Page 24 of Heart’s Rescue

“Kidding, kidding,” I say. “It’s rotgut imitation brandy or nothing.”

“I believe I’ll have the painkiller,” Phaedron replies.

I uncap the bottle, pour a few healthy slugs of cheap booze into my teacup, and then raise it at Arryn.

“Sure,” she says, with a shrug.

I almost drop the bottle. My hand shakes a little, annoyingly, as I bring Arryn a clean glass of the thick, golden liquid. This isn’t good booze, exactly, but it’s not the worst thing I have in the pantry either. Not by a long shot. Arryn takes the glass, then stares into it as if she’s trying to decide if it’s poison. I take a healthy pull from my teacup just to ease her worries.

“To the Lands Below,” I offer, raising my cup.

Arryn frowns, brushes her hair back over her shoulders, and raises her glass. Then she knocks back the entire thing in one gulp. I blink.

“Ah!” she cries. Her eyes are watering, and her cheeks have gone several shades darker. “Ah, that’s awful!”

Phaedron laughs, and it’s such a pure, sweet sound that it catches me by surprise. I stare at him, and then I start to laugh too, and then we’re all laughing together as ice hits the roof and stabs against the windows, and the fire hisses and spits in the hearth.

“Oh, that’s so much worse than I expected,” Arryn cries, wiping at her eyes.

Her words have to fight their way through a series of hiccuping laughs. Or maybe just hiccups.

“Bet you’re warmer now,” I offer.

“Oh, stars!” she gasps, nodding and fanning at her chest.

That chest. The dress she’s wearing is strange, with long sleeves and a ragged hemline that looks like an accident, with the bodice all done up in tight, shiny ribbons. But the neckline is low, and it exposes quite a bit more of her dark skin than you usually see in the Outer Ring. I remember ice melting against that chest—

And I look away.

“Careful!” Phaedron cries.

I turn back just in time to see Arryn sway on her feet. She’s come up to standing but she’s blinking like maybe that was a bad idea. I rush forward and grab her arm, wincing at the memory of her bones grinding as I twisted the dagger from her hand.

“I think,” Arryn says, slowly and deliberately, “maybe I should go to bed.”

I help her navigate around the fire. Again, it’s not the first time I’ve escorted one of Phaedron’s guests who’s had too much to drink, but it is the first time I’ve steered one of them into my bed.

“Your quarters, my lady,” I say, waving my hand at my tiny little room.

She giggles, just once, a soft little whisper of sound. Her scent is all around me now, that sense of green, growing things, only it’s mixed up in the brandy and the smoke from the fire and I don’t know if I’ve ever smelled anything quite so enticing. It’s doing things to me that are about to be real damn embarrassing.

I let go of Arryn’s arm. She steps into my room, and I pull the door shut before I can see anything else. The thought occurs to me that my bed is going to smell like her now, like that mix of flowers and smoke and brandy, and I walk over to Phaedron’s bed and finish the rest of my drink before my idiotic brain can stumble any farther down that particular path.

“Rowan.”

I look up, and Phaedron’s staring at me like he means it. His easy smile is gone; the tight lines are back on his face and jaw. It’s as if the pain returned as soon as the lady left.

“Hang on,” I say. “I’ll get it.”

I bring Phaedron the bottle of painkiller, then watch as he takes one tiny little sip of the stuff. If it were me, I’d be swigging that garbage down. Of course, if it were me, Charay probably would have made Phaedron lock the bottle up. I tuck the painkiller back into the pantry, pick the dishes up off the floor, and toss another log on the fire.

“Rowan,” Phaedron says again.

His voice is soft like he doesn’t want the lady to overhear what he’s about to say. I turn to face him.

“Yeah?” I reply.

He looks right at me. “You cannot give that woman to the king.”