He hums. “She’s already involved.”
I sigh. “Fine. Ask her. I’m certain she’ll be more than happy to help.”
“How about we all retire?” Aodhan proposes, scraping the door open. “After all, lethargy leads to poor decision-making and even poorer love-making.”
I heft an eyebrow that causes the least subtle of my brothers—which is saying a lot considering Ilya is proficient at voicing all he thinks—to smirk. Although we had it out earlier, no animosity lingers between us.
“Thanks for the advice, now get yourself to bed,” I tell him.
He lingers by the door a beat. One that must feel too long for Salom’s liking, because the latter’s jaw tightens.
Once the door finally snicks shut, Salom says, “I know that the Serpent was in the room, the same way I know you’ve probably had my quarters adorned with sigils.”
I frown. “I’ve not had your quarters spelled.”
“Aodhan probably has. He’s always been chary of me, Konstantin. Though it does anger me, I know it comes from a place of love on his part, so I won’t put him on the spot.”
The platinum snowflakes pinned to Salom’s jacket from years of devoted service to the Crown twinkle so vividly they anger the throbbing in my skull.
“I would lay down my life for yours.” He presses fully upright. “That Aodhan questions my loyalties is one thing. That you do… Your lack of trust would break me, son.”
No one has called mesonin twenty-five years. It wrings harsh swallows from my throat.
“If you don’t think you can trust me, then I’ll hand in my resignation.”
“No.”
He heaves out a deep sigh, then comes around the table and grips my shoulder. “Thank you.”
And then he lets go and strides out the door. I’m suddenly angry with Aodhan again, not because he took an executive decision behind my back, but because he’s driven my doubt even deeper.
I make another pass at my face before striding upstairs. Instead of heading toward the farthest door, I stop in front of Isla’s. I pause on the threshold, fist held aloft. However much I desire seeing her, I realize that going inside would be a terrible idea.
So I back up and head to my chambers where I scrub the night off my skin before plunging into a fretful sleep and waking drenched in cold sweat. I take another shower, wishing the running water could cleanse the torments that haunt my waking mind.
Needing an outlet for my stress, I don my black training leathers. A glance at the door that leads directly into Isla’s quarters makes me hesitate which exercise to pick. As I strap on my vambraces, I meander to the back of my closet, to the locked door. The one I told her I’d had cemented shut.
Will she be angry or glad to find out that I lied about the cement-part? Granted, the vestibule between the two doorsiswarded, but it’s only impenetrable to others. Not to the man with the talisman.
I wrap my fingers around the platinum handle, but my conscience keeps me from twisting it, pouring a multitude ofshould Is andshouldn’t Is inside my bloodstream.
There’s a second door on the other side of the vestibule. I’ll knock on that one. I won’t just barge inside like some morally questionable goon. And then I’ll confess that I made up the part of the cement, not to dupe her, but because it’s the same lie I’ve been feeding everyone.
I tell myself that she’ll be so thrilled to see me that she’ll forgive my fibbing.
Except…what if she’s not thrilled?
She might not even be in her room. All my worrying could be for nothing. Just like my worrying about Salom’s loyalties…
Before my night terrors can return to haunt me, I jerk my wrist and unlatch the door, drawing the door wide, then cross the small vestibule, knuckles already poised to knock. The giggle that slips through the wood buoys my heart. Isla’s laughter is exactly what my morose ass needs.
“That’s right, darling.Yours,” a masculine voice drifts through the thin barrier of wood, making me halt. “Now be a good girl and hook the fabric between those plump lips of yours and pull it aside for me.”
When Isla giggles again, her laughter doesn’t buoy my heart; it enflames it with such jealousy that I throw open the door with magic and barge inside like a madman.
I’m expecting the sight of Isla and Lachlano on the bed. What I’m not expecting is the configuration in which I find them—parallel to each other but not touching. And fully garbed.
“What is going on in here?” I thunder, which makes the novel Lachlano’s holding slip from his fingers and clap his startled face.
