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Lore sighed with relief. At least she would now have time to think up a cover story.

Chapter16

The pub wasn’t an improvement on the cramped apartment upstairs. Both places were obviously owned by the same person.

Small, mismatched tables were scattered about the sparsely inhabited bar. There wasn’t a single matching chair—which might have made the place feel somewhat cozy and sweet—and every table shined with a sticky, oily sheen.

A tall fae male stood behind the bar, scowling as he worked. His long hair, locked like Isla’s, was plaited into twin braids that fell down his back. They swayed behind him as he chopped fruit with expert speed. Instead of wearing a cloth tunic like everyone else in the bar, his was made of gleaming leather.

Lore examined the design that crawled up the front of his tunic, following it up to a high collar that was clasped with a shining, blood-red brooch. Even from across the room, she could see the angry set of his jaw, which did not distract from the simple fact that he was beautiful.

He was as beautiful as Isla and, she noticed, his eyes had a similar shape and his nose the same curve as Isla’s.

Her brother, maybe?

Like Isla, Lore noticed that he didn’t have any type of animalfeatures, unless you counted the sheer predatory power radiating from him. He was, without a doubt, the most striking fae male she’d ever seen, though in the same way a wolf was striking—absolutely beautiful to look at but able to rip your throat out on a whim.

His dark eyes lit with recognition when he spied Asher, but he didn’t smile in greeting. His scowl and the furrow between his perfectly shaped eyebrows seemed only to deepen.

Isla glanced back and laughed when she saw Lore’s alarmed face. “Don’t mind my twin, hun. That’s just his face.”

Lore scooted behind Asher and farther from the male. How could someone that predatory have shared a womb with the walking sunshine that was Isla?

Lore glanced toward Asher and wasn’t surprised to see that Isla’s brother’s cold reception hadn’t bothered him. They continued past the bar to a small door at the back, which was likely where their father worked.

The door opened into a closet-size office that held a small desk covered in towering paperwork surrounded by barrels filled with spirits.

Lore had time for a momentary glance at an older, scruffier version of the angry male from the bar when Asher leaned close and said, “Why don’t you get a drink? I’ll discuss business.”

He went into the office, closing the door behind him, leaving Lore standing outside with an equally startled Isla.

“Well, that was rude.” Lore hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but, oh well. It was true.

Isla laughed, looking at her with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “Asher has always been private.”

“Has he?” Lore frowned. She’d gotten the impression that Asher and Isla had been very close, and that Isla seemed to know him very well.

“Come on. We can go meet my brother. I’m sure he’ll loveyou,” Isla said through a laugh that seemed to imply to Lore that her brother was, in fact, not going to love her.

Lore followed the glittering woman, slightly mesmerized by how her inky black locs gleamed with threads of gold and artfully carved wooden beads.

Isla sat on a stool at the bar and Lore plopped herself on one between Isla and a wood nymph. The nymph’s hair sprouted from her head in plant-like ropes, each one studded with beads carved from bone. The nymph didn’t return Lore’s smile, and she tried not to shrink at the dismissal.

Isla snagged her attention by shouting, “Hey, asshole! I’ll have a lavender and sage tonic. My new friend will have...” She glanced to Lore, waiting for her preferred drink.

“The same.” Lore tried to appear like she ordered drinks all the time.

Back home, there had been only one tavern. Men and women alike had gone to the tavern to relax after working in their shops, the fields, or the quarry. They took comfort in their solidarity and joy in one another’s company.

It was this feeling, not the ale that tasted more like dirty river water, that had brought her to the tavern with Grey or Uncle Salim now and again. The memories of her townsfolk’s increasing joyousness as they drank and laughed formed a knot in her throat. She pushed those thoughts deep down.

She wouldn’t—couldn’t—think of Duskmere right now.

“Why don’t you come back here and make it yourself?” Isla’s brother said. “I didn’t even want to come back to this forsaken town and yet, somehow, I’m the one working the bar.”

The male’s voice came out as a deep purr that made Lore think of an ice-cold river, one that would pull you under to its darkest depths if you dared dip a toe in. It stood in sharp contrast to his sister’s voice, which was that of a babbling brook.

“Hush, just gimme these two drinks and then I’ll be headingupstairs to tackle Father’s kitchen. Unless you want to switch?” She raised an eyebrow.