“Why is she here in the first place?”
I summoned a tost, not that it mattered now that I’d told everyone what this human was to me. “She caught you and my brother in the feckin’ garden and got it into her meddlesome head that she needed to save you.” As if that weak human could’ve done anything. I thought of the body lying outside the castle.All right. Perhaps she had done something. But she’d also caused far more trouble than she was worth.
“Why didn’t you just tell her the truth?”
“Should I have done that before or after your father caught her on top of me?”
Aveen’s eyes bulged. “No . . .”
“And your father thought himself so feckin’ clever, saddling an ambassador with his youngest daughter as a wife. All he cared about was my yearly income.”I’d love to go back to Graystones and give that bastard a piece of my mind—and my dagger.
“You married mysister?” Aveen choked, clutching the stones at her back. “But Tadhg said . . .”
“Ah, Tadhg. There’s a good story. Shall I tell it to you?” I sucked in a deep breath. “I married your sister, left her in the townhouse, faked my own death so she could marry her preciousRobert, and do you know what ‘innocent young Keelynn’ did? She found this island’s second most vindictive witch, bargained for a cursed dagger, and set off on a hair-brained revenge mission to kill a true immortal and bring you back to life.”
When I laid it out like that, it sounded like a feckin’ fairy tale.
“You’ll never guess who she wanted to kill.”I said.
Aveen’s eyes locked with mine. “She wanted to kill Tadhg.”
“Now you have it.” Even with a death-muddled brain, she was still a thousand times smarter than her eejit sister. “She believed she could slay the monster who murdered you. Fate, being the cruel bitch she is, though it’d be a feckin’ brilliant idea for the two of them to cross paths. So he’s all doe-eyed, believing that wasp is the sun, moon, and feckin’ stars, marries her because they’re ‘soulmates,’ and guess who shows up?” I threw a hand toward the door. “The witch she bargained with, holding your precious sister to her promise to slay the Gananagh. That just about catches you up to today. Any questions?”
“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?” Aveen repeated.
“I have my reasons.”
“Do you, now?” She stalked toward me as if she were an intimidating beast instead of someone I wanted to wrap my arms around and kiss until we were both delirious. “You have your ‘reasons.’ Well, that’s bloody brilliant, because I was afraid all of this happened because youlied.”
“I’m too feckin’ wrecked to deal with you right now.” I started for the stairs. She’d see reason come morning. And if she didn’t, then so be it. No skin off my back. I needed to get rid of Fiadh’s body because heaven knew Tadgh wouldn’t be doing it. He probably wouldn’t even be sober for at least a month. Then I wanted to take a bath, wash the dirt and blood from beneath my fingernails, and sleep.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” Aveen hissed. Quick footsteps sounded at my back. She shoved me right into the feckin’ table, knocking the roses I’d created just for her to the ground.
I whirled, rage humming in my hollow chest. “Shove me again and see what happens.”
She feckin’ did it. She laid her palms flat on my chest and shoved.I caught her hands with tendrils of magic, snapping them to her sides and lacing them up tight so she couldn’t move.
“Let me go this instant, or so help me—”
“So help you, what?” I pressed, bathing in the fire in her eyes. “What are you going to do to me, human?”
“I hate you.”
The truth. So long as she hated me, she could be safe. “Good. Come on.” I’d clean the mess once I got her upstairs. Add it to the list of shite I had to do.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“We both need sleep, and I refuse to deal with cranky Aveen.”
“I’m not sleeping here.” She stomped her foot like a toddler who hadn’t gotten her way.
“Would you prefer to sleep in the dungeon?”
“I wouldprefergetting my sister and bringing her back to Graystones.”
“And how do you plan on doing that? The penalty for crossing the Black Forest without the Queen’s permission is death, and our sea is swarming with hungry merrow. Go on. Tell me your grand escape plan.”
Her mouth opened and closed.