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“Are you sure?”

She nodded once, her arms loosening and falling from his neck. She moved deeper into the bed and curled onto her side, then held her hand back for him. “I miss you close to me. Allow me this one small gift. To have you hold me while I fall asleep.”

Gone was any hope of denying her request. He adjusted the blankets, pulling them over Rihanna as he slid in behind her. Nothing about the action felt unusual. Nothing feltwrong. In fact, as he fit her into the curve of his chest, tucking an arm behind her head and one around her waist, a sense of unity and peace fell over him.

And as he fell asleep, he swore nothing would ever tear them apart in this lifetime.

Nothing.

15

“You’re serious.”

Moira fought the nausea that churned in her stomach at the news. News she dreaded since the afternoon Shaye told her something of importance was stolen from Dagda. Her sweet, unborn baby boy shifted and kicked, landing a painful thump against her ribs. She twisted, her body angled out of Shaye’s sight—not that he was paying much attention as he paced in front of the fireplace like a madman—to hide her grimace of pain. He was right all those times he said her distress was consumed by her unborn son. And that child had no guilt in sharing his displeasure with her unease in the form of painful jabs.

“’Tis naught more than suspicion, but we can’t take the news lightly.Ghra”—he spun toward her so quickly she felt a shock of whiplash in her own neck—“if ’tis true, everything we’ve worked toward is at risk. Everything, including your safety. She will not let my defiance go without retaliation.”

No. This wasn’t happening. No, no, no!

She was almost six months pregnant with Shaye’s baby.She didn’t need to worry about the threat of a psychopathic Fae princess crashing their joyous family. Not now. Not ever!

“Shaye, are you sure?” She caught his wild eyes, fear and fury at war in their shadowed depths. “Are yousureshe has the potion?”

He stilled, his eyes locked with hers, his shoulders stiff. God, if the weight of the universe wasn’t threatening to crush them beneath its burden, that feral craze might actually have driven them both into bed.

“Am I certain, nay.” He swiped a rough hand over his hair, pulled back in a braid with rebel strands hanging over his cheeks from the last hour of merciless rakes and tugs as he paced. “But the only person who knows where Dagda keeps the rare Fae potion is his daughter. Someone has kept in contact with her since her exile. Dagda is certain of it, but we know not whom.”

His eyes slanted toward the floor.

Moira straightened up and crossed the small space between them. She cupped his face and forced him to look at her.

“You have a suspect.” She narrowed her eyes. “Youthink you know who it was.”

He pressed his lips together. Beneath he fingers, she felt the muscles along his jaw tense.

“I have my suspicions. “

“Who?”

“Moira—”

“Who!” She pulled her hands away and shuffled back. “If you know, why do you hide that person? Not after all Daeanna’s done to us! What her turning back into Fae couldmeanfor us!”

“Because…” He raked his fingers through his hair once more, pulling more strands free of the braid. His face twisted indistress, pain etching deep mars along his brows. “He wasn’t always like this.”

“People change, Shaye. Fae are no exception. What this guy used to be isn’t what he is now. And if he’s part of this huge plan to steal a Fae potion in order to bringherback, he’s no better than she!”

He reached toward her, his eyes flashing with concern as their baby thrashed in her belly, forcing her to fold over on herself.

“Ghra, please. You must calm down.”

She threw her hand up to stop him when he tried to place a hand on her shoulder. All he’d do was infuse that damn calm into her blood and weaken her will to fight.

This was one fight she wouldn’t release easily.

Glaring up at him, her heart aching as her mind spun with furious ideas, she snarled, “Don’t you dare try to protect someone who might well cause me and our sons harm, Shaye. I don’t care who or what he might have been in the past, he’s not that person anymore. Especially if he committed such a crime as to turn around the due punishment Dagda himself placed upon his own daughter!”

Slowly, straightening up as she pressed a firm hand to her belly, she added, “Calm down. Have you seen yourself?” She waved toward the rug that held track marks from his relentless pacing. “Whoever put these fucking things into motion is responsible for my distress. So keep that in mind before you try to defend someone who obviously lost his way.”