Silvan’s mouth opened and closed several times as he tried to decide what to say. Nothing remotely intelligent occurred to him, so finally he settled for a simple, “Thank you for coming to tell me this.” He was utterly flummoxed that the queen of the legendary race had bothered to come tell him.

“I didn’t come to tell you this. You appeared weak upon awakening. I thought to increase your strength with glad tidings. We have work to do.”

“We do?” His eyes widened.

“There is the small matter of a broken Compact. Broken in this century on the Keltar side. It must be resealed, here and now.”

“Ah,” he said.

“So you did take the knife from my neck,” Chloe said, sniffling and wiping her eyes with a tissue. He’d told her everything: how the sect of the Draghar had drugged him with a potion that had made it impossible for him to control the use of magic, how he’d realized when they’d brought her in that he had only one choice left.

As she and Drustan had both suspected, Dageus had been honorable to the last—he’d tried to kill himself. “You were going to die and leave me,” she hissed, thumping his chest with her fist. “I could almost hate you for that.” She sighed gustily, knowing she loved him for it too. His honor was an integral part of him, and she wouldn’t have him any other way.

“Believe me, lass, ’twas the most difficult thing I’ve ever forced myself to do. Bidding you farewell nigh ripped my heart to pieces. But the alternative was releasing something that might ultimately destroy—not only the world—but you as well. Think you I didn’t suffer a thousand deaths fearing what the Draghar might do to you if I failed to die before they took me over? Verily, I never want to endure such fears again.” He ran his hands up her arms, swept them into her hair and kissed her hard and demanding, his tongue gliding deep.

When they were both breathless, she said, “So what happened then?” She traced her fingers over his face, savoring the feel of his rough, unshaven jaw, the softness of his sinfully sensual lips. And oh—the sight of those clear, golden tiger-eyes with no shadows!

He told her that he’d used magic to rob her of vision and hearing so she wouldn’t be forced to watch him change and die. A mere moment after he drove the knife into his heart, a man and a woman—of sorts—had appeared. The Tuatha Dé Danaan themselves.

“The Tuatha Dé came? You actually met them?” Chloe nearly shouted.