Cas sighed, the long-suffering exhale of mankind’s most beleaguered zookeeper, and lobbed the loofah at my chest with sniper precision.
“Finish up.”
He vanished into the steam, leaving me nose-to-tile with cold reality and pruney fingertips.
Yeah, thepeckmay have lasted only three seconds, but my skin still buzzed like I’d licked a Tesla coil.
22. Flashes of Images
Koa
The dishwasher yawned open as Casimir loaded each plate with the precision of a surgeon. I leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching him with amusement and admiration. His blond hair hung down his back in a tight braid, not one strand daring to escape, his eyes stayed locked on his self-assigned task. He always did like order. Everything in its place, every decision made with calculated precision.
It was both a strength and a weakness, but tonight, it was just comforting.
Zane’s voice drifted downstairs, singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” to a probably unconscious Seri. She’d nodded off over dinner, nearly face-planting in her salad bowl, and Zane won a coin toss for the right to carry her to her room and tuck her in.
Now, watching Cas clean up, I kept replaying her reaction during ‘The Great Shampoo Adventure.’ The way she grabbed her arm when she mentioned the rogues. The cloud that had passed over her eyes when she spoke of her hens. The tremble in her lips. How she avoided meeting our gazes, her voice a whisper.
The dishwasher clicked shut almost silently. Cas stood back, surveying the kitchen like a general inspecting freshly polished artillery.
“She flinched,” I finally said it aloud.
Cas paused, and his green eyes cut to me.
“When she mentioned the rogues.” My thumb scraped at the scar running along my jawline. “Grabbed her left arm like it burned. You catch it?”
“Of course I did.” He yanked open drawers until he found the junk one, third from the sink,and started rearranging it. I silently apologized to Mrs. Wentzel. “Question is, did Arabesque order it, or did Seri just have the bad luck to stumble across one her stepmother apparently keeps around the place like feral pets?”
“You think Arabesque would punish her like that?” I pushed off the counter, moving to stand beside him.
“Please don’t say the wordpunishright now,” he rasped, slamming the junk drawer shut and looking for something else to organize so he could focus on anything other than what was going on behind his ribs right now.
Since I was struggling with that myself, I decided to help him out.
“Utensil drawer. Two over, one down from the oven. Serving spoons are a mess.”
The man coordinated cutlery the same way he’d paint by number with an eyelash: Meticulously.
“Arabesque’s capable of worse,” he said as he pounced on the jumbled ladles. “But rogues? They don’t exactly have table manners, nor do they leave survivors accidentally.”
A door closed overhead, and the thump of Zane’s boots coming down the stairs meant she’d been safely deposited in bed.
“You think that was part of the bargain to get Seri to agree to this marriage? Do it or be eaten by rogues?”
“Most likely.” The muscle in the side of Cas’ jaw flexed twice. “You’ve heard the same stories I have. Arabesque isn’t the cookie-baking, lullaby-singing kind of stepmom.”
The door swung open, and Zane sauntered in, his hair standing up everywhere. He had a way of moving that was always a little too casual, a little too deliberate. Just like his mouth, spewing sarcasm constantly to prove he didn’t care. But his eyes gave him away. They were sharp, always watching.
He snagged an apple from the fruit bowl, the one Cas had arranged in color wheel perfection earlier, and ate half in one bite.
“Brummy’s guarding her door like a fuzzy sentinel. Also, old news flash, Einsteins—” he jabbed the apple at us, “—walls aren’t soundproof when you’re part bat.”
“Eavesdropping’s rude,” I muttered.
“So’s not sharing the juicy conspiracy theories.” He hopped onto the counter, legs swinging. “C’mon. Spill.”
I leaned both palms on the island. Seri’s face flickered in my mind: sunken cheeks, dark circles under eyes too old for nineteen.
