Her breathing hitched ever so slightly. The invisible cord between us grew taut.
“All right.”
Part of me had expected her to balk. The other part assumed she’d force me to play the doting courtier right now.
Instead, she turned her attention to the couples in the corner asking each other if Keelynn had seen my ears. They were attached to my feckin’ head. You’d have to be blind to miss them.
Her lips flattened. “They’re very rude.”
Not half as rude as the bartender.
“They’re curious,” I countered. “Most humans cannot see any reason for one of you to be associating with someone like me. Beyond the obvious.”I took a sip of wine. Shite. Just as I thought. If the bartender hadn’t been watching, I would’ve shifted a bottle from my own cellar back at the castle.
Keelynn’s head tilted, sending those glorious waves rolling over her slender shoulders. Tonight’s mourning dress’s square neckline hinted at the swells of her breasts. I was not complaining.
“Which is?”
Surely she was having a laugh. “Do you really not know?”
“They believe you and I are engaging in romantic relations.”
There wasn’t anyone romantic about the relations I wanted to have with her. “Yes. ‘romantic relations.’”I liked where this conversation was headed.
“Does it happen often?”
“I’m not sure I understand your question.”Did what happen often?
Her eyes dropped to where she swirled her glass of wine. “Humans and Danú. Being intimate. Together.”
Feckin’ hell, she wasserious. Most humans hated us, but that didn’t mean they weren’t tempted to dance with the darkness. “Only all the feckin’ time.” If only she knew.I’d had plenty of trysts with the Danú, but most of the offers over the years had been from humans who felt entitled to take from me what I didn’t want to give.
“Why?” she whispered, her husky voice thick.
“What do you mean, ‘why’? For the same reason it happens between humans. Lust. A desire to procreate. Feckin’ boredom. I don’t know.”There were a million reasons to fall into bed with someone. Not all of them good, but reasons nonetheless.
“Not love?”
“Not in my experience, no.” Love had nothing to do with it. Sex was about mechanics and attraction and power. “This may come as a huge shock to you, but you’re not that different from us.” We had the same desires, the same needs.
“Then why haven’t I been taught the ‘truth’ about the Danú?”
The truth had two sides, and all too often, people didn’t want to hear them both. “Because it is easier to fear the unknown than to try to understand it.” To get so wrapped up in stories and myths and lies that you couldn’t see through them to the miniscule truths they concealed.
We were here.
We were willing to talk. Willing to share our truths.
No one on the human side seemed willing to listen.
“And unfortunately, the loudest voices often belong to the most fearful.”
Keelynn looked at me for the longest time, as if she could see the monster that lived inside. As if she could see my truth. “Do you truly believe the Gancanagh is innocent?”
Not what I wanted to talk about. We needed to take a few steps back to romantic relations.
“He’s not innocent by any means,” I said, thinking of the names in my book back home. And the nameless people I’d killed using other methods. “However, he and I are . . . well acquainted.” Not a lie. A careful truth. “And as I told you in the carriage, I know for a fact that he would never kiss a woman unless she understood the consequences.”There had been the odd woman, like the barmaid, who had kissed me before I could warn them. And the innkeeper. I hadn’t exactly told her outright what would happen. But she’d come after me. I had been defending myself.
Keelynn sipped her wine slowly, then set it down next to my glass. “Killing him is the only way to bring back Aveen.”