Only she felt the way his shoulders shook from suppressed laughter as he tucked his face into the small of her back.
Despite her resolve to keep a low profile at this meeting, Kira had no choice but to respond now that Kashori’s Overlord had addressed her directly.
“I suggest focusing on your own matters rather than concerning yourself with mine.”
She didn’t blame Helena for her anger.In her place, she’d be out for blood too.However, she wasn’t going to sit still and let them take their anger out on her either.
If there was one thing she knew about the Tuann, it was that they respected strength.
“Send the child home, mad heir,” Danai’s Overlord advised.“The adults have important business to attend to.”
Objectively, Danai’s Overlord was an attractive man.Or he would have been if he wasn’t so damn sleazy.He didn’t even try to hide his desire to use her or the situation to his advantage.
Kira was left feeling as if it wasn’t her he was actually seeing but rather some pawn placed on an invisible chess board.
His arrogance was going to be his downfall.
If Kira or Jin didn’t kill him first.
Kira glanced at her uncle to find him as still as a statue.His expression not betraying him by so much as a flicker of an eyelash.
She took his stoic impassivity as permission, knowing that if he’d truly wanted her to shut up and be quiet he would have shown it.
“You keep throwing that term around—mad heir,” Kira drawled with an enigmatic little smirk that made the oshota lining the wall all tense.“Push me too far and maybe I’ll demonstrate just how mad I actually am.”
He didn’t want her to say “fuck it”.She could promise him that.
The Kira he’d seen so far was rather tame in comparison to the one who’d walked through fire to become the Phoenix.She’d burn the world down and roast marshmallows in the embers of its aftermath.
The oshota standing at Danai’s shoulder slammed a hand on the table.“Insolence!”
Kira fixed the stranger with a cool stare.She didn’t speak, letting her silence do all the talking for her.
One of the things she’d discovered since joining the Tuann was that her ability to intimidate humans with a simple look extended to them as well.There was something in her stare.A power that forced weak willed and weak minded people to submit.
Predictably, this Tuann was no different.Beads of sweat formed on his brow as he worked to keep his eyes on her face, not quite daring enough to meet her stare.
Kira took pity on him, looking away to scan the rest of those at the table.
She grinned when she saw someone she knew.“Roddy, so good to see you again.”
“I would point out that that’s not my name, but I’m sure you know that and this is yet another attempt to rouse a reaction from me,” Roderick observed.
“Is it working?”
“Try harder next time.”
Tall and lean, Roderick possessed sharp boned features and the lilac colored eyes her mother’s people were known for.
He’d undergone quite a transformation since their first meeting.
He was still arrogant but now that arrogance had been tempered and he was no longer led by blind emotion.
It made him almost, Kira dare say, likable.
Next to him, Kira’s cousin, Liara, sat at the table.A trace of amusement was buried deep in her eyes as she watched Kira and her First’s interaction.
Luatha’s Overlord was a beautiful woman.Her long hair, the color of spun gold, had been braided and twisted into a complicated style that left her looking as regal as a Faerie princess.
