‘What is hoofah?’I rubbed the smooth stone rabbit around my neck, trying not to look at the sooty walls.
‘It’s a hallucinogen.Hoofah can sometimes make you see things, but mostly it reduces inhibitions,’ Torgrin said, his unreadable eyes meeting Cillian’s over my head.
Guilt filled me as I reached for Cillian’s enormous hand.My eyes rested on his bare chest, worried I would see anger in his eyes.
‘I didn’t say or do anything I regret.’He tipped my chin up, forcing me to look at his face.‘Did you?’Cillian winked playfully at me and dropped his hand to tug on the blanket covering me.
I held it fast to my chest.‘No,’ I said shyly, thinking about the things we did before we succumbed to the effects of the hoofah.Well, Cillian and I succumbed.Not Torgrin.
Torgrin was still leaning back against the headboard, watching us closely.
‘Why didn’t it affect you like it did us?’
He shrugged, absently tapping his charcoal on a blank page.‘I’ve built up a tolerance to it.’
Torgrin uses hallucinogens?‘Why –’
The knock at the door caused me to jump.Torgrin rose to answer it, and I could hear Tomas’s voice but only caught a word or two.Cillian pulled me into his warm, naked embrace and kissed me softly.I knew he was trying to ease my anxiety.
Torgrin closed the door.
I waited, wrapped up in Cillian’s powerful arms.Torgrin gave Cillian a pointed look, and he squeezed me.It was time for Cillian to leave.
‘No, don’t go,’ I said sadly.
‘Don’t start that.’Cillian untangled himself from me.‘I heard enough fromhimyesterday.’He gestured to Torgrin as he got off the bed and pulled on his leather breeches.
‘What do you mean?’I asked, looking between them.
‘Last night, he tried to convince me to return to Murus,’ Cillian admitted.
That’s what made them late for the celebrations.Torgrin had tried to persuade him not to be involved in the queen’s rescue.The look of pity Torgrin gave me told me he had failed.
‘Did you both plan last night as well?Was that supposed to be a goodbye, Cillian?’I asked angrily, gripping the sheet to my chest.
‘No.’Cillian refused to look at me as he gathered his things.
My heart ached, and I fought against the tears that threatened to spill.
‘Tomas and Rhett can do this,’ Torgrin ground out.‘Caris loves you.She doesn’t want to risk losing you.Neither of us do.’
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’Cillian said, turning away from his bag to confront us.‘I have been waitingyearsto seek retribution for what King Hared and the Order did to my wife.To my unborn child.This is it.This is how I can dosomething, even if it’s just a small part of a larger plan.I want to be the one to free Queen Yaris from King Hared.What he is doing to Cursed women must stop.’
I got off the bed and threw myself at him.Hearing the pain and anger in Cillian’s voice tore at my heart.I knew what it felt like to need vengeance.Had I not put my life at risk in the tournament for even the slim chance of finding my mother’s killer?Cillian wanted to be part of changing things for Cursed women in Pedion, and we were trying to stop him.
He held me as I tried to cling to the memory of his arms around me.He was the one to finally break away.He grabbed his bags and headed to the door.
I followed Cillian out, wrapped only in my sheet.The door opened in the next room, and out came a handsome young man with a fox mask in his hand.A half-dressed Bethel came out to say goodbye to her nighttime guest.When she saw Cillian and I standing outside our room, she arched one perfect brow and pouted playfully up at Fox Boy, pretending we weren’t there.But all pretense disappeared when a shirtless Torgrin appeared close behind me in the doorway.
Bethel took in Cillian and Torgrin standing on either side of me with eyes as hard as jade.She turned on her bare feet and slammed the door, bewildering the poor young man.He waved at us before walking down the hallway, whistling a merry tune.
‘When we have the queen, I will leave Capita – but I will wait for you in Murus, no matter how long it takes.’Cillian squeezed my hand.
The ache in my heart worsened at the thought of being apart for that long.He would travel back with the queen to Murus, where Atlas and the rest of Lord Warwick’s army would keep her safe until they could make more permanent plans for her.Torgrin and I would remain in Capita protecting Bethel until we satisfied Lord Warwick that his daughter’s life and position as future queen were secure.
Cillian leaned in and kissed me slowly and tenderly.He let me go, then reached out a large hand to Torgrin and pulled him into a one-armed hug.
‘Look after her for me?’he asked Torgrin.
