Hideaway Strath yours are the sweetest eyes i've ever seen

Hemlock’s response to Lotte’s attentions was fascinating, and the young queen felt an answering shiver of delight tickle her own spine as her moonbright eyes went smoky. She was quiet, allowing the russet-cloaked woman to speak as she would. “Do I need to know Isley?” she asked, and her tone was genuinely curious as she drew away to search the dryad’s viridian eyes. “I know you — but I will learn of Isley and her pains if that is what you want me to do.” As she had been with August, Lotte was feeling her way along, and for all her carefully constructed confidence, she was still a very young wolf who was new to leadership and the responsibilities of a queen. She liked Hemlock, liked her genuinely, and didn’t know whether it was overstepping to say that she didn’t need to know anything more than that.

The change in the woman’s posture concerned Lotte, who dropped to the earth beside her and made to lift that chin with her broad crown. “I will learn if you want me to,” she insisted, maybe sounding a little desperate in her desire to buoy the older female’s morale. “My Hemlock is a creature of beauty and grace. Where you see cynicism and coldness, I see efficiency and reliability. You are still you — you are only more sharply etched.” She reached for any words that might combat the rising panic she thought she saw —

— and then she swallowed them.

It was fortunate that Lotte had been trained to hear atrocities without batting an eyelash, because even as she nodded her head and preened at the fur of Hemlock’s throat, agreeing right along with her sainted husband’s decree — yes, of course Hemlock should be allowed to breed; yes, of course, Lotte would be in agreement — the sentence changed and her blood froze, then turned to quicklime. “He had even considered offering to sire them — ”

WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER AND AN ICE CREAM PARLOR OPENS ON THE SURFACE OF THE SUN, BECAUSE THAT’S JUST ABOUT THE TIME LOTTE ANSBJØRN FEARGHAL WOULD AGREE TO SHARING HER HUSBAND’S AFFECTION AND VIRILITY

“Yes, he mentioned it to me,” Lotte lied, silk-smooth, drawing away to fix Hemlock with a serenely reassuring gaze. “Is it what you wish, liekkikukka?” It was also fortunate that Lotte was able to focus on multiple things at once, because she did genuinely care about Hemlock’s happiness — but she also was slightly plotting how to murder her husband.