Page 2 of Evil Eyed
“Call the leprechaun,” Doran suggested. “He be our best resource in the matter.”
Warwick had gone back to the Summer Isle to make sure my painting that he’d stashed away in a dark cellar for safekeeping was still undisturbed. Closing my eyes, I hesitated, dread churning my stomach. I didn’t want to find out that he’d lied to me. That would break something in me that even my ex-husband hadn’t been able to accomplish, even while destroying years of my memories.
I didn’t even know what to say. I just sent a tumultuous tug toward him, hoping he would hear.
I smelled him before I opened my eyes. Flowers and fresh, green growing things. My heart clenched and I squeezed my hands into fists on my legs. Bracing myself.
Opening my eyes, I couldn’t breathe a moment at his beauty. Long ebony hair swept around his shoulders, shinier than the finest silk. He wore loose, flowing pants with a matching tunic in emerald silk with heavy gold embroidery. His eyes spun with golden fireworks against the deep green of his eyes, spiraling with his magic. Sucking me under. Promising me the world—in all dimensions, mortal and beyond.
He knelt before me, heedless of the grimy floor, and wrapped both of his hands around one of my tightly-clenched fists. “Alas,mo stór,I never would have left your side if I had known you would receive troubling news. What has happened?”
“You said you’d never lie to me,” I whispered. “You promised.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes darkening to a deep forest green. “I did indeed, and I need no gold to hold me to that oath.”
“In the warehouse.” I swallowed, trying to get the words out. “Before we freed Doran. I asked you if I was mortal.”
Warwick’s brow furrowed. “Aye, the treasurekeeper is always a mortal woman. So it has been from the beginning to my knowledge, though the treasures were incarnated before my time.” His head cocked, his gaze flickering over to Doran’s glower and back to me. “You have treasurekeeper magic for sure. Indomitable courage, the heart of a lion, and a fine artist’s eye, but I’ve seen naught to make me suspicious that you be anything other than a lovely mortal woman. Has something happened to make you think otherwise?”
“I asked Hammer to give me a tattoo. I wanted a shamrock on my arm with ‘get lucked’ beneath it.” I forced out a laugh, shaking my head. “But it just wiped off.”
Warwick’s eyes widened. “Tattoos don’t take to fae skin.”
I opened my hand in his, twisting our hands so I could squeeze his fiercely. “I need to know the truth. What am I?”
* * *
WARWICK
Could it be possible?
If Riann wasn’t mortal…
Ramifications fired through my mind in rapid succession. The treasures always died in their brutal war with Evil Eye, which meant her death as well. Without them to protect her, she would be no more. But if she wasn’t mortal…
Regardless of what Evil Eye managed to do, she would regenerate in Faerie independently of the treasures. When they were spun back into the mortal world…
She would be alone. With me. At least until they returned to Tír na nÓg. To her.
Guilt tightened my throat. I wouldn’t wish her to suffer such unimaginable grief and loss, even to have her to myself for eternity.
Her eyes swam with tears, shining like large, secret wells in an ancient, mossy forest. Bright and yet dark at the same time, changeable with her mood. Sometimes more brown than green, or even more gray-blue. Humans would say she had hazel eyes. Such a rudimentary word for the kaleidoscope of swirling colors. Unusual perhaps, but fae? Had I overlooked the possibility simply because of the many treasurekeepers who’d come before her?
“Let’s think this through carefully,” I said, fighting to keep my voice neutral despite the hope surging in my heart. While her treasures might be suspicious of all things fae, learning she might be immortal was a boon I hadn’t dared even dream. “Her Majesty gave no indication that you were anything more than a mortal treasurekeeper.”
“But would she have said otherwise?” Doran asked. “Fae don’t volunteer facts or information unless it suits them.”
I arched a brow at him. “Are you doubting my helpfulness now, Stoneheart? Or my sincerity and eagerness to aidmo stórdown to the slightest task?”
“Nay, not you.” Doran shook his head. “But I’d trust the queen’s word about as much as I’d trust Aidan to have nary a cross word all day.”
Aidan huffed out a disgusted laugh. “Same.”
The big man squeezed Aidan’s shoulder. “I regret leaping to assumptions earlier. My apologies.”
Aidan knocked the man’s arm away casually. “Don’t spare a moment’s thought on the matter.”
Ignoring his rebuttal, Doran wrapped his massive arm around the man and hauled him in for a hug. “Ye bleedin’ idjit. I know you’d never hurtmo stór. My blood still be high after the close call at the cave.”
