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She’d asked him only once about Ysbel, the sister he’d lost. His eyes had gone black and empty. The pitiless stare of the fey. “My cousin Simon handed her over to Asher. Betrayed her to her death.”
But not once had she asked the question that gnawed at her stomach and twisted her insides until she stalked the corners of the room, measuring out the paces hour after hour.
Did you kill my father? “You don’t have to do this, Ellery.”
She spun around, her heart leaping in her chest. Conor was awake and watching her restless fuming. “Don’t startle me like that,” she snapped even as a wild fluttering started in her stomach. She couldn’t put it off forever. Now was her chance.
He regarded her from eyes mellowed by sleep, yet still she felt like he could pick out every thought in her head. “You don’t have to guard me like an invalid—or a madman.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can tell you’re uncomfortable.”
“I’m not.”
He didn’t let her finish. “There’s a reason mortals know so little of the fey realm. It’s frightening—unnatural.”
“But you’re human—strange, to be sure, but not unnatural.” She tried laughing off his comment as she started pacing again.
He pushed himself up against the headboard, the quilt falling to his lap.
She swallowed hard at the sight of his chest, at the stippled tattoos that encircled his upper arms, raced across his collarbones, twined over his shoulders. Despite every warning signal, she ached for his touch. For that hungry anticipation she’d experienced when he’d laid his hands on her before. She knew he sensed her scrutiny, but what he thought was hidden in the unfathomable reaches of his eyes.
“There’s a new wariness in you,” he said. “A tension. Is it because of what I am? Because you saw me shift?”
She tried recreating the shock she’d felt at the changes in him. Tried to work up some horror or revulsion at the marks of the amhas-draoi that covered his body. It just wasn’t there.
She paused at the hearth. Wanting him and wanting to know the truth warred within her. “It’s not that.” She ran her fingers across the chimneypiece, fiddled with the candles.
“Then what?” He motioned to the bed. “Come. Sit. I can’t concentrate with you fidgeting like that.”
She dragged herself over to the bed, sat as close to the edge as she could without making it seem like she was avoiding him. But even there, the heat of his body sent a dizzying wave of need through her. This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman who’d lived cheek by jowl with men all her life. How was it that this man could light fires in her when no man before had ever even caused a spark? It wasn’t fair.
He reached out a hand as if he might caress her. Her stomach tightened, waiting for his touch. But before his fingers brushed her face, his hand dropped back to the bed. “Here.” He dug into the pocket of his breeches, came up with the pearl. “I told you before. It’s yours. I got it for you.”
She took it from him, hating her need, hating her fear. Hating her suspicions. Tears swam in her eyes. She sniffed and gave a shaky laugh. “How did you do it?”
r /> He plucked the pearl from her palm, twisted his wrist in a quick move, bringing his other hand over the top. Flashing her a mischievous smile, he opened his hands. No pearl. “The hand is faster than the eye, and Mr. Porter is none the wiser.”
She glanced over at his sword, hanging where she’d left it on the peg by the door. “I thought you might have killed him.”
With another quick movement of his wrist, the pearl reappeared. He handed it back to her. “Dealing death is a serious business. I don’t kill innocents for sport.” His voice hardened. “But I do what I have to do.”
“Did you have to kill my father?” There. She said it. His body grew still, a quick inrush of breath his only visible reaction. She waited, but he didn’t answer. He stared out the window, his eyes fixed on a point far distant or deep within. She couldn’t tell. The empty silence between them lengthened, stretched until she couldn’t stand it. She threw herself to her feet, her nails digging into her palms.
“Conor?”
The gaze he turned on her was as cold and cruel as death.
“Yes, Ellery. I had to kill him. There was no other way.”
Ellery’s pulse skittered in her throat, her blue eyes held the shine of unshed tears.
Conor wanted to wrap his arms around her, hold her while she wept. He fought to hold his hands in his lap. It was time to put the temptation aside once and for all. “He got in the way,” he said.
“And so you butchered him. I saw the blood. That wasn’t a killing. It was a massacre. You killed them all.”
“Think what you like. Asher was denied the reliquary.”
