Page 206 of Blade of the Nightking

Her empty glass slipped from her fingers onto the carpeted floor.

She straightened like she'd been shocked, pushing away the people crowded around her. Disappointed cries followed, but she didn't seem to hear them. Slowly, she rose to her feet, robes cascading around her before settling at her ankles. Then she started toward us.

Her eyes never left Rìan.

There was something dreamlike about the way she moved through the room, gliding between cushions and bodies with liquid grace. One step. Then another. Nearer and nearer until she finally stopped directly in front of him.

Neither spoke. They simply stared at one another as though they were the only two people left in the world.

I fought the sudden urge to step between them.

“You,” she whispered. Her hand drifted up as if to touch him and stopped, as if afraid he wasn’t real.

“Me,” he rumbled.

Her eyes were bright even in the dimness, shining and wet as they landed on me.

Pale, colorless eyes.

I'd seen them before. In a chamber stained with Aedric's blood. In the impossible stillness she'd conjured so I could save him.

There was no mistaking them.

It was Lady Elyndra.

CHAPTER 43

Adozen disastrous possibilities immediately sprang to mind.

Elyndra was a member of the Full Circle. One of the very people who’d bound Rìan into the Veil three centuries ago. If she still stood with them—and I had no reason to believe otherwise—then finding her here wasn't a stroke of luck.

It was a catastrophe.

I anticipated her calling for her guards at any moment, imagined armed Fae appearing from every corner of the brothel to surround us before I could so much as reach for my knife.

Shit. I'd left it upstairs.

Warded cells, iron shackles, interrogation rooms—I could see it all unfolding with alarming clarity.

Perhaps she wouldn't bother with guards at all. Perhaps she'd simply kill us on the spot and be done with it.

I tensed as I waited for whatever came next.

Instead, Elyndra turned on her heel and strode away. I shot Rìan a questioning look, waiting for some explanation, but he didn't so much as glance in my direction. He immediately fell into step behind her, leaving me no choice but to hurry after them before I found myself stranded in the middle of the increasingly enthusiastic orgy.

Finally, we reached an unoccupied alcove tucked away from the worst of the chaos. The moment we stepped inside, Rìan pulled the heavy curtains shut behind us. The thick fabric took the edge off the noise from the brothel beyond, turning the deafening cacophony into something more bearable.

For a long moment, nobody spoke.

“When I wove my wards,” Elyndra said at last, her voice trembling, “there was only one person I would allow to pass through.” Her throat bobbed. “Only one.”

Rìan looked carved from stone. I pressed myself farther into the shadows, though I didn't really need to. It was as if I didn't exist.

“I felt you,” she whispered, taking a hesitant step forward. Slowly, she lifted her hands and pressed them flat against his chest.

My brows shot upward so fast they nearly vanished into my hairline.

I'd never seen anyone touch Rìan willingly—let alone affectionately. Other than Levinica. But this—this was an entirely different kind of touch altogether.