“I wasn’t aware you let your pets sit at the table.” The Queen sniffed, glaring down her nose at Ruairi and me.
Ruairi grinned, sharp fangs gleaming in the candlelight. “Seeing you is always such a delight, my Queen.”
“Careful now,boy. I’m in need of a new steed.”
“I’d give just about anyone a ride”—Ruairi winked at me—“but I’m afraid the Black Forest wouldn’t suit my sunny disposition. And I prefer the living over the dead.”
What was he doing? Why was he trying to antagonize her?
The Queen swirled the deep red wine in her glass. A coppery tang struck my nose. My stomach twisted.
Not wine.Blood.
As if she could sense my horror, her black eyes met mine, and she took a slow, deep drink. When she smiled, blood dripped down her straight white teeth.
She set her glass aside in favor of the bottle, filling Rían’s glass with blood before topping up her own. “Speaking of the dead, I heard a pack of pooka were executed near Mistlaline.”
Mistlaline.
Was that the execution Rían had attended earlier?
Ruairi leaned forward in his chair, looking past me to Tadhg. “Is that true?”
Grimacing, Tadhg grabbed his own glass. “Anyone who chooses to live outside of Tearmann understands there is risk involved.”
“Tearmann is a pittance of what it once was,” the Queen countered, going back to swirling her glass. “When your father ruled, he commanded respect, controlling this island and everyone in it. The human uprising only succeeded because he showed them mercy.”
Tadhg rolled his eyes. Ruairi yawned. Rían glared at them both.
“You. Human.” The Queen pointed a black-tipped finger at me. “What is your name?”
Swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat, I said, “Lady Aveen Bannon, Your Majesty.”
The corners of her lips quirked into the barest hint of a smile. “What brings you to Tearmann?”
Be like Rían. Use the truth to tell a lie. “A kiss.”
Her chest lifted as she inhaled slowly the way Rían’s did when he searched for a lie. A flicker of surprise ghosted across her features. “So you’re one of Tadhg’s then?”
“I am.” One of the Gancanagh’s victims, anyway. I took a sip from my glass, praying for fortitude.
You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.
“Funny. He usually puts them back,” she mused, drinking some more. “Why do you linger?”
“Tadhg kissed my sister as well.”
The candles on the table shuddered with the Queen’s startled laugh. “Men. Human or Danú, they’re all the same, aren’t they?”
I could only nod because I couldn’t agree aloud. The men at this table were better than any of the men I’d met in my world.
“Why did you kiss him?”
“To escape a fate worse than death.” I smiled my most brilliant false smile, the one no one had ever seen through. “Marriage.”
“I’d forgotten how delightfully entertaining humans can be.” The Queen took another sip of her drink. “Is this true, Tadhg?”
His green eyes crinkled at the corners when he grinned. Raising his glass, he saluted me and said, “Every feckin’ word.”