“I haven’t gone to bed yet.”
“But you sleep?”
“Of course I sleep. At the very least to restore my magic.”
She nodded, breaking their stare and her gaze darting to the side. He stepped forward, but she immediately stepped back again, pressing against the window behind the curtains.
Pushing out a frustrated breath, he ran his hands through his hair. He thought he’d made progress with the touching yesterday, but apparently not.
Slipping his hands into his pockets, he said, “While I have not been to bed yet, you didn’t sleep long.”
“I rarely do.”
“Sleep long?”
“Sleep,” she answered simply.
He nodded as he pulled a hand from his pocket and sent a message off in a swirl of darkness. Her eyes narrowed, and before she could ask, he said, “I requested tea be brought up for us.”
“I didn’t ask for tea.”
“Yes, but you seem…out of sorts,” he ventured, settling on the phrase, but it was a lie. He didn’t know her well enough to know if this was unusual. She was odd enough, it could very well be normal behavior, but that was exactly what he was trying to figure out.
Stepping to the side, he gestured to the sofa. “Come and sit, Kailia.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t fight him despite her tentative footsteps. Ashes still fluttered with her movement, and once she lowered to the cushions, she lifted a hand, drawing a tendril of smoke to herself from the fire burning in the hearth. It danced around her fingers as she got lost in her thoughts, and he let her be, using the time to study her until there was a knock on the door twenty minutes later.
Opening it, he found staff with the tea tray, along with Razik Greybane leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Cethin didn’t bother acknowledging him as he took the tray and thanked the staff.
Kicking the door shut behind him with his foot, he returned to the sitting room and set the tray on the low table in frontof the sofa before taking a seat on the other end. Kailia seemed to have settled some. She wasn’t trembling anymore, and her breathing had evened out. But she was still on edge, stiff and alert.
He took his time pouring two cups of tea and sliding hers to her. “I don’t know how you take your tea,” he said, adding sugar and honey to his.
She said nothing as she reached for a lemon wedge, smoke trailing her hand. More than before, it now swirled with her ashes.
Cethin waited until she took her first sip and had set her cup back down before he said, “You were upset with me earlier. Is that why you are having trouble sleeping?”
Her head tilted as she met his gaze. “Why would you affect my sleep?”
And once again, he wasn’t sure how to respond to her.
“Because you were angry with me, and stewing in anger can cause restlessness,” he finally ventured.
Reaching for her tea again, she said, “My thoughts do not revolve around you, king, and emotions fuel carelessness.”
“Yet you were feeling many of them,” he countered, ignoring the way that small hit to his ego made him bristle inside.
She rolled her lips before setting her teacup down on the saucer and pushing back to her feet. “You know nothing of my emotions.”
“Which is why I’m trying to have a conversation about them,” he replied, standing as well. She immediately took three steps back from him, and it only made his irritation grow. “I told you we need to be convincing, tiny fiend.”
“And that requires this sort of conversation?”
“Yes,” he said, not bothering to hide his exasperation now. He took a step towards her, and before she could move back, he said sharply, “Don’t.”
To his surprise, she actually fucking listened, whether from his warning tone or the command in it, he didn’t care.
His voice was low as he caught a lock of her hair, winding it around his finger. It was the one part of her he touched as he said, “You say you have no experience with scorned or wronged lovers, but I’m beginning to suspect you have little experience with any lovers.”
