Page 51 of Evil Eyed
:You don’t want to know.:Aidan replied grimly.
Evil Eye smiled down the table at her, by all appearances just a successful businessman making a deal. “Once you’re finished, I’ll ask my lovely assistant to join us.”
“What do you want with Vivi?”
“Why, nothing, lady. She’s free to go now that you’re here.”
“Great. Send her home, then.”
“Have your treasures told you about the importance of hospitality?”
She nodded. “Keane has told me some very interesting stories.”
“I’m sure.” He smiled at me, making my skin crawl. “The might of a king is told through his hospitality, true. But also, if guests refuse to partake of their host’s offerings, it’s considered a grave offense.”
She met my gaze and grimaced. “I understand now.”
“What have you come to understand, lady?” Evil Eye asked.
“As you said, the importance of hospitality. This, I’m afraid, is not a feast. In fact, it’s not even close.”
Aidan pushed his chair back, kicked his legs up, and planted his boots carelessly on top of his place setting. The crystal glass shattered and silverware toppled to the floor. “This is going to be good.”
Evil Eye’s face darkened. “This is beyond insulting, even for you, Slaughterer.”
Throwing his head back, Aidan bellowed out a laugh that rang through the fake hallway. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Riann made a big show of picking up the nearest pitcher and sniffing the ale. Her lips curled with distaste, and she set it aside. “And I thought dining with Bres was bad.”
Evil Eye leaned forward. “Who was that you said?”
“Oh. You didn’t know? My ex-husband, Jonathan Blake, was actually Eochu Bres. He could have learned a thing or two about hospitality from Keane as well.”
“So he was indeed a changeling. How interesting. And you, lady, I find you quite… intriguing. How did you stay alive for so long? Five years, if I remember correctly. That’s a long time to be at the mercy of someone like Bres. His appetite must have been…” He paused, his lips curling in a cruel smile. “Painful.”
She didn’t try to hide her reaction. Her eyes tightened and her cheeks paled. Even after experiencing love at our hands, she drew inward on herself at the slightest memory of her former husband. A silent flinch that spoke of unspeakable trauma and hurt that would never completely go away.
Fury crawled through my veins, marching fire ants blazing with poison. I wanted to punish him for those words. For making her remember such unpleasantness and misery.
“He destroyed everything,” she said, her voice quivering faintly. “But I’m stronger now than ever. As foul as he was, even he wouldn’t have expected me to eat such revolting food.”
Indeed, the longer we sat here, the viler the food became. Maggots squirmed in the fruit. The trussed pig twitched and made a faint cry that chilled my blood. That didn’t sound like an animal’s sound.:That’s not a pig, and it’s alive.:
Riann stiffened in her seat, her eyes flashing like crystalline daggers.:Is it Vivi? Oh god.:
I searched the pig’s eye, trying to tell if it was her friend. Evil Eye’s goal was to allow the glamor to slowly reveal its true horror to us, though I wasn’t sure what his game was yet.:I can’t be sure. He wants something from you, and she’s his only bargaining chip. I don’t know that he would put her on display so close, let alone in such a distressing way.:
:He fucking loves it,:Aidan retorted.:He loves to watch the suffering unfold. The agony of trying to save someone you love, and knowing…:
His mental voice broke, and quite honestly, I feared his mind as well.
:That there’s no hope,:he finished hoarsely.:None whatsoever. The agony never ends.:
I’d known that he suffered intense guilt all these centuries after Doran had been captured. But I hadn’t realized exactly how personal Evil Eye had made that defeat for him. To lose our beloved leader was one thing, but to also lose the treasurekeeper they’d both loved at the time… To pit one love against another, and fucking relish the unfolding agony and despair as Aidan tried to save them both and failed. Utterly.
“It’s so much better when love is involved.” Evil Eye sat back in his chair with a glass of wine, grinning around the table at us. “Don’t you agree, Slaughterer?”
“What do you want?” Riann asked, cutting off whatever Aidan might have said.
