I didn’t have time for this. I was already late.
Feck it anyway. I’d make time.
I caught her by the hips, settling her on top of me. Losing myself in a woman didn’t fix anything but it did make the world fall away.
“If I were your queen,” Fiadh said, her head falling back, thrusting her glorious chest forward. “I’d kill every last mortal on this island.”
She looked like a queen, this beautiful, bloodthirsty woman. Black hair tumbling down alabaster skin like an onyx river, swaying in time with her breasts.
Even if we were to wed, she’d never be a queen.
There was only one queen on this island, and no one in their right mind would challenge the Phantom Queen for her title.
I’d never give Fiadh what she truly desired. To bind oneself to another for all of eternity was a particular sort of madness I wanted to part of. Marriage was for mortals with a life that spanned a few decades, not for those of us who lived forever.
The moment I finished, she rolled off me. This was the part I hated. The awkwardness of forced intimacy. Cuddling sounded about as appealing as marriage.
I pushed off the bed, crossing to the spelled bath steaming on the far side of the room, near a window overlooking the dark forest.
Golden mirrors tacked to the red walls reflected candles glowing on the armoire and Fiadh’s overlarge dressing table, draped with the stay I’d removed hours earlier.
“Where are you going?” Fiadh whined from the mattress, legs still splayed and chest heaving.
“For a bath. I’ve important business to attend to when I get back.” And the last thing I needed was to stroll into the great hall reeking of sex.
In my peripherals, I saw her stiffen. “Am I not important?”
I stepped into the hot water of the copper tub with a sigh, letting the warmth close over me and soothe my aching muscles. I’d overdone training with Ruairi earlier. Every time the big brute fought, he did so as if his life depended on it. Unlike me, he could actually die. So I supposed it did.
“You’re the most important woman in my life,” I told the scowling witch.
It wasn’t a complete lie. I felt nothing for her beyond lust, but she was the most powerful witch currently sharing my bed, so she was important.
Just not in the sense she meant.
She swore as she got up, ripping her silk robe from the chaise and stuffing her arms into its long black sleeves. “You are the most selfish male I have ever met. You think just because you are a prince that you can take what you want.”
“I only take what’s freely given,” I reminded her with a smirk.
Her face flushed from her chest all the way to her sharp cheekbones. “I’m leaving. Show yourself out.” She didn’t bother tying the robe before stalking into the hallway and slamming the door.
Her irritation would subside in a week or two. It always did. Who could I visit in the interim? Cloda was always a fun distraction. Or Maeve. No, Ailish. I hadn’t been to visit the merrow in ages. And it would give me a chance to learn how many Vellanian ships they’d found lurking off Tearmann’s coast. They never docked, just skulked off the cliffs like they were keeping an eye on my castle.
I took a deep breath and slipped beneath the surface. My plans drifted away in the blessed silence, leaving an emptiness in my chest that only subsided when I was buried deep inside a woman.
The situation in Airren was getting worse. The humans had executed Ruairi’s cousin for threat of mischief. Threat of feckin’mischief.
Fiadh was right. We were here first, and yet we were the ones being persecuted.
The Danú had not lost the war because the human armies had been stronger. With one collective burst of power, every human on this island would’ve been decimated.
We’d lost the war because my father had shown mercy.
He’d said not all humans deserved to be exterminated, believing that we would learn to live in peace. Now we were the ones being exterminated.
And it was my responsibility to fix it.
My lungs burned, starved of oxygen. When the emptiness in my chest began to ache, I broke through the water with a gasp. The fire in my lungs vanished. The pain in my chest remained.