Page 121 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

Graves’s voice was like dragging Lorcan’s face across gravel. His body was tense, prepared—he’d come ready to make good on his threat, if necessary. Kierse came back out of the fog like coming up from underwater.

“You know that you cannot keep us apart,” Lorcan said with a laugh.

“Funny,” Graves said drily. “I can still taste her on my tongue.”

“She is my chuisle mo chroí,” Lorcan snarled, half ready to lunge at him.

Kierse tried to wedge between them. She was not ready for cosmic god magic to start shooting around at this goddamn party.

“What thefuckdoes that mean?” Kierse demanded.

Lorcan’s eyes met hers, and again she felt that press against her chest, almost like she was going to be sick. “Do you not know?”

“Pulse of my heart.” She whispered the words Graves had told her all those months ago. She hadn’t taken them literally. She had assumed they were some Irish pet name.

“You are my soulmate.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The word didn’t compute. Soulmate.

It sounded like a joke. A punchline that wasn’t particularly funny.

Except neither man looked like they were joking or like they were at all surprised. They looked like they believed this was a fact. A fact that both of them had already known. They’d probably known it since Lorcan had called her the Irish “pet name” last winter.

She understood why Graves would withhold that information. In fact, she remembered when she had come home from Brooklyn and he’d pushed her about Lorcan. Had he been fishing to see if Lorcan had divulged this piece of information?

He had not. And now he was dangling the word on a hook like it meant something to her. Likehemeant something to her.

She took a step back. This was Imani’s insidious magic warping their minds. They were fighting over her like she was a prize to be won. There was nofighthere. Not one she wanted to be a part of. They were already enemies enough.

“I don’t know what that means,” she said finally. Lorcan opened his mouth as if he were eager to explain. “I don’t want to know.”

His mouth snapped shut. Graves looked smug.

“You two can fight this out without me. I want no part in this dick-measuring contest. We have more important things to deal with.” Like where the hell Imani had gone.

Kierse tuned out the two men arguing over her protest and zeroed in on the goddess stalking toward the auction items.

Fuck. The cauldron.

Was that Imani’s motive? Was she seeking revenge for what Kierse and Graves had done? Would she retaliate by stealing from Graves the thing thathewanted most?

“Graves, the cauldron,” she said, trying to shake him out of it. But the magic had its hooks too deep in him. She pushed him again. “Find the fucking antidote and come back to me.”

His eyes cleared for a second as the word “antidote” came out of his mouth.

Imani’s power tightened its clutches and he was gone again. But at least he was fighting. She just couldn’t wait for him to figure it out. Not when Imani was loose and the cauldron was within her grasp.

Kierse left them to duke it out, following in Imani’s wake. “Laz, did you get out?”

“Just got into the car with George,” he reported back. “I heard everything. Edgar has the antidote and he’s on his way.”

Kierse burst backstage, racing toward the back auction room. The auctioneers had already packed up and fled. The box that held the cauldron was missing. Kierse raced out the emergency exit leading to the rooftop. Schwartz had warned them that all the auction items had been brought up the back of the building on 41st Street with a pulley system, andImani stared down over the rooftop where it had already been utilized.

“Fuck,” she hissed.

Imani whirled on her. “Little wren, you’re in over your head.” Then she stepped off the edge of the roof and dropped.

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