Page 32 of Lady of the Nightmares

Aine, along with Bael, had seen the note from Grandmother Celia some time ago. The note, written by the queen before her death, had prophesied that I would be the last Everlast King. That could only mean an end to our curse in my lifetime—if only I could work out how to do it.

“Fool.” Aine looked down at Lonnie before pacing circles around my tower as if she’d already worn the path many times before and knew the steps by heart. “You need to kill the human. It’s as simple as that.”

I wasn’t so sure she was wrong. In any case, Ambrose hadn’t said I must marry the queen, only that Icould.

I could have said that, but instead, I said, “Do you really think Bael will allow that?”

“Bael isn’t here, in case you hadn’t noticed. Anyway, what are you implying?”

I didn’t need to imply anything, but it wasn’t my secret to share with her about the mating bond. Still, perhaps I could still run a theory past her…something that had been working its way through the back of my mind. “He told me that he healed her by bleeding.”

Aine’s eyes bugged out of her head, and she made a sound that might have been a curse or a sign of incredulity. “When?”

“Before the first hunt,” I said dully.

“And since?”

I ran my fingers through my hair. We’d fought about it when he first told me and again after the hunt. I’d demanded he stay away from her, and by all accounts, he had, right up until she was attacked…it was hard to say when he would have realized that the bond existed. Clearly, it wasn’t sealed, but if she wouldn’t wake…

“I don’t know.” A sickness churning in my stomach. “Surely even he wouldn’t be fool enough to do that twice?”

Aine’s eyes widened in horror, and the uncertainty in her expression was all the answer I needed.

* * *

“How long hasshe been like this?”

I moved my gaze from where the latest healer ran her long, grayish-blue fingers over Lonnie’s sleeping cheeks and glared mutinously at her. “A day.”

My jaw ached from how hard I’d been clenching it over the course of that day, and perhaps in the days prior, and I shifted on my feet, moving my weight back and forth with nervous energy. On my shoulder, my raven, Quill, tittered in discomfort.

The healer stood on her toes and leaned further over the bed, moving her needlelike fingers down Lonnie’s slender throat as if feeling for a pulse. I swallowed thickly, my gaze locking on where her throat bobbed.

“More specifically?” the healer asked.

I narrowed my eyes. “One sun cycle? How would you like me to fucking tell you that it was a day?”

She turned to me with wide, pupilless eyes and seemed to be assessing. Judging. “Apologies, my lord. It is my mistake. I’m not accustomed to the High Fae court.”

I nodded, not precisely appeased. “You’re Underfae.”

This woman was the third healer in twenty-four hours. When I’d asked for another healer, I’d expected a human. Another breed of Fae had not been what I’d been expecting; however, as she was the first healer whom I’d not wanted to murder simply for touching Lonnie, I’d decided not to ask questions.

Until now, that was.

The woman blinked slowly. “Wrong, my lord. I am half Unseelie. Does it bother you?”

“No,” I said flatly. “It does not bother me. I want to know what’s wrong with her, and if you can fix it, I don’t care what you are.”

The healer looked surprised, her too-large eyes blinking strangely at me. She had a second eyelid beneath the first, like a clear membrane. “That’s an uncommon position for a Seelie prince. Does that mean that the rumors are true, then?”

I smiled at her, and it wasn’t nice. “If by the rumors, you mean that I will kill those who threaten my family, then yes, healer. Those have been proven time and time again to be true.”

The Unseelie woman tensed and nodded as if to say she understood. She turned back to Lonnie. She reached up and fingered one strand of her long, red hair gently as though to push it back from her face. Then, without warning, she tugged the strand out and shoved it in her mouth.

I jerked, alarmed, and lunged forward with an almost unconscious move to stop her. “Don’t touch her.”

“I’m tasting her magic, lord,” the healer replied calmly. “It’s there but depleted. She’s resting.”

---