Page 53 of The Forever Queen

Aisling’s chambers were black with shadow, brushed by the storm breezes sweeping from the terrace where Lir stood.

Slowly, quietly, he slipped into the room.

A rogue, Lir slinked against the walls to the rhythm of light cast only by a stormy moon. He made not a noise as he approached Aisling’s bed to wake her. But where the Sidhe king anticipated the soft, feminine figure of his sorceress possessed by sleep, instead he was met with a blade to the throat.

Lir jerked back, unaccustomed to being caught off guard. He hadn’t seen nor heard Aisling move from her slumber, reach for her blade, or poise it at the bobbing of his neck. And once he had, it was too late.

“My knight,” Aisling bit between clenched teeth, her violet eyes fixed on him like a bird of prey. And at her hips, behind the mounds of pelt and quilt, Anduril shone mischievously. Lir cursed to himself, raising his hands in mock surrender.

“Get dressed,” he commanded her. “We leave in search of the Goblet at once.”

Aisling, too slow for Lir’s liking, lowered Sarwen.

“I am dressed,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Hardly,” Lir replied, swallowing despite himself.

Aisling sheathed Sarwen and laid the blade at the foot of the bed. Like a flower inspired by spring’s bloom, Aisling rose from her bed, shedding her outermost robes till nothing but the slip remained. Lir hadn’t meant to stare, turning from the sorceress only to find her once more in the mirror at her vanity. Lir’s lips parted and the room grew several degrees hotter. He felt hisdraiochtsnapping its chomps inside him, begging to sink its teeth into?—

“Do I distract you,mo Damh Bán?” Aisling asked. Lir straightened, rolling his eyes in frustration with himself, carelessly caught by the object of his full attention. Aisling, on the other hand, smiled like a cat with a mouse between its teeth.

“You test my patience,” Lir said. A half-truth.

“Some privacy then while I ready myself,” Aisling said, disappearing behind a curtain of twinkling sapphire and azure beads beside her wardrobes. Fireflies fluttered from their perches the moment she stepped behind the veil and began fully undressing. Her purpled wine voice rising above and gracing Lir’s ears.

“In what direction does our hunt take us?” Aisling asked while she worked.

Lir needed a distraction and so he drew one of his twin blades from his back and tossed it idly in his grip while he waited. Still, the reflection of her silhouette in the vanity mirror haunted him. His eyes latched onto the supple shadow of her figure, reminding him what it felt like to slide his palms against her skin. She was his wife, and all at once, she was not. Anduril’s influence had bled her heart of anything she seemingly felt for the Sidhe king, and each breath he underwent, tolerating the Blood Cord’s spell, would be a breath spent destroying the belt with his bare hands once he discovered a way to remove it. For even now, her feminine silhouette was interrupted by the jagged prominence of the cursed object seated on the throne of her hips.

Yet, he couldn’t forget the promise he’d sealed with Niamh in Aisling’s name. What he coveted most, was never his to have.

“Toward a friend,” Lir said, but his voice betrayed the emotion he felt inside.

Aisling was silent for a moment, perhaps contemplating his response.

“Here?” she asked. “In the Other?” Every word thinly veiling the suspicion that laid beneath.

“Aye,” Lir replied. “Not far from Castle Yillen, so make haste.”

“Duty-bound knight,” Aisling addressed him, “make use of yourself and help me clasp this.”

Lir’s heart leaped, his body moving a step in her direction as though it bore a will of its own. Cautiously, he approached the beaded curtain—he, the hunter and she the creature he pursued with uncharacteristic desperation. What he felt for her, what her presence inspired in his body, left him breathless, foggy, and weak. Made his every step heavy and slow as he rounded the beaded curtain, squinting from the light reflecting off the beads, and allowed himself the indulgence that was the sorceress.

Clad in owl-white banners, drapes, and a sash that cinched her waist, her body was armored with silver plates that reflected the violet of her eyes till she stood like an aberration—a monstrous beauty that struck fear in the Sidhe king like no creature ever had. She was at once regal and feral. Both lovely and cruel. Both the star-drunk night and the sun-bright dawn.

“My commands must be met more quickly,” Aisling bit through the unholiest of ruby lips.

Lir straightened, realizing to his shame he’d been gaping. The Sidhe king cleared his dry throat and moved toward her as she turned, lifting bundles of curls from the nape of her neck. Her perfumes of lavender and dusky pollens, weakening his knees as he found the clasp to her breast plate.

Aisling had never been able to assemble a suit of armor on her own, always misplacing gauntlets for grieves and pauldrons for knee cops. It was a reminder that somewhere beyond Anduril’s influence, Aisling still lived.

The Blood Cord thrummed as Lir neared her, trembling fingers taking the clasp and beginning his work.

“Do you remember me?” The words slipped from Lir’s lips like a secret. It was a selfish question. He hadn’t meant to speak it, but his spirit had, forcing his body to comply with its insatiable demands for her.

“I know who you are,” she said, her voice laced with the growl of a wolf. “You’re the terror evening champions as its haunt. And never have you hidden the full face of your nightmare nor boasted any redemptive light.”

Lir ground his fangs into his bottom teeth. So, she recognized him. Knew him as she once did before they’d been handfast. But no longer did love or affection pulse at the mention of his name. He was only a story, an image, a myth that was breathed to life and placed in her life the moment Anduril locked at her hips.

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