A beat of weighted silence fill the space between them, until Rowan said, “They know they’re going to die.”
And he was right. These were the dancers who had been in Parisa’s dining hall. She could control their bodies if she chose, but they were aware, and they were terrified.
“Ten more, Maeve.” Parisa’s voice rang out in a singsong manner. “Or your precious High King dies.”
“What?” Maeve shrieked, and spun to where Tiernan should have been trapped in the last cage.
He was still there, but the cage was gone, and a burly dark fae with flaming eyes and jagged teeth held him hostage. Raindrops slid down the side of his face and his twilight eyes burned bright, focused solely on her. Tiernan’s arms were pinned behind his back, and the horrendous fae held a dagger in one clawed hand. The gleam of the blade caught Maeve’s eye. It had been dipped in nightshade and was poised right above Tiernan’s heart.
“No!” Maeve started forward and Rowan caught her by the arm, holding her back.
“Careful, Princess,” he whispered.
“You can’t do this!” Maeve jerked away from him, glaring up at Parisa where she sat on her fraudulent throne. The fight was leaving Maeve, slipping from her, fading as quickly as night gave way to the dawn. This was one battle she could not win. She wouldn’t be able to save everyone. If she chose Tiernan, Parisa would kill all of those innocent Spring fae, including thewinemaker’s son. If she chose the fae, Tiernan would be stabbed in the heart with a blade of nightshade. She was going to lose.
She knew it. Tiernan knew it.
Her heart fractured as she said the next words. “You can’t make me choose.”
“Oh, but I can, and I will.” Parisa leaned back, her smug smile peeling back to reveal her hideously pointy teeth. “Which will it be, my pet? The lives of ten innocent fae, or the life of your mate?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Choose them.”
Tiernan was exceptionally aware of the nightshade-dipped dagger hovering above his heart as he spoke.
But then there was only Maeve.
She turned to him, her movements painfully slow as the rest of the world seemed to fade away. Her golden pink hair was plastered to her, soaked from the rain. Blood, most of it not her own save for the wound to her back, covered almost every inch of her. The blouse she wore fell off one shoulder, revealing her tattoos that shone with the faintest glow despite the iron collar tight around her neck.
The sight of it made his blood boil.
She looked at him then, those sea-swept eyes stealing into his heart, and the swell of tears clung to her lashes. She was devastating. Fiercely bold and beautiful. A demigoddess of wrath and compassion. Fucking gods, he loved her.
“I can’t lose you, Tiernan.” Her voice broke a little, and he steeled himself, bracing for what the sight of her tears would do to him. “I can’t.”
“Choose them,” he repeated.
“No.” She lacked conviction, and he knew the crush of devastation the choice would place upon her. Maeve’s sorrowful gaze swept over the group of fae, the ones whose very souls looked terrified, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her more crestfallen.
Except once.
In a bathtub, covered in someone else’s blood.
This would break her, of that he was sure.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his tone cutting.
Her spine straightened and she jerked her head up, angling her chin in defiance. Her eyes flashed, a flicker of confusion, but she disguised it quickly.
“Choosethem,” he ordered.
Though it was weak, and he wasn’t sure how much of it she would actually feel, Tiernan sent the entirety of his heart and soul to her through their bond. Adoration, love, respect, desire, loyalty—he poured the whole of everything he felt for her into the witch thread. He wanted her to know, to never have cause to doubt, that she was the center of his universe. That she was all he would ever want, that he would sacrifice his own life if it meant she would live.
Maeve bit her bottom lip, hesitating. “I’ve made my choice.”
“Oh good,” Parisa crooned from her shabby dais. “And?”
