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“Why?”

“The Ard Rí will never let you go. The moment he figures out another way to bind you to him, he will. But if you are not here to bind, he cannot.”

“How will you explain me going missing?”

“I will simply say that I killed you in a fit of rage. He would believe it.” Fire seared up my throat and those waves drowned me as his tongue found my skin and licked a line to my ear where he bit down. “Tell me your name, little bug.”

“You first,” I hissed back at him.

His fingers went still against me, and he pulled away. It was not like the other times, though. I felt him still there and present with me, his gloved hand finding my cheek to cradle it in his palm. My eyes darted open to find his soft and silky like freshly spun moss-colored velvet. I didn’t think that he would answer me the silence, still and pregnant with expectation.

But he finally took a breath and whispered, “I am Ard Tiarna Emrys of Breacadh an Lae, the Wings of Hope, Falcon of the Dawn.”

Emrys. E. The name sounded like a cosmic chord struck against a heavenly instrument. It filled that warming pit that swirled and grew every time he touched me. I was near to bursting with the sensation of wholeness, of contentment.

“What is your name, little bug?” he whispered against my lips.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back.

It was the truth. I knew that my mother had left my name at the House of Magic and that, one day, I would collect it, but I did not know what that name actually was.

He paused, his long lashes fluttering for but a moment before he reared back and laughed with his whole mountain of a body shaking into it. The chamber around us echoed with the strength of his laughter, and I couldn’t help but let my own lips twist up into a smile, even though I didn’t know why we were laughing.

When he leveled his gaze back on me, tears of mirth were dusting his eyes. “You tricked me, little bug.”

“I guess I did.” I grinned at him.

He drew me in closer, brushing his lips against mine, sending sparks dancing along my senses before he placed a passionate kiss on them. “I guess we are even, then.”

“How so?” I purred back, drunk on the golden sensation pumping through me.

“I always knew you were innocent.” His forehead leaned against mine, radiating rippling waves of pleasure through me.

“Of course you did. I kept telling you as much.”

He chuckled. “You could have told me you did it, and I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I am the one that planned the assassination.”

A blizzard of cutting shards of ice blew through me and snatched away every scrap of warmth I had felt for him, chilling me down to the very marrow of my misbegotten soul.

“Then, why did you torture me?”

My voice was a soft wisp, controlled solely by my need to hear him say it.

“I wanted to see if I could use you to my advantage. I am duty- and oath-bound to avenge my house. It is why I cannot touch you. Why I cannot love you freely as I wish. Why I cannot leave this accursed place and return home where I belong.”

Amusement was still dancing in his tone, as if we were still joking.

He tricked me. He lied to me. He used me. Blood peppered my tongue as I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep myself from reacting. I fought with every scrap of my willpower not to react. Not to claw his bastard eyes from his face. He was no different from every other Fae, and he had just proved it. He was just better at the game, and I was the foolish, lust-soaked little girl who fell for it.

“So, you see,” he chuckled good-naturedly, “we are even.”

My tenuous hold on my temper snapped like desert parched twigs.

“Not even close.”