Page 110 of The Mortal Queen

Lir, having not moved, his back turned to her, had somehow known it was his bride hidden amidst the shadows. Had the trees given her away? The stones? The insects? The rodents scampering in the periphery?

Nevertheless he, at last, movedto face her.

Despite the black of night, the fae king’s feline eyes glittered. Shone with a predatory hunger that struck deep and unadulterated fear within Aisling, slipping through her veins in icy currents, frosting her bones and paling her complexion.

Wordlessly, the fae king approached her. As nimble and quiet as a fox, never once releasing her from his gaze. And as though he’d bespelled her, Aisling was paralyzed. Nothing but the lurching of her heart as she fought to steady her breath, the drum of it echoing in the hollows of her ears. He moved nearer, the intangible string tightening between them, knotting deep in her abdomen and heating.

Aisling held her king’s regard, staring up at emeralds for eyes. Absolute green pulsing with the spirit of the forest. Cutting into her and tearing her apart.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” Her voice was mulled wine, nearly another’s voice and not her own.

“Because you wield strange and cruel magic against me. You being near to me alone makes it difficult to think clearly.”

There was something different about him, Aisling knew immediately. Red circles rimmed his eyes and the anxious hunger that prowled there. The image of a starved wolf whose appetite made it desperate, manic, and truly mad. The glint in his fully dilated eyes was both bewitching and chilling all at once. The way he eyed the idle curls blowing across her face as if he wished to pull them away. To touch her but wouldn’t allow himself. He was a physical manifestation of the energy Aisling felt coursing deep within him, the blackest shadows of the forest forged into flesh.

“I hunted for you,” he said, his voice as smooth as milk and as thick as blood. A harbinger of Sakaala’s lawless magic. Charms Aisling found she admired. Understood and wished to harness herself.

“You believed me dead?”

A muscle flashed across Lir’s jaw, his expression darkening.

“I believed you lost.” Lost at the bottom of the Forge where Racat hoarded her bones.

“It hardly matters. We’re both aware my death or my going missing would prove beneficial to the Sidhe either way. No longer would you be bound to the fury of either Unseelie or mortal.”

Lir considered her, narrowing his eyes.

“There was a time your death would’ve been gladly dealt by my hands.”

“A time before or after I was proven to be the secondcaerayour mother prepared you for?”

Lir reacted sharply to the word “mother,” baring his teeth as he moved closer yet.

“Even then I considered it, watched you as you slept, convincing myself a dagger to your heart would prevent me?—”

“From committing the same mistakes as your mother? From destroying your kingdom in order to preserve the breath of your”—Aisling tripped over her own words—“your superstitions.”

“Superstitions.” Lir laughed, shaking his head. “You will always stand against the Sidhe and, with each day I do not kill you, the threat your breath symbolizes grows more powerful. Hangs more thickly over my head. For if it weren’t only for the fact you undermined the Unseelie by handfasting me, but now you wield a weapon whose very nature heralds the end of our kind. An end I cannot allow.”

Aisling shook her head.

“You live in fear, Lir, and it will eat you alive if you allow it.”

“No, I live in the past, afraid to either fail you as I did Narisea, as I nearly did at the Isle of Mirrors, or commit the same crimes as my mother in your name. To either fail to protect you or fail to kill you.”

Aisling bit her bottom lip, drawing blood. Her heart aching as though he’d indeed impaled herat her core.

“And now I’m found, alive and wreaking havoc on the alliance we both sacrificed to uphold.”

“Did you intend to reveal your abilities to your father?” Lir asked, searching every twitch of her expression for signs of betrayal. Filverel must’ve done his best to convince the fae king Aisling had indeed intentionally exposed thedraiochtto the fire hand. But that was a lie and the truth was far more concerning.

“No,” Aisling said honestly, schooling her expression. “I lost control. I did my best to resist thedraiocht. To ignore its begging and manage my emotions. Despite how it clawed and scratched and raved within me. But somehow…” Aisling hesitated, gathering herself as her eyes burned with the memory. “Somehow thedraiochtemerged without my permission. Held me prisoner and commanded me not to breathe.”

For if anyone knew how to help Aisling gain control, to understand, to master her magic, it would be Lir. He’d taught her how to summon it and now he could teach her how to expel it.

“Will you teach me to master it? Control it?Ifindeed you wish for me to live with such magic and not die with it for the sake of Annwyn.”

Slowly, the fae king held her chin, tilting her face up, so she drowned more thoroughly in his sage pools.

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