House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(108)

“And I was the one to encourage her, Cathal.” Bronwen steps into the tavern on Cian’s arm.

“You encouraged her?” Lore seems to grow more rigid in spite of the wisps of smoke leaching off him.

My father spins around to face Bronwen and barks something crude in Crow, which I fathom must mean: “Why in Mórrígan’s name would you do that?”

“She needed to leave.”

“She needed to leave?” Lorcan repeats in a tone that makes the air feel as solid and chilled as a block of ice.

I’m admittedly surprised. Here I’d assumed Lorcan had been kept abreast of Bronwen’s latest prophecy.

His gaze whirls to mine, ramming into me with a force that makes my heart take refuge behind my spine. “What new prophecy?” he growls, and although his rage should really alarm me, his timbre has a completely different effect.

Not the time.

Not the time.

“Did you just—” Cian looks between Lorcan and me, his eyes growing wider and wider. “My niece is your mate, Lore?”





Fifty-Two





If someone were to drop a pin in Adh’Thábhain, the whole of the Sky Kingdom would hear it plink. That is how quiet it’s become.

Phoebus, who retreated behind the bar when my father swooped into the tavern like a bat from the underworld, mouths: “Mate?” Or maybe what he says is: “Merda.” Both would be appropriate.

With a sigh, I murmur to Lore, “Well, I guess the crow’s out of the bag.”

Lorcan tips me a very unamused look over his shoulder. What fucking prophecy?

The coward that I am drops the hot potato on Bronwen’s lap. Technically, it’s her prophecy, so she gets the honor of telling everyone about it. “I’ll let Bronwen fill you in.”

“Speak, Bronwen!” Lore’s command raises the fine hairs along my arms.

“I foresaw that Fallon needed to return to the Fae lands to end Dante Regio’s life.” Her tone is so placid you’d think she were commenting on the weather. “Only then will Luce be returned to the Crows.”

Thunder cracks outside the stone portholes and lightning shreds the black sky.

“Over my dead body,” Lore growls.

Good thing you cannot actually die, Lore.

He sends me another withering look over his shoulder, one that does not hit me in the same place his earlier one did. I may like the man worked up, but I don’t like him angry.

“Are you mad, Bronwen?” My father is so livid, he could surely pulp bark with his jaw. “My daughter is not going after the fucking Faerie King!”

As they all begin yelling at each other in Crow, Phoebus crooks his finger at me. I slide out from behind the table and sidle close to the bar, opposite where he stands.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Bronwen can see the—”

“I’m not talking about the prophecy, Fal. You’re Lore’s mate?” he hisses as he thumbs open a bottle of Sky wine and pours himself a very full glass.

I reach over the bar and pluck it, so he pours himself another. “I swear I was going to tell you, but I was waiting to decide if I wanted the link.”

He dribbles wine outside the cup. “Waiting to decide?”

Connor hands him a kitchen rag, but Phoebus is in too much shock to notice the tendered cloth, so the Crow tosses it on the spill before moving back down the bar to sliver some cheese.

“A mating link isn’t some new fashion trend, Picolina. It’s something sacred. I may not be a Crow, but even I know that.”

I bite the life out of the inside of my cheek.

“Oh my Gods, if you’re the Crow King’s mate, then that makes you—”

“His friend whose mind he can penetrate at will.” The words whiz through my lips like that demented Fae tribe’s arrows—swift and soundless.

“—queen.”

“I’d have to marry him, and I’m not there. I’m not really anywhere at the moment. Well, besides in this tavern with you and”—I glance over my shoulder—“a lot of livid bird-people.”

Phoebus trails my gaze. “I like drama, but this is a lot.”

Is he referring to my father’s anger, Lorcan’s mood-storm, or Bronwen’s prophecy? Not that I’d forgotten about the prophecy but the reminder that I’m destined to end someone’s life—someone I know well, no less—chills me to the core. Then again, that man is a big, fat liar.

I press my back to the stone wall and take a gulp of my wine. “Dinner to go?”

“I’ll see if Connor can wrap some things up for us.”

“Just grab the wine and—”

Do not even think about leaving. Lore’s command makes me jump.

Wine sloshes over the rim of my cup and splashes the V of bare skin between the black material.

Lore’s citrine gaze heats as he follows the downward descent of the crimson droplets but then cools as Bronwen says, “It’s already in motion, Lore. It cannot be stopped.”

He whirls back on my aunt and takes a step in her direction. “Watch me stop it, Bronwen.”

Forks of lightning streak the blackened sky that groans like the floor beneath our feet.