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I rolled my eyes and set the letter opener down. “I thought you were in a dungeon somewhere?”

“Funny thing about that.” He examined his nails through the thick leather gauntlet glove of his guard costume. “I never trusted The Raven. I knew he was playing me. There would be no way, with how obsessed he is with you, he would dangle your delicious pussy in my face and not want to exact a price far too high for me to pay. Of course, the goods were well worth the price, darling. I just hadn’t had my fill yet.”

“Yeah, well, the bakery’s closed, pal. What do you want?”

“That’s a shame. I barely got to enjoy the delights you have to offer. The Raven can be a greedy lover, though, so I guess I’ll nurse my broken heart with something else.”

I snorted. “The Raven and I aren’t fucking. What do you want?”

Ard Tiarna Brittle Spear’s eyes raked over me once more, this time with a new interest. “Truly?”

My brow shot up. “Seriously, Brittle Spear? Are you honestly here to ask me about my fucking sex life?”

“Lack thereof, really, but no. I’m mostly astounded that for all his single-minded obsession he has not fucked you to dust.” The genuine confusion on Brittle Spear’s borrowed face was sort of endearing. “How—and I don’t mean the mechanics good lady, we both know I know the mechanics—has he not fucked you yet?”

I sighed, exasperated by the unending libido of the entire Fae existence. Did none of them have anything to worry about other than sinking their various parts into each other? “I guess I’m not that great of a lay.”

Brittle Spear blew a dismissive sound and moved closer. “My dear lady, let me settle that doubt immediately. Would that I were so blessed as to be given the opportunity to taste even a single solitary drop of your passions again, I would crawl on hands and knees from one end of Magh Meall to the other praising the names of the god who so blessed me.”

“Well, I guess I’m not that great compared to his soon to be wife. So. Out with it, Brittle Spear. What do you want.”

Understanding clapped like thunder on his young face.

“Ah. I see. The Lady Oaken Rose does what she is best at, driving wedges between people who deserve each other. She is a viper in a fine dress.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“She has a weakness.” I cocked a brow and looked to him as he made himself comfortable, one ass cheek on the desk I was leaning on, one leg propping him up as he leaned closer. “She is a jealous and fickle thing. Clever, yes, like we all are, but she is blinded by her own machinations and believes herself far better at the game than she truly is. If you have chosen her as an enemy, I am afraid to say this, sweet golden pearl, but she is an unworthy adversary. You will find once you bite past her thin veneer, there is nothing but rot and bitterness fueling the engine of her decisions.”

“She has nothing to be jealous of with me.”

He clucked and tipped his head to the side. “Does she not? You are the most beautiful creature in the whole of the court. Not merely what your maker has crafted you into—no, darling. Below that gilding, you radiate power, beauty, intelligence, passion so sharp that it could cleave this entire world in two should you wish it. You have tasted her lover, you have bewitched her betrothed, and all around her, she hears whispers of lust, desire and bald covetousness surrounding your name. You stand a singular force that cannot be bowed, so she seeks to break you. And you have not even a single dent in your glittering surface for all her flinging of stones.”

I smirked up to Brittle Spear, warring emotions swirling within me in a calamitous whirlpool. “You know, I could grow to like you.”

He puffed up and grinned from ear to ear. “The blessings of a silver tongue.” He winked.

“Aaaand just like that, gone.” I snorted.

“Ah, well, my heart shatters again. You wound me unendingly, darling pearl, and I am sick with need for more.” Seriousness pulled over him and drowned out the playful air between us, smothering it like a blanket on a fire. “As much as I have yearned to banter with you, my dearest pearl, that is not why I risked this meeting, and I don’t know how long we will have to speak.”

“Yeah, how are you here, anyway?”

“I called in a boon I had with a member of my court. I saved his daughter from the jaws of a leon craosach many years ago and paid for her healing. He swore a death boon to me. I executed on it. Reshaped him to look and sound like me and told him what he needed to know, then sent him in my stead. It was a simple thing. That The Raven did not notice the chicanery tells me only that he is distracted. A deadly position for him of all Fae to be in.” His eyes darted to the door as voices rose in the throne room. Someone was looking for me. He cursed under his breath. “My time is at an end, darling. Know that The Lady Oaken Rose is not the only viper that circles you. There is another. And when you fly from this place, seek out the leaves of the Fómhar, I will find you and be at your aid. Now, excuse me for what I must do.”

“Wha—”

I didn’t have a chance to finish my thought as he dropped to his knees, shoved my dress up to my hips, and buried his face in my very confused pussy right as the door to the study flew open. His tongue found its way to the delicate petals of his feast and his hands their way to my hips. Pleasure, unbidden and without pretense, flicked along my spine, following the unexpected attention of his skilled tongue.

Silver pushed into the study with the other guard on his heels as I struggled to push Brittle Spear off me.

“Soldier!” the other barked as he other grabbed at the leatherworked collar of his armor and pulled him from me.

I shoved my dress down, trying to cover up the fact that I probably would have let Brittle Spear enjoy his meal a longer had their timing been just a little slower.

“Soldier, explain yourself this instant! What were you doing in here with the Ard Rí’s favored daoire?” demanded the guard holding him by the collar.

Silvertree was silent, watching me and the pantomime playing out before him. He was the smartest of the two of them, the one that had watched the way I moved and ushered me from place to place each day.