Grimacing, Tadhg scraped his teeth along his bottom lip. “He won’t come.”
He would come. I wouldn’t give him a choice. “You tell your infuriating brother that if he isn’t here by sundown, I will throw myself into the sea.”
Sighing, Tadhg nodded and turned toward the door.
I waited outside for what felt like hours. The goat continued munching away, not a care in the world.
Rían would come.
He had to.
Unless he called my bluff. Unless he knew I didn’t have it in me to go through with it.
My hope fell with the sinking sun.
I turned and stomped back toward the house. If I was going to die, I didn’t want to die in this hideous black robe and a shift.
“Throw yourself into the feckin’ sea? What sort of shite is that?”
Rían stood by the gate in a spotless white shirt, one arm thrown around the post, his long legs encased in black breeches.
I wanted to jump on top of him and hug him against me. To kiss his irritatingly handsome face. To strangle him for trying to force me into giving him up. “It’s how I respond to ‘accept my bargain or die.’”
Rían’s thumb tapped the wooden post. “I’m here. What do you want?”
What did I want? Wasn’t it bloody obvious? I wantedhim.
I stepped forward. My blasted slipper tangled with the heavy hem of the blasted robe, sending me flying headfirst into his chest.
Rían caught me in his cinnamon-scented embrace. “Dammit, Aveen. When was the last time you had food?”
“I can’t remember.” Food was the last thing on my mind when he picked me up and started for the cottage.
I ended up on the sofa, watching a prince flit from cupboard to cupboard, collecting plates and bits of food and water from a clay jug with a broken handle.
He dragged over one of the mismatched chairs to use as a small table, setting the feast right under of my nose. “Eat.”
As delicious as the bread smelled, my clenching stomach was having none of it. I picked the end of one slice apart and popped a piece into my mouth to appease him. I swore the morsel echoed when it hit bottom.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he sighed. “I could spin out at any moment.”
“Does it happen often?” We’d known each other for months and I hadn’t seen it happen more than the once.
A faint blush painted his sharp jaw. His gaze dropped to his boots. “She leaves me alone as long as I don’t break the rules.”
That evil witch . . . I was going to kill her. And I was going to enjoy it. “We need to get back your heart.”
Rían told me I’d lost my “feckin’ mind” and stalked to the spare room, returning with a copper tub to place in front of the fire. After collecting a bucket from beside the cupboards, he stepped outside, slamming the door behind him.
The bite I’d taken seemed happy to stay down, so I had another. And another. By the time I finished the plate of bread, smoky yellow cheese, and cured ham, my queasiness had subsided enough to sit upright.
Rían lugged in bucket after bucket of water, six in total. The kettle on the hob started whistling. Water sloshed onto the plank floor when he added the final bucket. With the fire blazing in the hearth, it wouldn’t be long before the puddle dried.
I dipped my fingers into the tub, then sucked in a breath. “It’s bloody freezing.”
The kettle ceased its screaming the moment Rían lifted it from the hob. “That’s what this is for.”
“That tiny kettle won’t make a blind bit of difference to this much water.”