Page 79 of A City of Emeralds and Envy
“I should go fetch the Tama Olc,” I say hesitantly.
Riordan’s eyebrows rise. “Fetchit? You mean to say you don’t have it? Where the fuck is it?”
“Keep your trousers on. It’s safe, in the library of Caislean Brea. I can have it back here in an instant, provided all of you promise not to hurt West while I’m gone.”
“Your concern for me is quite moving, sweetheart.” West splays a hand over his chest. “I could almost believe you care for me.”
He’s mocking me, but there’s a faint edge to his voice—a question he’s too proud to ask.
He wants to know if I love him. Wants to know what I was thinking while we were fucking.
The realization springs into my mind, so sharp and obvious that I’m shocked it didn’t occur to me before.
The mate bond has to be a mutual agreement. If my will and my thoughts expressed words of love and commitment that sealed the bond—he must have expressed something similar.
A wild excitement sparkles through my veins, and for a moment I think I might perish on the spot unless I know exactly what he thought in that climactic moment.
But I don’t want to hear those words in front of the others, nor do I plan on voicing my own thoughts until West and I are alone. And then I’m going to wreck him for daring to perform evenpartof a mating ritual without my consent. After which I will fuck him until he yells my name.
I’m smiling at him. Shit, I didn’t realize it. And he’s smiling back, a wicked grin that’s both surprised and avaricious.
“Shut up,” I snap at him, and he grins wider as I tap my heels together and disappear.
29
Dorothy takes a few minutes to fetch the Tama Olc, so Riordan and I sit together on a couch and skim the pages West pointed out to us, until we’re satisfied that his story about mate bonds is true. There’s a list of death records that show royal couples dying within minutes of each other—not just the King and Queen of the Isle, but other relatives in the family tree as well.
“It’s a strange way to ensure loyalty and love.” I look up at Riordan. He’s engrossed in reading, but his long ears twitch toward the sound of my voice, and I can’t help a little smile.
“Some might consider it romantic,” he says, low.
“It’s certainly possessive.”
His dark lashes lift, his scarlet eyes meeting mine, and my breath catches at the torturous beauty of him. Even if magic could seal the gashes in his face, I rather prefer them. They arehim—proof of a past he survived. They are the explanation for his occasional ruthlessness, and the witness to his indomitable nature.
“Never assume that because I share you with Caer and Jasper, that I am any less possessive of you.” His words are quiet, meant only for me, but there’s a depth and power to them that makes my whole body tingle. “I plan to have you all to myself, kitten, many times. You and I will explore all the ways your pretty human body can come apart for me.”
Breathless, I stare into his eyes, caught up in the magnetic force of his personality, the brilliance that first drew me to him. I can’t speak, so I nod, and his eyes warm, a smile that never touches his mouth.
With difficulty I break the bond of his gaze, glancing over at Caer and Jasper. They’re still kissing, with an increasing ardor that seems to amuse the West Witch.
Dorothy appears again, snapping into existence out of thin air. She’s holding the Tama Olc. “Now for the long job of perusing every page, trying to find the right spell,” she says dolefully.
“I think I can help with that.” I rise from the couch and walk over to her. “When I owned that book, I spent hours looking through it. I couldn’t do anything with what I found, but I practically memorized the titles of all the spells. I don’t remember a reference to ‘god-star,’ but maybe there’s another word used in the book—a term for god-star that I don’t know.”
“Dia Réalta,” says West, looking at me with renewed interest. “OrRí Gréine.”
“Rialóir Mór?” suggests Riordan, and West nods.
“Dia Réalta,” I muse, while my brain skims through my memories of the book. “The Tama Olc doesn’t belong to me anymore, so I can’t find the spot for you, but—Dorothy, try about two-thirds of the way through, somewhere near the spells for corpse reanimation and moon-phase conversion. If you hit the spell for living limb replacement, you’ve gone too far.”
Dorothy opens the book, and with my help, she navigates to the spell within minutes. “Príosún Dia Réalta?”she reads aloud.
“Fuck me—that’s the one!” exclaims West.
“What does it require?” Riordan asks.
Dorothy reads off the ingredients—an encouragingly short list. “We must create this potion and bathe the scrying stone with it to prepare it for containing the god-star. Then someone must speak the incantation.”
