“Do you miss your uncle?” he repeated. “I know I promised Rook I wouldn’t leave the apartment but no one would look for me in the mortal realm so, if you wanted, we could go for a visit.”
“No,” I answered, quickly. “We shouldn’t take unnecessary risks.”
“Family is not unnecessary.”
He was behind me now, so close that I could feel the warmth radiating off of him, smell the clean scent of his crisp cotton shirt. He reached over me to get a mug from the cabinet above my head and I ducked to the side and out of the way before any accidental contact could occur.
“No, they’re not,” I agreed with his previous statement, nodding as I poured the hot water into my own mug and then his when he held it out. “But we just promised yours we would stay put so that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a grin.
I just rolled my eyes, despite the flush creeping up my cheeks, and dropped two tea bags into our piping hot mugs. He watched me, that intense gaze returning. So I cleared my throat and turned away, heading out of the kitchen and toward the living room where I settled onto the couch and set my tea on the end table beside it. He followed but gave me the space I seemed to need, sitting in the armchair across from me instead of the couch beside me.
“So,” I said, dipping my tea bag in and out of the water to avoid looking at him, “are you going to tell me how you survived your own execution?”
“It was Cass’ idea,” he told me, leaning back casually, not a trace of that smirk on his lips as he recalled the tale. He looked so saddened by the reminder that I almost regretted asking. “She convinced my father of a way to save my life and his reputation. There was another man locked up beside me. About the same height, same build. Cass has always been better at glamour than the rest of us. She made him look like me, or passably so, and, for anyone who might know me too well to buy the impersonation, we used the hood.”
“Another man died in your place?” I asked, the horror of it like a punch to the gut.
I could tell that Lark was displeased about it as well from the way he clenched his jaw at the question.
“He would have died anyway,” he said. “Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.”
I frowned and took a sip of my tea because I didn’t know what to say.
“You asked me a question,” he told me then and I looked up to find him watching me again. “Do I get to ask you one in return?”
I nodded, sitting up straighter and waiting to hear what he would ask.
“Tell me about your training at the Bone Court,” he said.
“That wasn’t a question,” I chided.
“Humor me,” he replied with a grin.
“When your father found out what I could do, he made me practice on soldiers, common Fae without the power to truly protect themselves from my invasion of their souls. Then he made me try to break Ursa. It took me five days but I managed a chink in her armor and that really pissed her off so she spent all her time after that training me in the more traditional ways of the Bone Court.”
My eyes flicked to his and his jaw clenched again.
“She cut you,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered even though it wasn’t a question.
His fists were tight at his sides.
“She hurt nothing she couldn’t heal,” I assured him.
“But you were in pain,” he told me.
“You cannot spare me from pain, Lark.”
“I can try,” he growled.
I watched him for a moment, so caught off guard by his fierce protectiveness. Was this what it meant to be soul bonded? Was this a natural reaction to the connection between us, that we would defend it until our dying breath, that we would tear apart the world itself just to keep each other from getting hurt?
I rose to my feet, slowly, letting the blanket I had pulled over my lap fall to the floor. He watched, eyes darkening as he looked at me from head to toe.
“Come here,” I said.
