Pressing her lips into a flat line, the skin around the Queen’s mouth tightened. “What is your relationship with my son?”
Rían’s bored expression never wavered as he listened to our exchange.
Answer a question with a question.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Dark, elegant eyebrows arched toward her pointed crown. “I heard the two of you were engaged.”
“We told Tadhg we were to convince him to kiss me. But no, we’re not actually engaged. It was all a ruse.” What would she have done if I had said yes? Would she have ripped my heart out here and now?
Her nailclinkedagainst her glass in the same slow, steady rhythm as my heartbeat. “Well then. It appears as though this trip has been for naught. You see, I was told my useless son had smuggled his human fiancée into Tearmann and was hiding her inside this castle. Clearly, my source was mistaken.”
“Clearly,” Rían grumbled.
My heartbeat quickened.
So did the Queen’sclinking.
Tadhg cleared his throat, setting his glass on the table with a loudthunk. “Now that we have that all cleared up, it’s getting quite late. I’m sure everyone is tired.”
Something slithered around my ankles, cold and scaly. I looked down but saw only shadows. The thing tightened, pinning my legs to the chair. The same sensation curled around my core, squeezing the air from my lungs, dragging my chair away from the table toward the Queen.
Ruairi cursed, trying to catch me as I passed. He vanished.
Tadhg shot to his feet. He vanished as well.
The Queen’s infernalclinkingsounded like a bloody woodpecker, fast and furious as my thundering heart.
Pounding sounded against the door. Muffled shouts.Tadhg and Ruairi. She’d locked them out. The Queen’s brow furrowed as her black gaze raked down my face, landing on my chest.
My heart. My breathing. Theclinking.
All of it stopped as she stretched a black-tipped finger toward my shoulder to trace along my neckline. Then her finger dipped lower, tugging down the front of my dress.
Her lips curled into a slow, victorious smile.
“Do you care to explain this, Rían?” She tapped the scar on my breast that he’d given me the night before I’d died.
I’d forgotten all about it.
Rían rolled his eyes. “If you’re asking if I fucked her, the answer is yes.”
I flinched.
The vulgar words were for her benefit, not mine. I tried my best not to let their sting settle.
The Queen withdrew a dagger with a glittering hilt, almost identical to Rían’s. “Are you truly so weak that you’d lift your skirts for a pretty face and a few whispered lies?” she asked me, tracing the tip of the blade along my collarbone. “You’d abandon your family and your people to live amongst us, where you are despised, all for a man who has more interest in his collection of waistcoats than he has in you.”
“I tell her all the time how pathetic she is.” Rían reached for his wine glass. I prayed the Queen didn’t notice how badly his hand trembled.
The Queen sneered, her blade coming to a halt above my heart. “Pathetic enough to fall in love with you.”
Rían’s eyes met mine from across the table.
“I am not in love with him.”
Rían’s eyes widened.