“Nay, lassie, ye did anything but.” Deirdre tucked the blankets around her, then sat on the bed and tidied Madison’s hair like a mother hen. “Rather ye charmed me’Lord’s people in a way I have never seen them charmed. ‘Tis safe to say they might even like ye better than him now, which says much as they love their king dearly.”
“Well, I don’t wantthat,” she murmured, smiling drowsily. She tried to keep her eyes open. “Are you sure everything went okay?” She hadn’t told too much truth? Pissed people off? Made insta-enemies? “I didn’t make anyone mad?”
“Well, ‘tis safe to say ye made a lassie or two mad for the way their lads stared after ye but bloody hell if ye did not seek them out and make things right in the end.” She winked at Madison. “For, as ye told all willing to listen, King Cian and King Cian alone was yer laddie, and ye’ve no designs on anyone else.” Deirdre chuckled. “Yewillbe queen here, and yewillbe our druidess. Queen to each and every last one of us to yer last dying breath. For we areyerpeople, ye promised.” She shook her head. “So no enemy willevertouch us.”
She had said what? Did what?
“Sounds good,” she slurred, rolling onto her side, of the mind to worry about it tomorrow because, seriously, she only had two whiskey-soaked treats at most. Maybe three. Okay, four max. “That sounds about right.”
“Aye, lassie.” Deirdre sounded happier than ever. “As did what ye made clear to me’Lord’s kingdom.”
“And what was that?” she mumbled, already drifting away.
Not before she caught Deirdre’s response, though. One that was surely just a jest.
Until she awoke the next morning and realized that whiskey treats did, indeed, blow Jello shots out of the water, and it wasn’t a jest at all.
Chapter Twelve
CIAN COULD HONESTLYsay he’d never been so happy or amused when Deirdre confirmed that Madison had finally passed out and he could safely sit in her chamber for the night to keep an eye on her. He knew by being inside her mind that she wasn’t much of a drinker, so it was no surprise that what little alcohol she did consume affected her quite a bit.
He had never enjoyed an evening so much or fallen in love so fast. But then, it seemed, despite Raven’s spell, he had already found a way to love Madison long before this. How, when, and where remained a mystery, but she was his, and he was hers.
Or so she had made clear the night before. Something, as was to be expected, that she completely forgot upon waking the next morning.
“Ugh,” she groaned before she released a rather gusty yawn, cracked an eye open, only to squeeze it shut when she spied him.
“Tell me you haven’t been sitting there the whole night watching me,” she croaked, clearly parched.
Never one to sleep much during wartime, which seemed never ending lately, he lied so she wouldn’t feel bad. “I slept for a time.” Rather than sit on the bed and stroke her hair or lie down and pull her into his arms like he’d wanted to all night, he urged her to sit up and drink a special concoction he had long made for his brothers when they traveled down this path. “’Twill help. I promise you.”
“Not sure I’m ready to sit up,” she mumbled, watching him out of the corner of her eye.
“Yet you must.” He smiled. “For we have another day of celebration ahead before we leave.”
“Huh?” She opened one eye, then the other before squeezing both shut. “Why?”
