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“Of course!” Illusion-me sounded thrilled by the idea. “There’s plenty of space.
They sat.
I watched them interact—Diora and her mate, as well as the couple whose names I learned were Jesh and Lavee, and my illusion. The fake Laith was still quiet, but held me close while the real version had left a solid gap between our bodies.
My emotions went back and forth between awe and horror.
Laith’s power was really strong.
That didn’t scare me, but the fact that he’d hidden the real me behind this false version, when I wanted to speak with my sister, terrified me a little.
He had never tried to control me before. He wasn’t the evil king others said; I had never seen him that way, other than by mistake when he first took the throne.
But he was misrepresenting me, and thatdidscare me.
I wasn’t about to cause a scene about it, though. Not when we were on the precipice of an escape from the castle and a journey to the elemental lands. Doing or saying the wrong thing could easily lead to my sisters losing what little trust they’ve developed in Laith, and insisting on coming with us to my lands.
Although I’d be more than happy to let them tag along, they didn’t have the right magic for it. Leaving the Night Court could turn deadly fast for the fae who belonged to it, because they were powerless when the sun was up.
The only reason Laith would survive the trip was because of his lunar magic.
Akari and Espen arrived shortly after the other two couples, sitting down to join us. My illusion-self was still chatting, and fuck, I didn’t like that at all.
Though I didn’t want to, I reached out toward my mate’s mind.“Let me speak for myself. Don’t use your illusions to steal my voice.”
Though I didn’t glance over at the king—or ex-king, I supposed—out of the corner of my eye, I saw his jaw clench.
He didn’t want to share things with me, but I knew he was feeling vulnerable after giving away his portion of the throne magic. Weakness was a hard pill to swallow, and I understood that better than anyone considering that I’d been dying slowly, growing cold and exhausted and fragile for a long while.
And that was okay. His weakness, and his feelings about it, were understandable.
On top of that, the man couldn’t transport us anymore, and that definitely rankled him. It was probably the power he relied on the most, other than his mind magic. Being able to travel away in the blink of an eye, to reach his castle and escape the stares and judgment, was infinitely valuable to the man.
Losing that had to have hurt—and hurt enough that he hadn’t wanted to admit it to me.
But his pain didn’t give him the right to walk all over me. And I would make sure he knew that.
His illusions didn’t fade, but the fake version of me did stop talking. And since Laith had respected my request, I slid a bit closer to him.
He was stiff for a moment, but as I began picking at the food on my plate, his arm slowly wrapped around my waist and pulled me against him.
“I’m sorry,”he murmured into my mind.
He sounded… lost.
I lowered a hand to his thigh and squeezed lightly. Though I didn’t tell him it was okay—it wasn’t okay—I didn’t take it personally, either. Laith was used to being alone, and his strength had kept him alive through that. Now he wasn’t quite as strong.
His lips lowered to my shoulder, and he pressed a kiss to the bare skin beside the strap of my dress.
“I’ll ask Akari to take us to wherever the ship is,”I told Laith. The last thing he wanted to do was ask Espen, undoubtedly.
“We’ll ask them together. I’m sure they won’t be separated, since they’ve just mated.”His fingers stroked my hip lightly.
“True. I can’t believe they lasted this long at breakfast. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other for ten minutes.”
“Even five minutes was a stretch,”my mate drawled.
I snorted a laugh, and earned grins from Diora and Akari.
