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He caught himself reaching back to stroke her hair—that long thick braid the color of dark oak. He dropped his hand to the side.
“You fell asleep here on the couch,” he said in a flat, almost businesslike voice. “You had a dream. Now you’re awake.”
“I thought Lilith…” She reared back. “I nearly staked you.”
“No. Not even close.”
“I didn’t mean—I wouldn’t have meant.” She closed her eyes in an obvious effort to find some composure. When she opened them, her eyes were clearer, and very direct. “I’m very sorry, but why are you here?”
He stepped to the side, gestured. Now it was simple shock that moved over her face. “You…You made me tea and biscuits?”
“Glenna,” he corrected, surprisingly embarrassed at the very thought. “I’m just the delivery boy.”
“Um. It’s very kind of you all the same. I didn’t mean to sleep. I thought I would read after Larkin went upstairs. But I…”
“Have your tea then. You’ll likely be the better for it.” When she only nodded, made no move, he cast his eyes to the ceiling. Then he poured out a cup of tea. “Lemon or cream, Your Highness?”
She tipped her head to look at him. “You’re annoyed with me, and who could blame you for it? You brought me tea, and I tried to kill you.”
“Then don’t waste my time or the bloody tea. Here.” He pushed the cup into her hands. “Drink it down. Glenna’s orders.”
Still watching him, she took a sip. “It’s very nice.” Then her lips trembled, her eyes filled.
His belly tightened. “I’ll leave you with it then, and with your tears.”
“I wasn’t strong enough.” The tears didn’t fall, just glimmered in her eyes like rain over fog. “I couldn’t help them hold the spell, I couldn’t do it. So it broke away, it shattered, and it was like shards of glass ripping through us. We couldn’t get any of the others, any of the others from the cages.”
He wondered if he should tell her that Lilith would only replace the ones they took. Likely twice the number in her fury.
“Now you waste your own time, blaming yourself, and feeling sorry for yourself with it. If you could’ve done more, you would have.”
“In the dream, she said she wouldn’t bother to drink me. Being the smallest, the weakest, I wouldn’t be worth the trouble.”
He sat on the table facing her, helped himself to one of her biscuits. “She’s lying.”
“How do you know?”
“Creature of the night, remember? The smallest is very often the sweetest. A kind of appetizer, if you will. If I were still in the habit of it, I’d bite you in a heartbeat.”
She lowered the tea cup to frown at him. “Is that, in some strange way, a kind of flattery?”
“Take it as you like.”
“Well. Thank you…I suppose.”
“Finish off your tea.” He got to his feet. “Ask Glenna for something to block the dreams. She’s bound to have it.”
“Cian,” she said as he started toward the doorway. “I am grateful. For everything.”
He only nodded and continued out. A thousand years, he thought, and he still didn’t really understand humans—and women in particular.
Blair drank Glenna’s tea, and decided she’d stretch out for an hour with her headphones. Ideally, the music would rest her mind, give it time to clear and recharge. But it all circled around with Patty Griffin’s soulful voice.
The sea, the cliffs, the battle. That moment, when the sky darkened, of absolute certainty that she’d come to the end. And that tiny cold seed of relief inside her that it would, finally, be over.
She didn’t
have a death wish, she thought. She didn’t. But there was that small, secret place in her that was tired, so horribly tired of being alone, of having what she was and what she had to do dictate she would stay alone.
