Page 169 of A Tongue so Sweet and Deadly

Sixty-Eight

When the music picked up speed and more people joined them on the floor, Loche eyed her, and she nodded when he jerked his head toward the refreshment table.

A few groups of other Fae came over, voicing their support to Loche, and while none of them bothered her, their scathing looks burned into her back when they finally offered their good-lucks and goodbyes.

Lessia shrugged it off.

At least her father was still nowhere to be seen.

She glanced at the door he’d exited, swallowing the guilt burning like bile in her throat.

She’d never thought she’d see him again.

Especially not under these circumstances.

Even if she didn’t have Ardow and everything else to deal with, the election and whatever was going on with her and Loche was already too much.

Throwing her father into the mix…

Her mind shattered.

She couldn’t think about him right now.

Her feelings would have to wait until this mess was over.

Loche sat down in one of the plush chairs beside the table, and when she made to sit down in the other, he frowned and pulled her onto his lap.

She eyed him when he wrapped his arms around her and positioned her sideways on his lap.

Loche gave her a lazy smirk. “Now that I have you, I am not letting you go.”

Wrapping an arm around his neck, she let her fingers play with his dark strands but remained quiet, her thoughts too muddled for her to come up with a playful response.

Or any response at all.

“I want to ask you something,” Loche murmured.

She searched his eyes, noting the soberness in them and a small ember of hope.

“Will you stay with me?” Loche pulled her closer, lowering his voice. “I mean, stay and rule with me. They’ve opened the vote, and it seems I will win, but I’d like to share the regent position with you. I think I have much to learn from you. Besides”—he winked—“we make a good team.”

The room around her started spinning.

She wanted nothing more than to tell him yes, tell him she would stay with him. Regardless of what position he offered her, she just wanted to be near him and breathe the same air as him for as long as she could.

But she needed to make sure her friends—her family—were safe.

And they would never be safe here.

Lessia clawed at her throat when it closed up.

“I need some air,” she got out as she jumped off his lap, rushing out of the room.

His steps echoed behind her, and Lessiaflew up the nearest staircase, making her steps as silent as possible as she took every twist and turn she could to get rid of him.

Pausing behind a corner, she listened for steps, but hushed voices reached her ears instead. Lessia flattened herself against the wall, creeping into a dim alcove as the voices came closer.

“Both of them are in the cellar?”

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