“Patience.” Faer stood at the bar, mixing his own drink, and he turned to me, holding out a pair of crystal goblets. “Nothing good comes without patience.”
My lips twisted into a grim smile. Nothing about Alisa was particularly good.
“Did you find your hobgoblin?” Faer asked me as I took the goblet from him.
I grunted in response. He didn’t need to worry about my antidotes to his sister’s old tricks.
He reminded me of Alisa with their shared sharp, mischievous features, though he wore his long lavender hair tied back, revealing the long, narrow points of his ears. He could never pass for human, but Alisa was softer-featured.
I’d thought for a while that perhaps Herrick had killed her. How strange to imagine her in the odd human world instead: the princess buying her food in the cold, bright aisles of a supermarket. Was she working? The thought made me want to laugh.
“You remain as sparkling a conversationalist as ever.” Faer raised his glass in a toast that I didn’t meet.
I took a long sip, studying him.
He went on, “I was going to ask if this was really how you wanted to punish her—it seems like punishing yourself too. But if you are going to be this boring with her, it does seem a fitting punishment. There’s nothing Alisa despises so much as boredom.”
“Then I don’t think she will care for the undersea.” But I already knew that. It was one of the many reasons she’d rejected me before.
I moved to the window, where the curtains shimmered, moving faintly in the breeze. The moon shone bright above the ocean tonight, sending silver ripples across the dark. “Will you be sad to send your sister away so soon after the two of you are reunited?”
“I think I’ll be able to soothe myself,” Faer said. “I’ve missed her this long, after all.”
I could practically feel Faer’s gaze as a prickle across my spine. “Perhaps our alliance will comfort your spirit.”
Faer used to be quite fond of his sister. I wasn’t sure what had changed between them, but his altered feelings left me suspicious.
Still, Faer was much changed from the boy I’d once known anyway. He didn’t seem to feel fondly of anyone these days.
“You know, I think it will,” Faer said. There was a creak as he took his chair in front of the fire again. “I heard from my scouts that she seems to have lost her memories. It will be interesting to see if she remembers you.”
I turned, my brows tilting. What a fascinating development.
“If she doesn’t, I would appreciate it if you didn’t alert her to our history.” Perhaps I could charm her. Perhaps she’d come along readily to her prison under the sea. A smile slipped across my lips.
Faer laughed, a cruel, hard sound. “That look on your face… it even scares me a little.”
“I would never harm your sister,” I promised him. Just because I wanted my revenge for the trick she’d played on me—and the embarrassment she caused my court and family—didn’t mean I intended to be cruel.
Though she might find it so.
He shrugged. “Harm her, don’t. I don’t care.”
I studied him. Once, he’d been a boy who waded into a nest of stinging water-beetles to rescue his sister when she fell into the lagoon outside the castle. Her elaborate gown threatened to drag her under. He’d drawn her out, the two of them both soaked to the skin, their long, pretty hair stuck to their angular faces. Then they’d collapsed in laughter on the bank at the sight of each other.
I’d fallen a bit in love with them both that day, although the next day, my father took me back to the sea. I’d thought about Alisa constantly since then, and when Alisa’s father reached out to me with a marriage offer five years ago, I’d jumped at the chance.
Faer was very different now. Was it possible the stories were true, and Faer was enchanted?
Or had he simply grown cold and psychopathic, as happened to almost any man with his kind of power?
“What is it, Raile?” Faer asked without looking up from his goblet. He’d grown tired of my gaze, apparently, even though he seemed to stare at me freely when my back was turned.
My voice came out flat when I said, “I’m simply having trouble containing my excitement at the promise of reunion with my bride.”
“I hope you can find a bit more enthusiasm when you greet her,” Faer said. “Or she might see through your ruse, even if she truly doesn’t remember you.”
Rude. The merfolk find me amusing.
I shrugged. I’ve never been as good on land as I am in the water, in any way.
But once I have my princess, I need never emerge from the sea again.
Chapter Ten
Alisa
For a few long minutes after I woke, I stared at the ceiling. My mouth was dry, my tongue thick. I swallowed with effort, listening to the low rumble of masculine voices in the next room.
I was in my own apartment.
I was not alone.
I never let anyone come into my apartment. Even Carter and Julian had barely been further than the front door; I didn’t want to give either of them the wrong impression.
The unnamed Fae stood in the doorway. His figure was tall and imposing—he looked every bit like a strange Fae god who had wandered into our world, even in a t-shirt and jeans—and I closed my eyes.
He was just too much. Too much arrogance, too much power, too much raw sexual desire when he was near me. Most of all, he was too much history. I didn’t remember any of that history, but it bothered me to know I had an ex-boyfriend who knew me intimately, while I didn’t know a damn thing about him.
Even when I feigned sleep, though, I was keenly aware of his body a few yards away from mine. It felt almost as if there was some kind of connection between us, something that made me hyper aware of his every movement.
“You’re awake.” His voice was low and sexy, and I felt that honeyed voice seep through my muscles, filling them with warmth. The effect he had on me was undeniable.
I sighed and gave up the ruse. As I raised my head, it felt as if my brain shifted in my skull. I still had a pounding headache.
“Would you like some water?” he asked, stepping into the room. He picked up a glass on the bedside table, then perched on the edge of the bed.
I shifted onto my elbows, then sat back against the padded headboard. “How’d you get in here?” My voice came out a rasp.
He held out the glass, raising his eyebrows, and our fingertips briefly overlapped before I pulled the glass away from him. I took a long sip of cold ice-water, then kept drinking eagerly.
“Duncan picked up your purse for you. Your keys and the like.”
“Duncan. That’s the grouchy one.”
“Indeed.” He smiled, a nice smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
“Who are you?”
“Azrael.”
“What kind of name is Azrael?”
“All right, Alisa. It’s a Fae name.” He tilted his head to one side, studying me. “How do you feel?”
I handed him back the empty glass, and he quirked an eyebrow at me but took it. I glanced down at the covers, at my scrub top. No one had taken off my clothes when they put me in bed. Good. “I seem to be in one piece.”