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I tilted my head, watching him. Rage was not an unfamiliar emotion for him; even when we were children, he was prone to fits of emotion. When we were young, I had stood in awe of his passions. I had always been too reserved, too in control of my emotions for me to indulge them as effortlessly as he did. Perhaps even a little too ashamed of them to allow them to ride me so completely.

The decades I had devoted myself to him and his sister stood out in stark contrast to the rest of my life. They were marked by a rebellious youth in which I fought my inner need to be kept apart, trying to find my place between the man I loved and the Fae I was promised to. I had needed to find a balance between the two. I found it in cum-stained sheets, Fae drugs, and more alcohol than I cared to admit. And I regretted every forgotten and lost moment of it.

In all the decades I had skulked around the edges of his orbit, there was one thing he had always lacked, save for the singular moment that facilitated my greatest downfall. He had lacked focus—a focus he had suddenly found again.

“Why are you so obsessed with her, Daróg?” I pitched my voice carefully, a simple rumbling caress, one that he used to find tempting.

“She is mine. I will have what is mine.”

“You have a hundred humans below your floors. All waiting and more than willing to do your every bidding. Why are you so obsessed with this one human?”

“You know why!”

I tilted my head, watching him. I knew why. I absolutely knew why. How could one not be obsessed with her? The way she burned like the only ember in the black sea of a void was unmistakable. But I was hers, and she was mine. I had every right to be obsessed with her. He had no such connections, no tethers connecting him, nor had he ever had any tethers to mourn.

“She is but a daoire, Majesty.” I attempted to placate him.

“You and I both know that is a fucking lie.”

Jealousy. Plain and simple jealousy burned in his eyes, and I narrowed my own on him, adjusting my stance as if preparing for a battle. My next question was pitched low, merely a whisper, but the whisper of a blade that I pulled from my own chest to hold at his throat. “What happened that day?”

He pulled back, leaning away from me as if I had slapped him. “Wh-what?”

“The day I brought her to you. The day we two sat in those chairs, and you indulged your whims on her throat only to savage her shortly after.” I was a stalking wolf hunting an ermine through the forest on silent paws. “What happened?”

“You know what happened.” He returned to picking imaginary lint from the chair he leaned on for support, still not entirely as strong as he had once been.

I took a single half-step toward him. “I know what I saw. I know what I witnessed, but there was always one piece of that puzzle I never understood. I watched your face, Majesty. I watched divine pleasure wash over you and radiate from you as she worked your cock. I saw the telltale twitch of your ears as she brought you within seconds from coming down her throat like you were a novice. And then something changed. Something turned black in you. What was it? What happened?” He was fighting the urge to stare at me. I could see it in the way his knuckles went white against the chair, and his eyelids twitched. “I’ve seen many sides of you, Daróg. I’ve seen the good and the ugly, but I have never seen you like that.”

“I have no need to explain myself to you. She was my plaything; I could have killed her if I wanted to. You couldn’t have stopped me.”

I smiled, a dangerous and deadly thing that slithered across my face and was the silent call of blades clashing against each other. “So, why didn’t you? She is just a plaything. Just a silly fucking human.”

“I—” He snapped his mouth shut and scrambled to draw back his regal mantle. Tried to take control of the situation, but all he found was rage, and it drew down over his face like a veil as he pushed back into my space. “That fucking bitch dared touch what was mine. She had to know that would not be tolerated.”

“She did not touch me.”

Ugly rage twisted with smug satisfaction at what he must think as my acceptance of his claim over me loosened his tongue further. “She touched you, of course she did, but I don’t care. I know you dally with her. I’ve allowed it. I’ve tolerated it. I was always generous with you; I’ve always let my toys play with each other.”

Disgust roiled within my gut, but my path was set; I would see it all the way through. “So, what was it then?”

“She touched my magic.”

I snorted at the ridiculousness of it. “That’s ludicrous. We both know it. She’s a human. Humans cannot wield or affect magic. Tell me you are not so mad that you nearly beat a human to death because you felt your magic move while getting the best throat of your life?”

“That cow is no human!” he screamed.

“Then what is she? A turnip?” I crossed my arms over the expanse of my chest, guarding myself from allowing the suspicions I already had to bubble to the surface.

“She is Fae if I’ve ever seen one.” He drew closer and was nearly spitting in his rage. “And you know it. That’s why you moon over her, isn’t it? You think she’s your anam cara. Don’t you?”

It was my turn to retreat, but I wouldn’t give him physical ground to see it. “She is merely crafted to appear as one of us. Rictus is one of the best in the land. And despite your posturing to the contrary, you know it as well as I.”

“She is Fae,” he bellowed. “And you know it! That’s why you hide her from me! But I know her true name, and eventually she will heed my call again. She is my rightful subject!”

“Let’s pretend I believe your hysterics and don’t think your brain was boiled by that fever a little too long. No Fae, except an anam cara, can move or steal another Fae’s magic. So why would you suspect that she was sucking your magic through your cock? Unless you suspect that she is your anam cara?” My own jealousy twisted deep and bit at my heart. I knew it wasn’t true; you only get one, no matter who you are.

“No, of course not. That gorbellied, goose-quilled gallows-gift? My anam cara? Never. Magic is not that fucking cruel.” He snorted, and I wanted to wrap my hand around his throat and plunge his face into the hungry fire that chewed at the log in the fireplace. “No, I know my anam cara. She is not it. But there are tales. Old, old tales. Back before Mabh. Heretic witches of magic. Old Fae who could snatch the magic straight from another’s flesh. Yes. Yes, that must be who she is. I have not counted her essence before among the ranks of the rabble nor the patents of the nobility. She must come from somewhere. That must be it.”