The chocolate toppled out of my fingers and down to the floor. I bent to retrieve it when a plump little hand shot out from under the table and snatched it up.
“You little—” I cursed, grabbing a handful of fabric and lifting it up. There they were. Huck and Pudge. Sprawled out like lazy security guards drinking on the job. Gravy stains splattered their tunics, an artistic crime scene. Judging by the pile of discarded half-bitten treats, they’d been doing this for some time now.
Pudge froze mid-chew, his tousled strawberry curls askew.Huck scrunched his face into a dramatic cringe, caramel-brown eyes pleading innocence.
“I’m telling D?—”
Flash!
The tiny gremlins vanished before I could finish.
“Feral little raccoons,” I mumbled under my breath.
I reached for another truffle, but my inkling flared again—razor-sharp, angry, urgent. Hair rose on my arms and a piercing cold licked at my ankles. In the corner of my vision, a dark mass darted across the ballroom.
I whipped around. But there was nothing. Just music and laughter. The uninterrupted merriment of the evening.
Rolling my shoulders, I tried to shake it off. But it still clung to me, prickling the edges of my mind.
Without thought, my feet moved. Bodies of rough and silky materials suffocated me as I made my way to the quieter edge of the room.
That’s when I saw it—a door. Cracked open enough to draw my attention. I slipped through. A long, grand marble hallway stretched before me, glimmering sconces casting light across the floor. I didn’t know what wing of the castle I’d wandered into, but it didn’t matter. My senses were too invested . . . and I was now invested too.
Voices. Two of them. Deep and tense, volleying back and forth.
I crept closer, drawn in like a magnet to trouble, padding my feet softly on the floor, careful not to give myself away.
I recognized the tones immediately. Lochlainn. Pogue.
Eavesdropping was childish, but I did it anyways. There was a weight to their conversation. It felt like bugs crawling over my skin.
“. . . too important,” Lochlainn’s snapped.
“So is she your pet, then?” Pogue seethed, his words carving for blood. “The moment she arrived, you assigned Finley to follow her—playing the charming, innocent pup, reporting back. And for what? To get him close enough to properly leash her now?”
54
CARWYNN
The world stopped.Mental walls closed in.
It felt like a serpent coiled around my chest, constricting.Tighter.And tighter.My breath became shallow and fast. The edges of my vision tunneled. I was seconds away from passing out.
Lochlainn’s laugh was ice. Cut-throat.
“What are ya playing at?” he hissed. “Of course I had eyes on her. She was a foreigner, under the Aos Si’s protection, showing up unannounced. I did what I had to! To assure the protection of my people. I needed to know who they’d brought in.” A glass slammed and I flinched. “And I didn’t assign Finley,” Lochlainn snarked. “Hevolunteered.”
The blood drained from my body, like a tree wilting in the shade without light.
“Hemarkedher.” Pogue growled. “Was that part of the job too?”
Lochlainn coughed, choking on his drink.
“What did you just say?” he spat, a touch lethal.
“He. Marked. Her,” Pogue growled, dragging out each word.
Marking—what the hell did that mean? A mark on my skin? Some enchantment? A tracker? How else had they violated me so deeply?
