Rowan winced. “Do we need to have the Keep medics respond?”
I lifted a shoulder in an unconcerned shrug. “We’ll see when he gets back. I asked Danu to keep him for a couple of days.”
“Days,” Rowan said slowly. A dark chuckle, then a shake of his head. “When you teach a lesson, you do it well.”
I tugged him down for a kiss. “Killing him would have been more merciful.”
Rowan smiled against my lips. “No one has ever accused me of being merciful.”
How in the world could I have ever looked past this glorious man? I ran my hands over his chest. “I’ll be here for at least a day. If you have business to attend to, I have another of Moira’s potions in my pocket.”
Rowan frowned. “I don’t want to leave you in another Lord’s territory alone.”
We’d have a ton of fun being naked in a hole together for a day or two, but Rowan was still a Lord. He’d sacrificed many things when he took me into his territory, and I wouldn’t keep asking him to sacrifice more. I smoothed the wrinkles I’d put in his sweater when I grabbed him. “Send Moira. She’s always up for some fun, and I know she’d love seeing Thorvin come up from the ground.”
“Hmm. Your friend is a bit of a masochist.”
I laughed. “Moira is definitely bigger on the inside. We see very little of her on the outside. She’ll protect me, though I don’t anticipate anything going wrong. Thorvin is contained, and the other Lords are preoccupied with other things, I assume. No one should know I’m here.”
“More than likely they do,” Rowan corrected. “Caelan is in his territory.”
My eyebrows rose. “You have a spy in Joy Springs.”
He flicked my nose. “Darling, I have spies everywhere.”
“Of course you do. He’s the one we need to worry about most. We should be fine. If Moira can’t come, see if Ash is available.”
Rowan still hesitated. I kissed him again. “It’s fine. I promise. You have things to do, and I have to fix the mess Thorvin caused.”
When he saw I wasn’t going to back down, he nodded. “Fine. Text me when you come up for air.” He winced. “Or whatever happens when the earth releases you.”
“I expect a full twenty-four hours, possibly forty-eight.” Anger rose inside me once more. “The land needs a lot of attention.”
“I’ll check in with Moira enough to be annoying,” he promised.
After a kiss that left me breathless, Rowan disappeared. I touched my lips and sighed, laughing at myself when I realized I was wearing a dopey smile.
Guilt still touched me sometimes but quickly became overshadowed by what I’d found with Rowan. Love waited for no one, and sometimes it hit you like a freight train. I’d been doubly blessed and vowed to never take it for granted.
A shimmer appeared before me several minutes later, revealing a slender, grinning vampire holding a cooler. “Hey, hot stuff. Heard you put a dude in the ground.”
I pointed to the mound of dirt. “If you listen hard enough, you can occasionally hear him scream.”
Moira’s eyes lit with vicious delight. “I’ll have to put on my listening ears, then.”
Her face changed the moment she took in our surroundings. She blinked and let out a vicious curse. “I didn’t think Rowan was lying, but gods, Evie. Are you sure you can fix this?”
Moira swallowed hard and shook her head. “This should be criminal.” Her jaw tightened as she came to sit beside me. “I’m glad you put him in the ground. Wish it would have been permanently.”
“Killing a Lord could have disastrous consequences.” I quoted the words I’d heard a dozen times over the past year or so.
Moira rolled her eyes. “Don’t they know who your dad is?”
Dad seemed disinclined to get involved in most things, unless it happened to be my love life. “Sometimes, I think it might not matter if I killed all of them. People, especially ourkind, can be self-governing. We might have to deal with a despot here and there, but that happens with humans too. If the Lords were gone, would we even notice after a few weeks?”
Moira stared at me, amusement sparkling in her dark eyes. “Careful. You’re sounding awfully Libertarian there. You might offend the masses if you accuse the people of—” She let out a dramatic gasp, “having sovereignty over their bodies, emotions, and property.”
“Only a closet Libertarian would know that’s what they believe.” We grinned at each other. “The world would run so much better if the world operated under the principles of doing what’s right versus what’s right for them to line their pockets or their egos. The Lords are a mess, and people shouldn’t have to suffer because they can’t get their shit together. Would it really matter if we allowed them to self-govern for a little while?”
