Then he stood and took my hand, bringing me to my feet. “How do you think we’re going to take back my heart when you can no longer wield the cursed dagger?”
Right. The damn dagger. The dagger that could kill me if I used it—but onlyifI was a true immortal. How did we get Rían’s heart back without it?
I thought and thought. There had to be some way to—
Hold on.
We were looking at this all wrong.
This mission wasn’t about vengeance. It was about taking back something that had been stolen.
I smiled up at him and said, “I have a plan.”
* * *
It wouldn’t be long before the candle flickering on the tiny bedside table burned out. The lateness of the hour was the last thing on my mind as I hugged Rían closer. Staring toward the cracked plaster ceiling, Rían traced idle patterns on my bare back.
“I should’ve let you go,” he confessed to the night. “I should’ve let Tadhg bring you to the Forest the very first day and request safe passage. I just . . . if the Queen had said ‘no,’ I thought . . .”
“You thought I’d be stubborn enough to go anyway.”
His hand stilled, and he nodded.
Would I have been foolish enough to cross the Black Forest? I’d been understandably distraught, but that didn’t mean I would’ve put my life at risk. Then again, it was hard to say for certain. And anyway, there was no point dwelling on the what-ifs.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said, breathing him in, committing to memory the feel of his warmth mixing with mine. “I’m glad you wanted to keep me.”
There was a smile in his voice when he said, “I wanted to keep you the moment I accosted you in that shed.”
The wind howled outside, whistling through a gap in the sill and sending a chill tickling down my spine. Rían lifted my arm, extricating himself from beneath me. Rolling off the bed, he padded silently toward the room across the skinny hall, returning with a handful of gray putty. He picked off a bit, rolled it between his fingers, and stuffed it in the gap.
The whistling stopped.
The mattress dipped when he came back to bed. I snuggled close, missing his heat. “Watching you do things turns me on.” Before bed, he’d banked the fire, made us both a cup of tea, and washed the few dishes we’d used. Domestic Rían was quickly becoming one of my favorites.
“You must be constantly turned on then. I do things all the time.”
“I mean handy things. Like boiling the kettle. And filling the tub. And fixing my window.”
“I can literally open the earth with a flick of my wrist, and you’re turned on by a bit of feckin’ putty?” His chuckle vibrated under my cheek. “That’s it. I’m asking for a new soulmate. You’re defective.”
“Stop,” I giggled, giving his chest a smack. “It makes you seem more human.” I liked thinking of Rían having limitations like the rest of us instead of being all-powerful.
“That is not a compliment.”
“It is to me.”
He drummed his fingers against my back. “I puttied all these windows.”
My stomach fluttered. “Did you now?”
He nodded.
“Did you do anything else?”
He settled deeper into the thin pillow at his back. “Replaced the shite windows with less shite windows. And fixed the hinges on the shite door. And pulled a hundred years’ worth of bird and mouse nests from the chimney.”
I propped myself onto my elbow so I could see him better. Candlelight flickered on the far side of his face. The side closest to me remained draped in shadows. “You’re serious?”