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When he pulled back, I sighed.
His hands cupped my cheeks. “You are amazing, but seeing you hurtle through our window . . .”
“Yes.” And that was it, really. What else could I say?
He understood why I did the things I did, and I understood that it took a faery’s kind of patience to not wrap me in cotton and hide me away.
That was the part that had made me feel so unlovable for so long. I was convinced that a relationship would mean changing myself, trying to fit into an artificial mold of what a woman ought to be. Eli proved me wrong before I even realized that was what he had been doing all the times he stitched my wounds and bandaged my bullet holes.
“I love you,” I whispered.
He smiled and lowered his hands, letting me get back to work.
Then his hand slid into mine, and despite the unmitigated disaster of our weapon acquisition and loss, I still felt like maybe I could move mountains—small ones, at least—because he was with me.
“Right, then,” I announced. “Weapon? Gone. Alchemist who wants me dead? Still out there. House?” I glanced around at the destruction. “Not looking too promising.”
“As a matter of fact, bonbon, this house, and the land under it, are functionally a part ofElphame,” Eli reminded me. “I am within my rights as the heir of—”
“Your uncle disinherited you,” Iggy interrupted.
“Well, to put a political point on the situation, Blackwood, should I want to contest his role as king, I am within rights to do so.” Eli mentioned this as casually as noting that the sky was blue or that I haddraugrtraits. His implacable calm was a beautiful thing. “I am of the royal line, and I am no longer sure that Marcus has the good of the people as his first priority.”
“You’d take the throne,” I asked, turning my head to stare at him in shock.
“To save my wife?” Eli’s voice remained calm. “I’d burn this world to save you, but to be clear, Marcus allowed anamed heirto be tortured. He had not unnamed you when you were taken. How then do I trust the good of my people to such a man?”
He looked away from me to the fae guards that had come with me fromElphame.“Tell the king that a challenge for his throne has been issued. Tell the people of his crime against the royal line.”
As one, they bowed and departed into a slash in the air that had opened. Before we were the heirs, those gateways were not instant or located wherever we were. The fact that they had become so was a result of our roles as the heirs to the throne—and the fact that they continued so meant thatElphameitself still considered us heirs. The land recognized us, even if Marcus had thrown me to the torture chamber and tried to end my marriage.
With nothing more than a nod to Beatrice, Eli pronounced, “You are guests of my home tonight. I would ask that you stay here on this ground. If Chester were to attack you here, it would be an attack on the rightful regent ofElphame,and I could declare war.”
Iggy shook his head. “Shouldn’t one of you two be reasonable?”
Beatrice let out a peal of laughter that felt rather like music to me. “Oh, I like this man, Daughter of Mine. I don’t like many of them, but this one? He will do. He will do quite well.”
The remaining guests—Allie’s cousins--stood awkwardly, and I decided that even dirt covered, blood and seawater soaked, and possibly not likely to see morning without war or other deadly surprises, I was going to step up as lady of the manor.
“Let me show you all to our guest rooms.”
I walked away, leaving Iggy with Eli. I wasn’t sure what plotting they had yet to do, but I wasn’t going to let the humans stay here. If I could, I’d see them to safety, but I wasn’t sure how to do that without leaving the house or cutting throughElphame—and both of those options seemed dangerous.
I showed Beatrice her room and gave the cousins a pair of rooms that were currently functioning as my fight studio.
Harlow smiled. “Feels like home.”
And the rest of the cousins alternated between exploring my in-room armory and the attached bathroom, which was mostly standard fare, or as standard as things can be in a house designed by a faery.
When I returnedto the main room, Iggy was cleaning.
Beatrice walked back into the main room a few minutes later with a glass of what I was fairly certain was blood. She swirled it in the highball glass. “May I partake of your guests?”
“Freely given?” Eli asked.
“No magic or threats involved. I asked to milk a wound . . .” Beatrice made it sound mundane.
Still, I flinched at that description, but I wasn’t in a place to cast stones. Their cousin, my assistant, fed me. A flicker of a thought as to what that would mean washed over me.
