“I have a ring, love. Had it for a few centuries now.”
Niall looked back down. “What?”
As the Dark King started to remove the boot from his beloved’s chest, Irial clasped Niall’s ankle, keeping him where he was. “I love you. I’ve loved you for centuries, Niall. You want a public declaration? A ceremony? I’ll plan a wedding. One for you and Leslie. One for you and me.”
After a moment, Niall asked, “One for you and her?”
“If she’ll have me,” Irial said lightly.
“So you plot to leave us, return to Faerie for Urian, and then youpropose?” Niall stepped back. “It’ll take more than a fucking ring to make me forgive that, Iri. You offered to leave me. To leave Leslie.”
Irial stayed on the ground. “How did you know?”
Niall looked at Aislinn and then back at Irial. “Seth.”
Then he strode away.
ChapterThirty-Six
Katherine
The plane touched down in Scotland with a jolt, and Katherine squeezed Urian’s hand in hers. Again. He was her tether on that long flight, as if his immunity to steel had been lent to her by way of his touch. It didn’t make sense, but then again, neither did being the son of two courts—or being a femalegancanagh.
Not shockingly, Urian was still bruised. He hadn’t even recovered from being dragged across the country by the Wild Hunt when he’d been held prisoner by an angry queen and fought his way to freedom.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours, and they were in Europe. They’d put an ocean between them and the angry faery regents.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
They’d flown first class, and it afforded them slightly more privacy, but she was grateful that Urian could don a glamour, hiding the extent of his injuries from the other passengers. He looked like he’d been dragged through rocks and cacti, held up as a punching bag, and that was just the surface stuff. He had multiple broken bones, and the worst thing—oddly perhaps—was that he seemed to have lost some of his spirit, like a mustang recently broken to a saddle.
“She wasn’t awful,” Urian said. “My niece. I thought she would be . . . but she reminded me of my mother. An angrier version, but still. There’s fire in her.”
“Literally,” Katherine muttered, looking at the burns on his wrist and other hand.
“I liked her.” Urian looked like he’d swallowed worms just saying those three words. “And worse . . .”
“What’s worse than likingthatwoman?” Katherine had zero love for the woman who had stolen Urian and held him prisoner.
“Irial. I’m worried about him,” Urian admitted.
“Fair. I am, too,” she whispered. “He went against the Summer and the Dark for you.”
“It doesn’t fix everything,” Urian said quickly.
“Of course.”
The seatbelt sign turned off with a chime, and everyone started to stir. Their jeans and shirts looked out of place in the first-class crowd of suits, but Katherine just smiled in a not-too-friendly way. They were mortals, and it was a small space. Having twogancanaghsthis close had meant that the only time no one was trying to talk to Urian or her was when they’d napped. If she ever wanted a corporate job, she had a stack of business cards, an offer of a villa in Tuscany if they wanted to borrow it, and that was just the less-awkward offers.
“I’m ready to go somewhere with a locked door,” she told Urian.
He smiled at her. “Coincidentally, that’s where we’re going.”
They’d traveled without baggage, so as they deplaned, they walked through the airport and waited for the ride Callisto promised.
A steed in the shape of a limo pulled up to the curb. No driver, but as they approached, the back door opened.
Urian waited for her to slide inside, and then he followed. “There’s a hotel near Old Town Edinburgh for our sort. No steel. I stayed there for a while . . . It’s safe. No court politics allowed inside the grounds. You can dine with members of any court.”