With little idea of what else to do, I stomped toward the bathroom. Maybe water would wash away some of the irritant.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, though. This was pixie dust we were talking about, after all.
Half an hour later, I stepped out of my bedroom, showered and changed into a pair of leggings and an oversized black shirt that I’d found in my closet.
To my surprise, the itchiness had faded to a much more manageable level after my shower. Instead of a ten, it was hovering around a four. Irritating but bearable.
I found Connor waiting for me in the other room.
The living quarters in the mansion were more like mini apartments than bedrooms. Most came with a suite of attached rooms. The higher your status, the bigger and more numerous the rooms.
As Thomas’s yearling, my suite lay somewhere in the middle, complete with living room, bedroom and an en-suite bathroom that was the stuff dreams were made of.
“What are you watching?” I asked, throwing myself onto the couch next to Connor.
To my surprise, a show about house renovation was playing on the TV. We watched for a couple of minutes, until the next commercial break started.
Connor switched the TV off and faced me. “I’m sure you have questions about last night.”
I sure did, but I wasn’t certain I should ask them with that look on his face. The one that said he was bracing for something unpleasant.
Connor was a charming mix of fragile and resilient. In some ways, he was more vulnerable than me. Power wise, he outstripped me in every way; able to punch his fist through another vampire’s chest without even trying.
Physically, he was on par with Liam’s enforcers, but his emotional maturity was somewhat stunted. His time locked in the body of a stag had taken its toll and the trauma of that experience still lingered.
It made me want to treat him with kid gloves. At least when it came to things like this.
“Not if you don’t want to.”
What was important was that I now knew he had a vendetta against Dominick. The why was irrelevant.
“Aren’t you curious?” Connor asked.
“Oh, definitely. I’m dying to know everything.”
I was an inquisitive little mouse, interested in all the gossip.
“Then why?”
“Because it’s your story to tell.”
I knew something about having a story. Pushing wouldn’t help him in the long run. He had to want to tell me on his own. To do otherwise would spit on the trust we’d been building.
The silence lasted long enough that I thought he would choose not to talk. So, it was a surprise when he did.
“I was a fool.”
I made myself comfortable on the couch, waiting patiently for him to continue.
“Dominick visited Niamh’s court about a decade after I fell to her trap,” Connor said softly. “He joined the hunt.”
My hand clenched before I forced my fingers to loosen. “Did he know it was you?”
His chin tilted down the barest bit in assent.
I sucked in a breath and released it slowly. I could guess the rest of this story myself.
“I thought he was there to save me, and he laughed at me instead.”
