I kissed her. I couldn’t help it.
And then I set aside foolishness and focused on the task at hand.
“Right. Yes. Right.” I paced the floor, running through scenarios and potential consequences once more. “We should do this straightaway. The quicker you die, the quicker you’ll be back.” The thought of losing her for a year made my empty chest ache.Get off it, you eejit.You can’t lose what was never yours to begin with.
Tadhg stood and straightened his stained breeches. “What’s the matter? Afraid she’ll change her mind if you don’t rush her into it?”
Of course I was afraid. This was a mediocre plan at best.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” Aveen vowed, wrapping her fingers around my arm. “But I would like a little time to say goodbye.”
“You cannot tell anyone of our plans.” I took her hand, staring into her eyes, hoping she would understand the importance of this secret. If word of our relationship—even though it was false—reached the Queen, there was no telling how she would punish us both.
“I promise,” she said with obvious reluctance.
Those words were all I needed to cast a binding spell. Now, even if she tried to speak of our bargain, she wouldn’t be able to unless I released her—which I would never do.
Tadhg evanesced and reached for one of Aveen’s curls, no doubt knowing exactly how much it would piss me off. “Don’t worry, Aveen. I’ll make your death a pleasurable experience for both of us.”
The hell he would. I grabbed his collar, this close to strangling him. “Go find someone to seduce.”
“Why find my own when you’re letting me borrow one of yours?” Tadhg thought it’d be a good idea to wink at her.
I tightened my grip, twisting until the veins in his forehead bulged. “Don’t make me kill you.”
“You know,” Tadhg choked, “for someone who wants my help, you really should be nicer to me.” He flicked my hand until I released him. “Aveen.” He kissed her wrist this time, murmuring, “Until we meet again.”Then he evanesced before I could drive my fist into his cursed face.
I watched Aveen, wanting to ask so many questions, waiting to see how she would react to meeting the Gananagh himself.She remained expressionless, dumbfounded, no doubt, by his beauty.
“So, your brother is interesting.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t fall at his feet,” I muttered, dropping onto her bed with a groan. “You did well. I think he was properly convinced.” Hell, I’d been convinced she felt something for me, and I knew the truth.
The mattress shifted when she sat next to me.“Why the ruse? He seemed more than willing to help.”
“Only because I told him we were desperately in love.” And if I hadn’t, he would’ve been trying to help himself beneath her skirts.
Her head whipped toward me. “You didn’t mention Keelynn, did you?”
“If you want to keep me from your sister, I assumed you’d want to keep the feckin’ Gancanagh from her as well.”
When she lay down beside me, I found myself longing to reach for her hand. What was it about this woman that made me so feckin’ soft? I needed to kill someone.
“Do you think it will hurt?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the canopy above us.
I opened my mouth to lie, but the words died on my lips. I couldn’t lie. Not about this. In this, Aveen deserved the truth. I rolled onto my side, facing her, allowing myself to bask in the intimacy of this moment for a breath. “Yes. But coming back will be worse.”
“How much worse?”she whispered.
“It’s not as bad as being hanged but considerably more painful than getting decapitated.” As gruesome as it was, decapitation was relatively painless for the one whose head was being lopped off. “Think being burned at the stake but without the godawful smell of singed hair and melting flesh.”
Her hand flew to her slender throat. “Are you serious?”
Of course I was serious. This was death, something you were only meant to experience once. Something you were never meant to come back from. It was hardly a walk in the feckin’ park. “Any other questions?”
“How do you know? Have you died before?”
I’d been killed more times than I could count. Most recently, some fool in the north thought it’d be a good idea to poison my wine. I’d made sure he died a nasty death. “I’ve been hanged, stabbed, pushed off a castle roof, drowned in a river, drowned in the sea, impaled by a lance, met with an executioner’s ax, shot with an arrow, cut down by an iron sword, and poisoned. My mother struck me with an iron bar once.” Right upside my head, and my hearing hadn’t been right since. “And my brother’s favorite way to kill me is to slit my throat.” I untied my cravat to show her the thick layer of scars hidden beneath.