“Because as much as you like to think otherwise, you can’t be everywhere at once. He needs to learn what to do.”
“And what’s that?” I picked up the letter opener on his desk. Drew the blade along my fingertip.
“You think I don’t hear the whispers that witnesses have gone ‘missing’ in Airren? Witnesses at all the trials you’ve attended.”
“Could be a coincidence,” I said with a shrug.
“You and I both know it’s not.”
Why, oh why couldn’t my brother have been drunk already? He was far less meddlesome when he was drunk. “That mutt doesn’t have it in him to do what needs done. I will go on my own.” Ruairi was as soft as they came. It was a wonder he could shift into anything besides a fluffy bunny.
“Youwillbring Ruairi.” Tadhg sounded exactly like our father when he used that sort of commanding tone. Which made me hate him even more.
Unfortunately, Tadhg ruled this forsaken country—when he felt like it—so I would do what was requested of me like a good little foot soldier.
“Go on, then.” Tadhg gestured to the door. “Let me know what happens when you get back.”
* * *
I found my brother’s mate in an alley outside a Danú pub. The second I arrived, Ruairi’s nose lifted, wrinkled, and his narrowed golden eyes landed on mine.
“Well, isn’t this convenient?” I drawled. “You’re sitting on your arse doing nothing, and I’m in the need of a dog for the day.”
His lips tugged into a grin, revealing his elongated canines. “As much as it warms my heart that ye’d like my company, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint.”
“I bet that’s what you say to all the ladies.”
He snorted into his pint of amber.
“Unfortunately for us both,” I said with a sigh, “your prince has ordered me to bring you to Graystones. So you can either come of your own free will, or I can make you.”
Beneath his dark beard, his jaw pulsed. He lifted his pint and finished it in two swallows before grabbing his coat and rising to his feet. Since his arse always seemed to be parked on my settee, it was easy to forget how big he was.
I hated that I had to look up at him.
And from his sharp-toothed grin, the big bastard knew it.
When I held out my hand, his nose wrinkled like he’d just stepped in shite.
“I know how to get there on my own,” he said.
“Yes, but I don’t have time to waste trying to find you once we arrive. Just take my feckin’ hand.”
Although he grumbled about it like a child, he took my hand long enough for me to bring us to the edge of town, right behind the sign welcoming us to Graystones.
I glamoured myself into someone the old eejits in the courthouse would respect. A “stately” gentleman with a bulbous nose, thin lips, and the same paunch most of the old men in this town sported. Ruairi just stood there with his hands in his feckin’ pockets. “What are you waiting for? Hurry up and shift.”
His golden eyes narrowed. “Shift into what?”
“A horse, obviously.”
“Fer what?”
“I can’t be seen just strolling into town, now, can I?”
His inky hair slipped over his shoulders when he shook his head, reminding me that I still had yet to cut it. “Not a hope, lad.”
“Stop being a pain in the arse. You let Tadhg ride on you all the time.”