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“Thank the gods,” Roark muttered behind us. “I was beginning to suffocate with all the sexual tension.”
Lachlan flipped him off. “Choke on this.”
I groaned. “Infantile.”
“Come on,” Ciara urged me, shooting one final scowl in her brother’s direction. “We’ll hit the spa later. For now, let’s go raid the bar.”
Finally, a plan I could get behind. But before she could drag me away, Lachlan snagged the waistband of my jeans and hauled me close enough to whisper, “You know, princess, I think trouble is exactly what you need.”
I yanked away, cheeks burning, and forced a scowl. He only laughed as he turned to leave with Roark, and as he walked away, I couldn’t help feeling like I’d made a big mistake.
I was at the mercy of Lachlan’s charms for the next month. How soon before he convinced me he was right?
Chapter Sixteen
A few hours later, Ciara was still drowning her sorrows with the help of a second bottle of Scotch. I nursed my own drink and listened to her cry about all the things—and, to my uncomfortable amusement, people—she would never do.
At least it was a welcome distraction from thinking about Channing sitting in a jail cell. A reality I wasn’t quite prepared to face, even if I was the person responsible for putting him there.
She picked up the bottle and tried to pour another drink only to discover it was also empty. She glared at it before tossing it over the bar. We were the only souls in the place. Without the neon and smoke and sin, the club felt smaller and less intimidating than the first time I was here. How had it only been a few days and not a lifetime?
“I mean, I don’t have to be faithful.” She hiccupped as she climbed over the bar and dug around for another bottle. “No one is faithful in the courts. Not anymore.”
I nodded absently, wondering if that was true. I’d seen plenty of that in my world.
“But I’m only two hundred years old. Fiona is way older than me.” She unscrewed the cap while I gawked at her. She bit her lip and grinned sheepishly. “Okay, I’m a little older than that, but not much!”
I just kept staring. Over two hundred years old? And Lachlan was even older than that.
“You didn’t know how old we are, did you?” she asked, peering at me with glassy eyes.
I managed to shake my head.
“Lach’s one of the youngest crown princes.” She tapped the neck of the bottle against her chin. “I think Sirius is younger. He’s the prince of the Astral Court, but he’s not the heir. His sister is. Bain is older. I forget how much. And Oberon is ancient.”
I wondered what counted as ancient to a fae. “Then, you just don’t age?”
“We age like a human until we’re out of puberty and into our twenties, but then pretty much no. Our bodies get to the perfect point and just stop.” She actually looked a little sad about it.
“And you don’t get sick?” I sighed. “Sorry. I guess it’s all the nursing classes. I’m being rude.”
She waved my apology off, sending Scotch flying out of the new bottle she’d grabbed. She giggled at the faux pas and placed it safely on the counter. “It’s rare for a fae to get sick. It’s not unheard of, though. There have been plagues that attacked our kind, but not for a very long time.”
“So, you just never die?”
“We die,” she said sadly, and I wished I could take the thoughtless words back. “The Otherworld is no paradise. There is always a push and pull between light and dark, peace and violence. It’s been like that my whole life, but it feels worse now. More attacks. More death. Just more since…” She glared at my drink. “You’re never going to catch up with me.”
I’d been pacing myself, not wanting to lose an ounce of control in Gage territory. “I’ll die of alcohol poisoning before I catch up with you. Human, remember?”
She waved that annoying detail away and topped off my glass.
“And your parents?” I asked. No one I’d spoken to mentioned them. If Lachlan was a prince, there had to have been a king and queen at some point, but if he was arranging Ciara’s marriage…
“Fae royalty have a slightly shorter life expectancy than non-royals, especially those who wear the crown. My parents were killed.”
“I’m sorry,” I said and meant it. I knew the pain of lost parents, but it had to be different—deeper—to have known them.
“It was a long time ago.” She capped the bottle as if losing interest in it. “But sometimes I wish they were here.”