Page 12 of A Court of Ravens
The thought should sit wrong. It doesn’t. My beast stirs. She wouldn’t have to keep patching herself together if I tore the armour off and did it for her. But what the hell do I have to offer? Violence? Obsession? A one-way ticket to everything I walked away from?
I’ve spent the last century and a half drinking too muchdubh fíon, making reckless choices, and proving exactly why some bastards shouldn’t be left alone with their own thoughts. And now I’m supposed to pull back? For her? When I could drag her down, claim her, ruin her—even if she’s poison?
I should leave her alone. I fucking should.
But theceangalisn’t a whisper; it’s a demand. It sinks into my marrow. Bond her. Mark her. Make her mine. Protect her. Worship her. Break her open and crawl inside her bones.
And gods help me, I would.
But fate has other plans. She could trigger the prophecy. Us? Together? Too dangerous. And yet, I fail to care about the consequences…
Which makes her the most exquisite sin I’ll ever taste. Or smell.
I’ve only encountered this scent once before.
I was younger then, hiding behind my father’s robes in the halls of the Obsidian Court. A witch came to see the king, shadows moving with them like they had minds of their own. Yet the queen…carried the same trace of something that didn’t belong. Honey-sweet, dark as ruin. A warning and a promise all at once. That moment burned itself into me like my first brush with hellfire.
Felicity shouldn’t have it.
But I saw the horns curling from the darkness on her head, indigo as the night sky, there and gone like a mirage. And she carries something that shouldn’t be in the Ironlands.
If she’s tied to the Obsidian Court, what the hell is she doing walking around unguarded—oblivious?
Except she’s not just exposed. She doesn’t know. And I know it because her body betrays her. Her scent shifts. Suppressed, but not deception. Confusion.
And that? That makes no sense.
The real question isn’t why no one has noticed her. Her glamour is exquisite. It’s why she hasn’t noticed herself.
My gaze flicks to her hands, clenched tight at her sides like she’s bracing for a blow. Something I said hit deep. Not my mother, but something else.
What are you afraid of, love? Me? Or is the truth clawing its way to the surface?
She searches my eyes like she thinks I have answers. I don’t. “But it’s just you and Tomas. Your family didn’t come with you. You must miss them.”
Right. I’m supposed to be on holiday, like her. Not out here playing undercover Veil-keeper and hunting down aceangallike the world’s least relaxed tourist. “Aye, but not when I’m with you,a stór.”
Felicity bites back a smile, drawing my attention to her mouth. “So what do you do, Niall?”
She asked me something like this last night. Now I’m trying to remember the lie I fed her. Or was it a half-truth?
Land management—close enough. Realms. Land. Semantics.
Maybe she’s testing me. Seeing if I’ll trip over my own words.
Witchy little writer, isn’t she?
For a heartbeat, her whole appearance shifts. Midnight-black hair streaked with silver falls around her face, her eyes glow like amethyst fire, and her ears taper into sharp, perfect points.
I blink, and it’s gone. “Sorry, what was that?”
“I mean, what do you do when you’re not on holiday? Where do you work?”
“Aye, I work for my father.”
Not much of a story, right? But with the fae, words are chains. We don’t lie. Not outright. But the truth? That’s the real game.
A lie burns like hellfire—sears your throat raw until you can’t speak. Your sigils go dark, branding you a traitor for all to see. Screw up badly enough? The old gods take their pound of flesh.
