“It was good,” he said, voice neutral. “I... missed them. I missed a lot over the years, but I promised my mother we’d be there every month from now on.”
Relief hit me, and I threw my arms around his neck, a soft sob escaping me.
“What’s this?” he asked, laughter in his voice. “More happy tears?”
I pushed him at arm’s length. “I’m happy for you. You deserve this. You deserve good things, and your family has missed you so much.”
“I’m starting to actually believe it.” He stroked his beard. “But we have a lot of healing to do still. Conversations that need to be had. For tonight, I just got to enjoy them.”
“Did you tell them about Lor?” I asked, that nervousness creeping in again. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel if someone told me Princess Ashami was still alive and working for the enemy.
He nodded. “I didn’t tell them everything, just that Lor was alive. I couldn’t tell them the Butcher part. He was wearing that white mask. I didn’t get to see his entire face, just the bottom half. His eyes. His hair.” I knew Wolfe was making excuses, that he was hoping he’d been wrong. But his gut was telling him it was Lor, and I trusted that. But I also understood why he wouldn’t want to tell his family the entire sordid truth until he could confirm it. “I told them I saw him with the brotherhood, that I thought maybe he was a prisoner still. My mothercried. A lot. So did Jerome. My brothers didn’t show a lot of emotion, but they were shocked. I think everyone needs time to process, and then we’ll have to talk about next steps.”
“Do you think you’ll try to go after him?” I asked.
He eyed me for a moment. “How would that make you feel if I did?”
“Scared,” I said honestly. “But I would understand.” I jabbed him in the chest. “And you wouldn’t be going alone.”
“Oh?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Where you go, I go. You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.”
He stroked my cheek. “Well, nothing is decided yet, and this is going to be a family matter from now on. We’ll decide what to do. Together.”
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine, our mouths opening, tongues tangling, and heat once again pulsing through me.
I shifted, moving onto his lap. “Do you still need a break?” I asked, rubbing myself against him as his cock stiffened, already giving me my answer.
“I think I can manage,” he said, and he spent the rest of the night proving it to me.
CHAPTER 43
Niamh
Abook fluttered over my head out of the wooden crate I’d just put it into.
“No, stop that at once!” Morton yelled from across the library, where his little body was wrapped around a book, attempting to push it into a box despite it resisting. “This is the worst day of my life,” Morton said.
I eyed him. “Don’t be so dramatic. Most of the books have gone into the boxes willingly.” I straightened, gaze sweeping the library, the shelves now mostly empty.
He struggled against the book, grunting as he pushed it down into the box. “Well, the ones that won’t are making this very difficult. Are you sure this is even necessary?”
I planted my hands on my hips. “The entire castle is going to move, Morton. I don’t know what that entails. No one does. Is it just going to disappear”—I snapped my fingers—“and reappear, or is it going to lift in the air and fly somewhere? Either way, I don’t want to risk our books getting damaged. We’ve already learned so much from these,learned how we can protect Fairwitch. We can rebuild shelves, get new furniture, but the books are priceless.”
Morton grumbled something that sounded like “these books are a pain in my tail,” but I chose to ignore him and keep packing. Nevan had been working on this particular activation spell for months, and in those last few months, we’d suffered more attacks. It was imperative that we moved the castle before our defenses completely broke.
We might’ve had our library back, but the castle’s magic still wasn’t working like it used to, at least not from what I’d heard. Everyone was on edge about moving and what it might mean, especially since we didn’t know if the city would move with the castle. To be extra cautious, everyone in Fairwitch would have to be in the castle once the moving spell was activated, which had been a hotly contested topic.
Morton gave one more shove, and the book finally thumped down into the box. The bookwyrm slithered toward me. “I still don’t understand this whole spell nonsense. Humans can’t perform spells, so how is Nevan going to activate this?”
I jumped, snatching the fluttering book from the air and pushing it down into the crate, then placing a lid on it. “From what I understand, it’s not that Nevan is casting the spell. The castle is going to cast the spell, but Nevan is going to activate it by using one of his potions.”
“Are we sure it’s even going to work? What if the castle explodes or crashes down over us?”
My stomach bubbled. I’d aired those same thoughts to Wolfe, who assured me we could trust his brother’s potions. I’d seen Nevan’s brilliant mind in action over the last few months, and I knew he was a perfectionist, that he wouldn’t do something unless he was sure it could be done right.
“Nevan wouldn’t say this spell was ready unless it was.” I tried to sound positive. “And I trust Wolfe. If he says his brother can do this, then he can do this.”
