Welcomed him.
And his thoughts felt broken and sore deep in his mind, like something had cracked open inside of him. Something he’d never noticed before.
“I’m going to be sick,” he decided, rolling to his side because his stomach was doing its damnedest right then to crawl out his mouth.
Bran swore and leaned over, coming up with a metal pail that he shoved beneath Cillian’s face. He held back Cillian’s hair as he vomited up bile, nothing worthwhile left in his stomach to expel. Cillian spat out the last of it, the taste in his mouth worse now. Groaning, he sat up, gritting his teeth against the way the room spun briefly. He dragged a hand through his hair, freezing when his fingers grazed the tip of his ear, shivering at how the nerves in the point there registered the touch in his body.
He fisted his other hand against the bed, looking at Bran, remembering what Bran had said about witches and the Fae in the cabin after outrunning the lights. How they had only ever been enemies. “Tell me it’s an illusion like Etain’s magic.”
Bran shook his head. “It’s no illusion. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want us to be enemies. Seven years was enough, and they were terrible.” He couldn’t live his life without Bran in it. Not again.
Bran’s gaze softened, hand twitching like he wanted to reach for Cillian but didn’t. “That wasn’t us being enemies.”
“What was it, then?”
“Us giving each other the silent treatment.”
Cillian barked out a harsh laugh, shaking his head. “That’s what you want to call it?”
“I don’t think now is the time or place to talk about it.” Bran’s gaze flicked to Niamh, then back to Cillian. “We have other things to worry about.”
“Right.” Cillian swallowed, nearly gagging at the taste of vomit in his mouth. “Are we prisoners?”
“No,” Niamh said immediately, rising to her feet.
“Okay. Then where are we?”
“On my ship, theBone Breaker.”
Cillian stared at her. “That would make a terrible cruise line.”
Niamh didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. “One of the Mórrígan’s own guided me to you.”
“A raven,” Bran said at Cillian’s questioning glance. “Jupiter. I don’t know how she found Niamh and her people, but she did.”
“Did she find Aisling?” Cillian asked.
Bran shook his head, fiddling with the bracelet on his wrist. “No.”
“We need to.”
“I’ve been saying that, but no one here will listen to me.”
“I take no orders from a witch,” Niamh said coldly.
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Cillian snapped.
Niamh pursed her lips, gaze darting between the two. “He is the enemy.”
“He’s myfriend.” He bit back that he wanted Bran to be more because the Fae didn’t need to know that.
She looked like she’d swallowed something terribly sour. “You used to never care for witches.”
“You and everyone else keep talking like you know me, but youdon’t. I grew up with Bran. We were kids together back home. I can’t be this prince of yours.” His head throbbed as he spoke, pain skittering through his thoughts. He swallowed against the nausea in his gut, trying to keep it at bay.
Her shoulders slumped as she crossed her arms over her chest, staring at him with a pained expression in her eyes. She murmured something in her own language under her breath that he didn’t understand before shaking her head. “When the witch told me Etain had unraveled your mortal skin, I had hoped that meant she had made you whole, but it seems she left your mind alone.”
