I remind her.
“Yet I still loved her.”
I sigh as I place the crown atop her head, and then I crook a finger beneath her chin to carry her eyes to mine. “My mother used to say that death made saints out of sinners, for she never had more regard for my lowlife father than after his passing.” I lean over to kiss her one last time before the world rushes in with all its tribulations.
“She saved my life in Isolacuori.”
“She wouldn’t have had to if she’d made you immortal.”
Daya flattens her lips. Though I sense she wants to make more apologies for the deceased queen, she doesn’t. She stays quiet.
Too quiet.
Granted, I fly her to the beach, so it isn’t as though we can converse when I’m in this form. But even after we land on the strip of pink sand beside Asha, who flew over on Aoife, and Agrippina, who flew atop Reid, Daya remains uncharacteristically laconic. Perhaps I should’ve shown her some empathy, but falsifying my feelings goes against everything I believe in.
As a smaller vessel is magicked off the wide, pearl-white Nebban ship, fear suddenly percolates through me. What if this new version of my mate never acclimates to my blunt pragmatism? Her past self didn’t truly have a choice whether to be with me or not. This Daya does.
What if she decides I’m impossible to live with and love?
Chapter 56
