She’d never seen my real face.
And she wanted me to fuck her in a shed.
Those three things summed up my “relationship” with Eithne O’Meara.
I stepped around the bench and table in the blacksmith’s old tool shed, careful not to disturb the layer of dust covering everything. Sneezing and sniffling and watery eyes weren’t exactly a recipe for seduction. I’d offered to meet Eithne in her husband’s mansion overlooking the seaside. Unfortunately, she preferred our dalliances more . . . What had she called it?
Ah, yes. Seedy.
I was a prince in my world, not beloved like my brother but certainly feared and respected. In this world, I may as well have been the dirt on this disgusting wooden floor.
The soft sigh of misty rain kissed the shed’s slate roof. Quick footsteps from the humans outside darted this way and that in a pointless attempt to avoid getting wet. The steadyclip clopof horse’s hooves grew louder as they approached Graystone’s market square.
Eithne would want to hurry it on. I had things to do.
Thinking of her made my stomach revolt. I wouldn’t have touched the woman if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.I put duty above everything else, knowing all too well what would happen if I didn’t.
I shifted my pocket watch to check the time. A gift left to me by my father when he passed.
Passed.
A polite way of saying “gutted in his sleep by a cursed dagger.” The old fae prince had had no more fondness for me than I did Eithne. He’d only left me his watch and cufflinks out of guilt for abandoning me in the Forest.
I needed to be in Rosemire by half past if I wanted to make the trial.Trial. A polite way of saying “pre-execution.”
I would have left without seeing Eithne, except I needed to know when more soldiers were to arrive from Vellana. Something was brewing, I could feel it in my gut. And Eithne was my key to learning what it was.
Her husband, and Graystones’ magistrate, served as the Vellanian king’s eyes and ears on the East Coast. His wife had a loose tongue. A tongue she jammed into my mouth as if she wanted to make sure my tonsils were still there.
A year ago, mass executions had been few and far between.Now, they were more common than not.I’d tried explaining my concerns to my brother. As usual, Tadhg either had his head buried in a bottle or his cock buried in a woman. The man blamed his curse for his uselessness.
We were all cursed. Every last one of us.
Drinking himself delirious wasn’t going to fix it. Not that I could tell him that when he was in one of his moods.His moods.That’s what Ruairi and Eava called his month-long binges. All Tadhg had to do was find a woman to love his drunk arse and he’d be free.
Some of us didn’t have that luxury.
The door opened. There was a flash of light. A flurry of skirts. A woman’s heavy breathing.
“You’re late.” I said it with a smile to keep Eithne from hearing the hate on my tongue.
Eithne’s breathing hitched. I could hear her hammering heart like the beat of a bodhran, no doubt sending a wealth of blood rushing south.She smelled different today, like raindrops on rose petals. If she weren’t so revolting, I may have liked it. I had her pinned against the shed wall before she could give me some excuse. There wasn’t time for that.
Her hips didn’t feel as bony as they usually did. Or her arse. She didn’t grab for me, either. The last thing I needed was for her to start showing restraint.
My mouth met her rose-scented skin. And burned.
Eithne whimpered.
The sound was too high. Too sweet. Too nervous.
I jerked back, ramming into the feckin’ table, sending whatever was on top crashing to the floor.
Not Eithne. Not Eithne. Not Eithne.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Why have you come?” I demanded. “Who sent you?” And where the hell was Eithne? I scrubbed my mouth with my sleeve, still burning burningburning.