“Watch it.” The key difference between that captain and me was that Aveen knew me, inside and out. She never thought I was some knight in shining armor. “He and I are not the same.”
He lifted a shoulder. “She still cares for him.”
“She loves me.” I’d tasted her truth time and again, holding my breath each time she’d said those words, waiting for them to stop being true.
He tilted his glass between his giant paws, his brow furrowing. “Doesn’t mean she can’t love him a little as well.”
Did part of her want to go with Caden, not only to escape the pain I’d caused but to see if they could rekindle their romance? And if they had… My heart twisted at the thought. Would she have been happier with him than she was with me? Would she have acceptedhisproposal?
Ruairi finished the dregs in his glass and set it down on the coffee table to refill. “Do ye know what yer problem is?”
Wisdom from a pooka. How did I ever get so lucky? “I can’t wait for you to tell me.”
He leaned against the cushion and threw one arm over the back of the settee. “Ye work in absolutes. Haven’t ye learned by now that the world isn’t so black and white? There’s plenty of gray in there too. Ye fell in love with more than one person. Why can’t she?”
Because she wasmysoulmate. And yet I couldn’t deny the truth in his words, no matter how much I wanted to. I’d loved Leesha—part of me still did. But Aveen held my heart, my soul. Did she feel the same about her captain?
Or would I arrive at the docks in Hollowshade only to have her look upon the freedom of the sea and change her mind? Could I really take that chance? I shifted a glass of my own and filled it to the brim, sinking onto the wingback across from where Ruairi lounged.
“She cannot go to him.”
Slowly, he eased forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Ye know better than anyone what it means to interfere with a bargain.”
True, but Caden wasn’t from Tearmann, so one could argue that our laws didn’t necessarily apply to him. “If I can’t kill the bastard before my magic wears off, he’ll take her and never give her back.” I should be able to end him before that happened, but where Aveen was concerned, I wasn’t taking any chances. A plan began to form in my mind, one riddled with holes and potential pitfalls but that would not put the woman I loved in harm’s way.
Ruairi’s blunt nailclinkedagainst his glass. “That’s what I’d do if I were him.”
I tried not to read too much into those words—otherwise, I’d no longer have an ally. “We can’t let her go to Hollowshade.”
“If she doesn’t go, she can’t fulfil the vow.”
“All we need to do isconvincethe pirate that she’s there and to release his hold on her.”
His fang scraped along his lower lip.
“But in order to do that, I’ll need help.” And as much as I loathed the thought of asking this mutt for assistance, I couldn’t think of a way around it. “I know you have qualms about not doing exactly what she wants—”
His golden eyes narrowed. “I’ve no qualms about this.”
That’d be a first. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”
“The bastard tied me up and locked me in a shed. I don’t want him near Aveen any more than ye.”
I was fairly confident that I hated Caden a good deal more than Ruairi, but if he wanted to step down from his “live and let live” shite, who was I to deter him?
I tilted my glass toward him. “Aveen doesn’t go to Hollowshade.”
He tapped his glass against mine and said, “Agreed.”
* * *
A vacant-eyed merrow with her breasts bared to the darkening sky bobbed at the front of the largest ship in Hollowshade’s tiny port. The nameMerrow’s Revengehad been carved into the side of the hull.
I wasn’t the least bit impressed. Who wanted to live on a dinghy, anyway?
“Are ye sure there’s no other way?” Ruairi asked from the alley, giving the ship a wary glance.
“It’s ‘you’ not ‘ye.’” If he acted like the peasant he was, we’d never pull this off. “And yes, I’m certain.” The wig I wore made my head itch. No matter how I adjusted the damn thing, it didn’t help.