Heart of the Fae (The Otherworld #1)(80)

“Well, you don’t have to stay here.” Bran leaned out and grabbed the drink. “You’re just choosing to.”

“That’s not true.”

The raven eye rolled in its socket. “If you haven’t put that piece of the puzzle together, then there’s not much I can do to help you, brother.”

Eamonn narrowed his eyes, glaring down at the reclining faerie. “Do you know something?”

“I know a lot of things.” Bran sipped the whiskey. “This is quite good.”

“And you will not share?”

“You already know it Eamonn, you’re just refusing to admit that you know it. Use that brain of yours. If the crystals haven’t affected your head yet that is.”

Eamonn stared for a moment, his mind whirling with possibilities until it settled on the information Bran was using. He shook his head. “That was a long time ago, and I am no longer king.”

“Ah, but you are the oldest son.”

“And unfit for the Seelie throne.” Eamonn held his arms out, crystals sparkling in the dim candlelight. “Do I look like a Seelie Fae? Do you really think they’d follow me?”

“I think all the things you used to say were compelling to the faeries who only knew slavery. If you kept whispering in their ears of freedom, they might just follow you rather than your brother who treats his subjects like cattle rather than people.”

“There is still the matter of the Tuatha dé Danann.”

Bran drained the rest of the glass. “Do you think that’s an issue? They always chose you, Eamonn. You were the favored son from day one. Or did you think your brother hated you simply because he was born with darkness in his heart? Hatred is learned, Eamonn, and it festered inside Fionn for years before he stabbed you in the back.”

“I would have been a good king,” Eamonn said. “But I never would have been a great king.”

“Times change.” Bran hopped onto his feet, circling the room, and eyeing the crystal decanters on Eamonn’s desk with a calculating raven eye. “What are you going to do about the girl?”

Eamonn slumped onto the remaining chair. “I haven't a clue.”

“Send her home?”

The glass in Eamonn's hand shattered.

Bran cocked his head to the side. “Unlikely then. Well, if you will not send her home, then just what do you plan on doing with her?”

“I have yet to decide.”

“I have an idea.”

“Do you?” Eamonn’s head thumped against the back of the chair and he stared up at the ceiling. “Please, advise me Unseelie Prince.”

“Remind yourself what it feels like when a woman wants you. It might do you a world of good.”

“She doesn’t want me. She’s frightened of me, yes. But any other emotion has never passed through her at the sight of me.”

“Curious. It didn’t look like that when you tried to consume her.”

“I what?” Eamonn’s face flamed with embarrassment and anger. “You were watching.”

“I’m always watching,” Bran tapped the black feathers circling his eye. “But more importantly, I could see what you did not. Alcohol may cloud your mind, but it does not mine. She wants you, my friend. Almost as much as you want her.”

“And what do I do with that? You ask me to plan for war, and then to distract myself with a woman!” Eamonn tossed the remaining shards of glass onto the floor. “A man can only do so much, Bran.”

“I can help if you want. Although, I’d much prefer the task of distracting your lady.”

Eamonn growled.

“Calm yourself.” Bran lifted his hands in surrender. “I jest. You need to wait for your brother to make the first move, and trust me, he will. Why do you think I was in Unseelie?”

Eamonn wanted to throw something at him. “Was this entire conversation a way for you to circle around to what you found out in Unseelie? Out with it, Fae!”

“Not yet. I want to know what you’re doing with Sorcha first.”

“I don’t like you using her name so freely.”

“I think she’s hardier than you give her credit for. No faerie blood runs in her veins, but there’s something else there that gives her a spine of steel. What are you going to do with her?”

“I don’t know,” Eamonn groaned. “Give me peace and perhaps I will find out!”

“You gave her the queen’s room, yet you do not know what you want her for.” Bran tsked. “You’re a confusing man, my friend. A supple woman, willing no less, just floors away from you and you hide in a tower.”

“Are you quite done commenting on my love life?”

“That will never stop.”

Eamonn stared at the ripped portrait of his mother and prayed for patience. He’d never been good at waiting. The battlefield wasn’t a good training ground for patience. “Bran.”

“Fine. Your brother has been keeping track of you, you know, and this girl worries him. He thinks a happy life might coerce you into returning.”

“He is a fool.”

Bran snorted. “A fool who is correct.”

“She has no sway over my actions or decisions.”