Heavy relaxation melted him, bone and blood morphing to liquid gold. Each note sent it rippling through him. Every stressor and sharp word and aggravation leaked from him, slithered off the bed like a snake.

He flipped off those feelings as they slid away. He was well aware that he’d taken the hits of Flynn’s mirthroot thanks to the hours he’d spent brooding over his father’s bullshit orders.

His father could go to Hel.

The mirthroot wrapped soft, sweet arms around his mind and dragged him into its shimmering pool.

Ruhn let himself drown in it, too mellow to do anything but let the music wash over him, his body sinking into the mattress, until he was falling through shadows and starlight. The strings of the song hovered overhead, golden threads that glittered with sound. Was he still moving his body? His eyelids were too heavy to lift to check.

A scent like lilac and nutmeg filled the room. Female, Fae …

If one of the females partying downstairs had shown herself into his room, thinking she’d get a nice, sweaty ride with a Prince of the Fae, she’d be sorely disappointed. He was in no shape for fucking right now. At least not any fucking that would be worthwhile.

His eyelids were so incredibly heavy. He should open them. Where the Hel were the controls to his body? Even his shadows had drifted away, too far to summon.

The scent grew stronger. He knew that scent. Knew it as well as—

Ruhn jerked upward, eyes flying open to find his sister standing at the foot of his bed.

Bryce’s mouth was moving, whiskey-colored eyes full of dry amusement, but he couldn’t hear a word she said, not a word—

Oh. Right. The headphones. Blasting music.

Blinking furiously, gritting his teeth against the drug trying to haul him back down, down, down, Ruhn removed the headphones and hit pause on his phone. “What?”

Bryce leaned against his chipped wood dresser. At least she was in normal clothes for once. Even if the jeans were painted on and the cream-colored sweater left little to the imagination. “I said, you’ll blow out your eardrums listening to music that loud.”

Ruhn’s head spun as he narrowed his eyes at her, blinking at the halo of starlight that danced around her head, at her feet. He blinked again, pushing past the auras clouding his vision, and it was gone. Another blink, and it was there.

Bryce snorted. “You’re not hallucinating. I’m standing here.”

His mouth was a thousand miles away, but he managed to ask, “Who let you in?” Declan and Flynn were downstairs, along with half a dozen of their top Fae warriors. A few of them people he didn’t want within a block of his sister.