So Caden Merriweather was part merrow. Too bad I’d murdered my only connection to the merrow. They probably wouldn’t take very kindly if I came calling again. At least with Aveen here at the castle, I could keep an eye out for any pirates who might come sniffing around.
I believed Aveen when she said she loved me. Could taste the truth in her words. But there was something about first love that burrowed into your soul.
I collected the decanter and poured myself a glass of whiskey. When I took a sip, the warm, smooth liquid burned my throat all the way down. Easing back in the chair, I studied the map of Tearmann stretched across the desk where Tadhg had been marking the progress of the blight since it began.
What were we going to do if the Queen refused to stop the blight and the entire country became infected? We could expand into Airren, but having so many Danú relocate all at once would surely draw notice. The trials hadn’t stopped, they’d increased in number. Even with Tadhg and Ruairi attending, there still weren’t enough of us to cover the farces.
Our future looked bleaker than ever before.
Bitterness coursed through my veins with every beat of my damned heart. All I wanted was to be happy like everyone else.
To be with the woman I loved.
And yet here I sat, drinking and drowning and cursing the Queen.
As if I’d spoken my desires aloud, Aveen stepped into the office. Candlelight played on her soft features, making her glow like the light she was.
Whiskey. I needed more whiskey. I took another deep gulp.
How could one person be so feckin’ beautiful?
My body ached with such acute need, I felt as if I would burst through my very skin. Teaching Aveen to harness her magic over the last few weeks had been torture, and there was no end in sight.
Once she mastered a glamour, she’d need to learn how to evanesce properly without ending up somewhere she didn’t want to be. And then there were other lessons as well, like shifting and simple spells. We’d be in each other’s lives for the foreseeable future, and I was at my breaking point. The other day, she’d dropped a hair pin, and when she’d bent over to retrieve it, I’d nearly grabbed her by the waist and begged her to let me have her once more.
Aveen moved slowly, as if unsure. I hated myself for making this confident woman feel as if she wasn’t worth the risk. She continued to where I sat, bringing along a rose-scented breeze to torture me some more. She sank onto the desk, covering Tearmann’s western coast with her silken dressing gown.
“You look weary,” she said in a voice as smooth as honey as she toyed with the silk tie cinched around her waist.
The Queen. Remember the Queen.
“I am fine.” I’d been tortured plenty of times before and survived. That was all this was. Another form of torture. Delicious, sensuous torture.
Instead of pressing the issue, she twisted so she could see the map beneath her. “How far has the blight spread?”
Her dressing gown fell open, revealing another layer of silk beneath that I recognized from our first day working on glamours.
My fingertips brushed the silk at her knee. “I’d show you, but this is in the way.”
Her clear blue eyes held mine. “Then move it.”
The Queen. The Queen. The Queen.
If I touched her now, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Instead, I said, “It’s reached well above the midlands.”
She shifted, a smile playing on the edge of her full lips. “Show me where.”
Sweat beaded on my brow. My composure slipped a little more with each unsteady breath that escaped my lungs. I wasn’t strong enough to resist her.
I tapped a spot on the bottom of the map near the compass rose and followed the road to that line of silk. “There’s a road right along here.”
Her knees spread wider.
Feck. “And if you follow it north, there’s…”
“There’s what?” she asked in a whisper, her robe slipping off one slender shoulder, taking my sanity with it.
My heart skidded to a halt. “There’s trouble.” So much feckin’ trouble.
