“I thought ye’d never ask,” Ruairi said with a wink before dropping onto my bed and stretching out onmyfeckin’ pillow. Had I said I hated him less? I meant more.
At least he hadn’t put his filthy head on my wife’s pillow. Then I’d have to burn it, and pillows were few and far between with all the humans skulking around.
Aveen’s laugh didn’t sound forced. She didn’t honestly find this dog funny, did she?
Suddenly, the thought of her being here for this made my throat tight. I’d only ever returned my own heart and had never taken one. What if something went wrong and I accidentally killed Ruairi? The thought of what I was about to do filled my chest with dread. No one should have this sort of control over another person. No one.
I pressed a hand to the small of Aveen’s back. “Maybe you should leave for this next part.”
She shook her head and sank onto the bed by Ruairi’s boots. “I’m staying.”
Fine. “Shirt off, dog.” The sooner we got this over with, the better.
Ruairi’s grin widened as he unbuttoned his shirt. I glanced over at Aveen to see if she was impressed, but her expression gave nothing away. Probably because there was nothing to be impressed about. Sure, he was larger than me in the chest, and his stomach looked like a feckin’ washboard, but he was also a mutt, so—
The pooka folded his hands behind his head, his smile widening. “Enjoying the view, Little Rían?”
“Actually, I’m deciding what I’m going to make you do first: shave off all your hair or punch yourself in the bollocks.”
Ruairi’s laughter boomed, but I could’ve sworn he winced when I stepped toward him. Was all of this for show? False bravado to conceal his nervousness? He must have been shaking in his shite boots, putting his life in my hands.
I closed my eyes and began the Queen’s spell for removing hearts. My hand heated until it glowed bright red. When I pressed my finger to Ruairi’s chest, he let out a low curse.
“That really feckin’ hurts.”
“Good.”
Aveen poked my side. “Be nice.”
That was me being nice. He wasn’t dead, was he? Not yet, anyway. Once I flayed his skin and called forth his heart,thenhe’d be dead. Thanks to the reanimation spell rife with dark magic, he would still be able to walk and talk and wear those terrible grins, but he would technically be dead and therefore unable to die if he found himself, let’s say, stabbed in the gut.
Sweat beaded on his brow, and the smile slipped from his face when I called to his heart. His body grew still and eyes dulled.
Aveen stood, her hip pressed against me when she stepped closer. “Is everything all right?”
How was I supposed to know? I’d never feckin’ done this before.
I squeezed my eyes tighter and forced myself to concentrate. I spoke the words once more and felt something heavy in my palm. Warm wetness leaked down my wrist. The coppery tang of blood left my tongue tingling. When I opened my eyes, the pooka’s still-beating heart waited in my hand.
So far, so good. We just had to keep it somewhere safe and under my control so no one used him against us—especially seeing as he’d be the one carrying the only weapon in this world capable of killing us all.
I shifted the box Eava had spelled to keep anything it held within safe and tucked the heart inside.
“Where will you put it?” Aveen asked.
I summoned a tost to keep out any prying ears and told her exactly where I planned on hiding the pooka’s heart. The exact same place I’d left the dagger. If anything happened to me, someone else would need to know how to bring Ruairi back to himself. As much as I despised the bastard, he didn’t deserve to be controlled the way I had.
Aveen’s hand fell to Ruairi’s boot as she stared at his body. “What now?”
Good question. I’d never hung around the Queen’s victims long enough to see what happened after she’d stolen their hearts. “Now, we wake him up.” I sounded far more certain than I felt. I disbanded the tost and used magic to close the wound, leaving a nasty new scar on Ruairi’s chest.
Aveen’s golden curls spilled over her shoulders when she leaned closer to his face. “Should he be waking up yet?”
Maybe? Maybe not? When the Queen had stolen mine, I’d been unconscious, so I couldn’t speak to how long it would take Ruairi to come back to himself.
She gave my arm a shake. “Rían?”
“I don’t know.”