“Ah!” I dropped him back into the puddle. And, as if he were a sentient creature, not simply a stupid lizard, he ran right for the fireplace and scurried up inside the chimney.
I turned slowly to Avia. Her hair was plastered to her face. Her brown eyes were wide and fearful.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’ve just been nearly burnt then drowned. I think I need a minute.”
“Fair enough,” I turned back to Declan, who had taken a few steps forward and now stood at my side. I looked up at him, his straight, perfect blond hair was bedraggled. His grey velvet coat was ruined.
His eyes met mine and he held them for a long moment.
“I’m fine—” I started.
“Why’d you say to multiply sand?” he asked. As if that question were the most pressing thing despite everything that had just happened.
“Because it can smother a fire. Of course, I didn’t realize you’d go overboard and fill the entire room—”
“That salamander was still actively on fire.”
“I had calmed him down. He was still.”
“Really?” Declan raised a brow. “The room’s contents suggest otherwise.” He eyed the ruined tapestry and the two burnt rugs.
I glared at him.
“Back to the sand,” he dismissed my anger as if my emotions were unimportant. “What specifically made you recommend it?”
I shrugged. “When I was in the village of Lucha, I saw an execution by fire. At the end, they used sand to douse the fire instead of water. Kept the wooden pillar from rotting. Easier clean up and re-use, the village executioner said.”
“The future Queen of Evaness takes advice from executioners?” Declan asked.
“He knew what he was talking about.”
“He did?”
“They have a lot of pillaging from Rasle’s mountain clans. When winter closes in, Lucha has a lot to handle.”
“Did he say what kind of sand, or the quantity to fire ratio?”
“You are not asking me that.”
Declan looks startled. “Yes, I am.”
“The type of sand is irrelevant. Right now, we need to change. We need to get this room cleaned up. And we’ll need to keep this all very discreet.”
“What? Why?” Avia pulls me around to face her.
“Because I think someone let that salamander in here on purpose. I think you were just attacked.”
Chapter Eleven
Ryan walked into the room. “You won’t believe what happened. There’s a huge pit that opened up in the courtyard. As if a giant hand scooped up a ton of sand. What the hell—” he stepped around the puddles that dotted the floor. “What happened in here?”
“Fire salamander. I had to decrease the sand to make more water in here. The blighter must have tried to get out of the cold.” Declan replied as he stripped off his soaked coat.
I couldn’t help admiring how his white shirt clung to his body, even as his words stung. I’d just said I’d thought this salamander had been sent deliberately, hadn’t I?
I met Declan’s eyes. “You think a fire salamander scaled four floors of palace walls, bypassing the many warm cozy fireplaces on the lower floors and just happened to end up here?” I glared at him as Avia’s lady-in-waiting and maid appeared.
They shrieked, and immediately hustled my sister out of the room to bathe and get re-dressed so she wouldn’t ‘catch her death.’ I waved them off when they offered me the same. I was too furious to deal with servants. There was no coincidence here. That salamander did not just wander in.
Ryan’s eyes flickered between my anger and Declan’s dismissive head shake. His lips quirked in amusement.
“Don’t go turning a salamander into a dragon,” Declan said over his shoulder as he walked toward the door. “They sneak in during winter.”
“It’s not winter yet.”
“It’s not an attack. It was a tiny salamander.”
“Queen Matha was killed by a poisoned frog,” I shouted.
“Queen Matha was killed by her own idiocy,” Declan turned at the door. “Who kisses a frog?” He nodded toward Ryan. “You get our lovely wife for the afternoon. Watch out. Connor says she’s a walking disaster.”
“I’m not the one who flooded the palace.”
“No, you’re the one who was screaming her head off over a tiny reptile the size of a twig.”
I clenched my fists. I really wanted to grab the wine bottle and hurl it at his head. But Avia’s personal servants were already streaming in, silently and efficiently cleaning up the disaster. I could’ve hit one of them.
Declan disappeared.
“Ass.” I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose. It didn’t reduce my fury.
Neither did the sight of Ryan when I opened my eyes.
He was openly grinning down at me. “Afraid of a lizard?”
“Don’t,” I threatened.
Ryan smiled wider. He scooped me up into his arms facing him. One forearm became my seat as he used his other hand to drape my arms around his shoulders.
“I can walk, you know.”
“I know,” his deep voice rumbled. “But what if you see another flaming lizard? Or an ant?”
I smacked him. But his body was warm and I was soaked. Plus, I had a view of the top of his sculpted pecs peeking out from beneath his shirt. I decided not to argue too hard against this arrangement. Still, I had to say something. “Last time you had your hands on me, you were trying to kill me.”
“I was trying to stop you from killing me.”
I shrugged. “Semantics.”
He laughed, and the laugh vibrated against my pelvis. If I hadn’t been so cold, it would have done very naughty things to me.
“You’re angry a lot,” he commented.
“I don’t like idiots.”
“Declan’s a genius—”
“He’s an idiot. All the furniture in that room is ruined. If he’d used his power to dump sand on selected areas just to smother the fire, it could have been swept up. The few burnt items could have been taken out. He flooded the entire room, like he has no control over his blasts at all.”
“I don’t think he’s ever had to use his power for an emergency situation before,” Ryan shrugs.
“Really?”
“Unless a hoard of locusts is an emergency, he mostly deals with crops and livestock—”
“We should change that.”
“We?” Ryan shook his head. But he didn’t comment with all the servants surrounding us.
I knew what he was thinking though. I leaned in and whispered, “You’d rather lose an eye than work with me, right?”
“Exactly.”
I sighed, and Ryan began to walk with me in tow. Instead of going into the hall, he ducked into the secret passage that Avia had opened up. He shut the door behind us and proceeded to walk down the dark stone hallway with confidence.
“You know these passages well? Visit my sister a lot?” I asked, curiously. My mother hadn’t released these men from their contracts to me. But I’d been gone four years …
Ryan barked a laugh. “Yes, I snuck down to play tea-party with her often. Of course not. Didn’t she tell you?”
“Who? What? Who’s supposed to tell me what?” I asked. I tried to search his deep brown eyes for answers, but I could hardly make them out in the darkness of the tunnel. Only the occasional stream of light from a spy hole lit our way.
“Darling wife, that mother of yours is quite the strategist.”
“If by strategist, you mean controlling, conniving battleax, I’ll agree,” I spat back out of habit, more than anything. It was true. She was a conniving wench. But with mother’s recent gift, I didn’t put sting into those words. Not the way I used to.
Ryan laughed again, and this time my lady parts did react. “That’s exactly what I mean. From the moment we signed our engagement contracts, we’ve all been unable to ‘find release’ with any other woman. The spell was woven into the paper, and the binder placed in the ink. Or so Declan seems to think.” Ryan’s tone was reflective.
I went into shock. Utter shock. My stomach was gone. It dropped out somewhere on the floor and was left behind as Ryan began to climb the circular staircase leading to my tower room.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
“But, we … you signed that contract when I was sixteen.” That was six years ago. Six years.
“Yes,” Ryan’s voice is soft.
“No wonder you hate me so much.”
“You think that’s the only reason we hate you?”
“Of course not. But it’s got to multiply the hatred. Two, three times? More?” He didn’t answer. I didn’t really expect an answer. “No wonder you were angry when I said I’d been at a whorehouse—”
He chuckled. “Livid. I don’t think angry covers half of it. I thought your mother had only made the spell one-sided. To think, you’d run off for four years, that you’d been with other men. I wanted to rip you in half.”
“I thought you’d break my bones into matchsticks.”
“I might have tried.” He pulled me closer. “But it wasn’t one-sided, was it?” his voice hitched, revealing how much my answer mattered.