The moment she was out of sight, I headed in the opposite direction until I hit deeper water. Sliding down the bank, I shucked off my shirt and breeches to wash them in the freezing river. As much as I didn’t want to, I waded in, every part of me shrinking away from the icy liquid sweeping past.
“What the hell is your problem?” a voice growled from shore.
I slipped on the algae covered stones, landing face-first in the river. I came up sputtering like an eejit. “Feckin’ hell, Rían.” I shoved my dripping hair back from my eyes to glare at my brother. “How’d you find me?”
“How do you think?” he shot back, hands braced on his hips. Clean and dry and scowling.
Dammit. Eava and her scrying. What had I told her about helping my brother spy on me? To be fair, she only did it when she was proper worried. Which happened far more often than I’d admit.
“Since you’re here, you may as well be useful and shift me some clean clothes.”
Did he listen? No. The bastard folded his arms. “Why can’t you do it yourself?”
I hated asking him for help. I hated asking him for anything. “Because I spent the night with Caer and Cait, the morning murdering three humans, and the afternoon in the feckin’ underworld.”
“Busy, busy.” He clicked his tongue. “I see you still haven’t gotten the ring.”
The ring was the last thing on my mind with this water freezing the bollocks off me. I dipped my head back, giving my hair a quick scrub. “Clothes. Now.”
When I stood, I found a clean pair of breeches, a shirt, and a towel stretched on a flat rock next to him.
“Any chance you could shift me something from the kitchens as well?”
The bastard went back to folding his arms and looking down on me. “Eava’s upset you haven’t been home. She’s on strike.”
Of course she was.
I dipped below the water once more, keeping my feet planted on the slick stones. When I resurfaced, I wiped the water from my face and started for shore. “Tell Eava I’ll stop by tomorrow.”
“Stop by?” Rían tossed me the towel. “Tadhg, you need to come back. I’ve things to be doing.”
“I just need a little more time.”
With another flick of his wrist, Rían’s ceremonial dagger appeared, curved blade sharp and gleaming. “Give me ten minutes with the human.”
The towel may have taken away the dampness, but it’d be ages before I warmed up. “Not happening.”
“You actually like her, don’t you?” The way he squinted made me want to cut out his eyes. “The woman wants your head on a feckin’ platter, andyou like her. And I thought I was bad.” A chuckle. “Why don’t you set your sights on one of the countless females who actually fancy you instead of wasting your time on one who wants you dead?”
“I don’t—” My head throbbed when I tried to deny liking Keelynn. “It’s complicated,” I amended.
“How is it complicated? Fuck her and be done with it.”
I couldn’t do that when she wanted nothing to do with me, now could I? And even if I did convince Keelynn to sleep with me, I had a sinking feeling I would never want to be “done with it.” I snagged the breeches from the rock, stuffing my feet into the rough wool legs. “Right. Because that’s what you did.”
“My situation is different.”
“Because you’re in love? That’s a load of bollocks, and we both know it. The only person you’re capable of loving is yourself.”
Rían flicked his wrist. The sounds of the river and the forest faded to nothing inside the tost.
“Aveen is my soulmate.”
“That’s a load of—”
He aimed the dagger at my chest. “When I touch her, there’s a spark that burns brighter than the light of a thousand candles. Every fiber of my being yearns for her. Every day I’m forced to live without her is a feckin’ nightmare. You,” he sneered, gesturing at me with the blade, “with your ‘cursed glamour,’ with women falling at your feet, you wouldn’t know the first thing about it because you’re more incapable of love than I am.”
The fire burning in my hands.