Speak of the devil! The woman blew into the room, a whirlwind of skirts and smiles. Deirdre may have been human, but she could hold her own with us. When she saw Keelynn, her eyes darted to me. “Is this who I think it is?”
I nodded.
Deirdre curtsied. At least I thought it was meant to be a curtsy. She’d been raised a farmer’s daughter, about as far from Keelynn’s “polite” society as one could get in the human world.
“It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you, Princess Keelynn,” Deirdre said. “Tadhg has told us such wonderful things.”
Keelynn shot me a wide-eyed glance from over her shoulder. “Has he?”
That’s what I got for pouring my heart out over one too many glasses of puítin like a lovesick eejit. “Don’t listen to Deirdre. She lies.” What I’d told them hadn’t been wonderful. It’d been pathetic.
Deidre told Keelynn not to mind me. “He’s been in a foul mood all day. Would you like some food, princess? Or a drink, perhaps?”
A foul mood. The polite way of saying I’d been drinking myself into a stupor, wishing for death.
“A bit to eat would be lovely, thank you. And please, just call me Keelynn.”
No drink? Interesting. I’d assumed she’d want to drown her sorrows as well. Instead of taking the free sofa, Keelynn sat on the floor next to me. I knew better than to think anything of it. She was only being polite, leaving the sofa for Lorcan and Dierdre. And there wasn’t room on the other sofa with the way Ruairi laid across it.
When she leaned closer to me, her lavender scent tickled my tongue. “Is Deirdre a witch?”
“She’s human.”
“Oh. Right.” That wrinkle between her eyebrows appeared. “And she and Lorcan are . . . ?”
“Married.” Two years this Yule. One of the only weddings I’d attended where I’d actually gotten to watch the vows. The black marriage bond on my finger caught my eye. Seeing it there made my heart swell.
“And Lorcan is a . . . ?”
“A thieving bastard who stole my feckin’ woman,” Ruairi muttered from the sofa.
He may have spotted Deirdre first, but she’d only ever had eyes for Lorcan.
“I was neveryourwoman,” Deirdre announced, shoving a cart of cakes and tea from the apartment’s tiny kitchen. “And to answer your question, Keelynn, my husband is a pooka.”
Ruairi snorted. “Like hell he is. He’s a rutting half-breed who wishes he was one of us.”
Pooka. I rolled my eyes. No one cared if one was full-blooded or half-blooded except another pooka. Lorcan’s mam had been human, his father a purebred pooka. He’d inherited his father’s magic and his mother’s features, straddling the line between humans and Danú. That was the only reason he was able to own a successful business in the city. It wouldn’t survive on the east coast where Keelynn was from, but it thrived here.
Humans came to the Arches for a taste of the wilds of Tearmann without having to brave the Forest. And Danú came because the drink was good, the food was cheap, and they weren’t going to be thrown onto the street.
Lorcan brought two bottles of wine from the kitchen. “You’re just jealous because I’m prettier than you.”
“Ye are not.”
“Am too. Ask Keelynn. She can’t lie.”
I was about to tell them to leave my wife out of their silly discussions, but then Keelynn smiled.
“Sorry, Ruairi. Lorcan is prettier because he doesn’t have scary fangs.”
Lorcan bowed in victory. “Thank you, milady.”
Ruairi did not look impressed. “Ah, come on. These little things?” He showed off his elongated incisors. The size of a pooka’s fangs was a sign of his virility. Or so I’d heard. Probably a load of shite spouted by a long-toothed beast who wouldn’t get a female otherwise.
“They wouldn’t hurt ye—unless yer into a bit of pain with yer pleasure,” Ruairi added.
Keelynn’s head tilted as she considered his words. The last thing I wanted was for her to start asking whatthatmeant. Ruairi would be only too happy to show her, and then I’d have to kill him.