Her grim smile rose. “Watch me.”
I could do nothing less. But enough of that. “I selected this location for its isolation.”
“Dark and gloomy.” With a twist of her lips, she strode around the perimeter of the room, barely glancing at the table and chair and not pausing to look out the windows. “It suits you, Lore.”
If she only knew.
The nyxin remained where she’d left him, sitting, looking from her to me.
I stooped down and scratched his ears while he whined and licked my chin.
Finally, Reyla came to a stop beside me, and I straightened.
With her booted foot tapping on the floor, she crossed her arms on her chest. This thrusted the peaks of her breasts up and made me ache to slide my fingers across them. My mouth. “Fine, then. You’re here. I'm here. Let’s get it over with. I have a lovely bed I'd like to curl up in.” The twist of her blade came through in her words. “It's so pretty. Merrick had it redone for me, which I appreciate. His mother . . . Let's just say that she and I have some distance to go before we're sharing recipes for horig cakes or weaving flower crowns together in a meadow.”
“Erisandra would never do either,” I said in a cryptic tone, my gaze cutting to the nyxin now lying on the floor by the wall,his head swiveling from her to me and back again. “Activities like that are beneath her.”
“I suspected as much, sadly. She doesn’t come across as a person who likes to have fun.”
“I’m sure she does, though I’m not sure I’ve ever seen joy on her face.”
“Merrick said his father was young when he died.”
“He’d just turned thirty.”
“How tragic. An accident?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Then what—”
“I'll try your horig cakes if you make them.” The words slipped out before I could hold them back.
Her head tilted, and she frowned as she studied my face. “My best friend loves them. I'm a decent cook. Nothing fancy, but I enjoy it.”
“You should have a full kitchen at your command and every ingredient imaginable available to craft whatever you crave.”
“Yeah.” Her frown deepened, but I could almost see the loosening of the irritation in her shoulders.
“I crafted the colors of your canopy drapes to match the dress you wore to your wedding.” What was with me tonight? If I kept this up, I'd spill everything and that would end it now rather than in a few months.
“Youcrafted the drapes?” Her eyebrows lifted. “I mean . . . Isn't that creepy, you decorating my suite?”
I shrugged. “It's my skill, not his.”
“And you did it knowing I'd one day lay beneath the fluffy covers with him?”
“It's inevitable, isn't it?”
She shrugged.
I wanted to press her to tell me what the gesture meant, because from my earlier conversation with Merrick, I got the idea that things were progressing quite nicely in that direction. I bit my lips instead.
“The sooner we get this training over with,” she huffed, “the quicker I can leave. Maybe I'll see if Merrick wants to join me between the covers you oh, so lovingly selected.”
I bit back my growl. She was saying this to get a rise out of me, and I refused to satisfy my wildfire's need to irk me.
When I smiled, she sucked in a breath.
