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By the fucking Source. I didn’t want to be reminded of all the ways I was acting similarly to Bael. Bael, who had been fucking intolerable ever since she arrived. Bael, who was clearly halfway in love with her.
Bael, who was going to murder me with his bare hands when he finally found out about this.
* * *
“Where are you?”she asked into the darkness.
“I’ll be over here.”
Two hours later, I’d managed to get Lonnie back to Cross’s house and dunk her in a bath, which was about as graceful as it sounded, before forcing her into bed. She now sat, hair still dripping, in the middle of the bed, staring at me as if expecting some further entertainment. I swallowed a groan. I could not recall working this hard on anything, ever, in my life. Even being in the army, battles weren’t as difficult as keeping one inebriated human woman from inadvertently dying or sprinkling sex dust on some unsuspecting stranger and causing additional pandemonium.
She was chaos incarnate, a wildfire hidden in a matchstick.
I shifted on the small wooden chair in the corner of the room, kicking my feet up on the trunk beneath the window.
“That looks uncomfortable,” she said. “How will you sleep?”
“I’ve slept like this before,” I growled. “I’ll be fine.”
She moved to kneeling on the edge of the bed, the undergarments she’d elected to sleep in leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. “There’s plenty of room for you here.”
I snorted a laugh. The irony of this almost hurt. “No. Not tonight, there isn’t.”
“Why not?”
I desperately wished to know her true name in that moment, if only to give it more emphasis when I told her to shut the fuck up. “Do not tempt me. Now, go to sleep.”
This had absolutely nothing to do with chivalry and everything to do with the fact that I wasn’t sure I could control myself if I climbed into that bed with her. I now had the persistent pull of her blood pounding in the back of my mind, combined with the residual tremors of the Gancanagh’s Dust. If I moved a single inch from this chair, it would be over, and that would spell disaster for more than just me.
She frowned and glared at me, her expression turning frosty. “Oh, my mistake,” she said louder. “Of course your lordship wouldn’t want to sleep here with the likes of me—you might never get the smell out.”
I groaned. What was she talking about now? “Go to sleep.”
“Maybe we should switch? Would it not make more sense for me to sleep on the floor?”
I ran a hand through my hair, exasperated. She’d clearly taken offense to something—or perhaps not. Perhaps it was just some new facet of the hell that was this evening. “Stop saying things like that.”
“Why? Isn’t that what you’ve been saying for weeks? Years, really? That you are better than me in every conceivable way, and I’m barely more than an animal in your eyes.”
“I didn’t say that,” I snapped.
“What does ‘Slúagh’ mean to you?”
I glanced away, an odd discomfort washing over me. “Stop.”
She scrambled onto her knees, the mattress creaking a bit as she knelt on the edge facing me. “Of course, my lord.” She made a mock bow and nearly tipped off the bed. “Sorry, my lord.”
“Stop,” I growled again. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
She bowed again. “Yes, of course, my lord. Anything your lordship desires. Shall I lick your boots, sir?”
My eyes flashed, and I had to bite back a sharp response. “You’re not funny.”
“On the contrary, I’m very funny,” she said, sliding off the bed onto the floor. She grinned as she knelt before me. “I’m the funniest one in this room, in fact.”
“You are the most tiresome one in this room.”
She leaned forward. “Forgive me, my prince. Did you want me to lick something else?”
