“Nonetheless,” she insisted, “Thomas is important to me, and he would regret your deaths.”

“Why didn’t you go to the reservations when all of the rest of the fae had to?” I asked, to change the topic before Adam could respond to that.

“I am the Flanagan, Mercy,” she said without arrogance. “As was my father, the Dragon Under the Hill. They have not the authority to tell me where to go or what to do. The courts of the fae are long gone, but my father was king, and that means power of the like many have forgotten. He saved the world, and they let him die while they sat congratulating themselves on how well the fae were blending in with the humans in this new land. They let him die because they were afraid of him. He died very, very slowly, and there are some on the reservation here to whom I would extend that same courtesy if I am given the opportunity.”

Adam and Thomas had fallen silent while she talked, her voice as pleasant as if she’d been discussing the weather. If someone had asked me at that moment who was the most dangerous person in the room—the werewolf alpha, the powerful vampire, or the skinny and broken fae—I wouldn’t have hesitated to name her. I didn’t know what her mojo was—her talk of courts, kings, and dragons went largely over my head—but she was certain that she could take out the Gray Lords. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“Good to know,” I said.

She smoothed her skirt. “I am the Flanagan, and that means they asked me to come. I have decided that it would be better to make some things clear in person.” Her gray eyes were chilly.

—

“He’s in love with her,” said Adam. “Poor fool.”

The sun was sneaking out to greet the day as we drove home. I twisted around until I could see his face.

“A blind man could see that,” I said. “Why ‘poor fool’?”

“Because he hasn’t made a move on her,” he said. “I recognize that half-crazed desire to say, ‘Mine, mine, mine,’ tempered by love that would never do that without a permission that will never come.”

“Yours came,” I told him.

He snorted.

“Hey,” I said, holding up the chain on my neck where my wedding ring held court next to one of his dog tags and my lamb charm.

“Nudge?” he said.

I looked at the cars traveling beside us as we trekked down the interstate. “Here? Seriously?”

“Permission that will never come,” he said.

“That’s not funny,” I said.

He took my hand and gently tugged it away from my necklace and kissed it. “Yes, it is.” He winked at me. “But yes, it only seemed like forever before you gave in. It left me with sympathy for other guys in that situation.”