“All males.”
Huh. “Not one daughter?”
“Never.”
“Alright then, your father. His father. How far back does this go?”
“Since Evergorne Court was formed.” Gagging, he swallowed past the cursed mass building inside his throat.
“Use pretty statements, please. Don’t choke yourself.”
“As you’ve so kindly pointed out, Merrick is the pretty one.” He traced his fingers along his facial scar.
“You’re both devastating in your own way.”
“Iam devastating. He’s…kind and thoughtful and gracious and noble and?—”
“I get it.” I rolled my eyes. “One of you rules the night. The other, the day. Merrick, the wise and thoughtful, kind king, as you so rightly pointed out. And Lorant, the viper and assassin, which does make you sound badass, though you’ve yet to show me anything that proves you truly are.”
“I’m deadlier than you would believe,” he drawled.
“Yeah, sure.” I scrunched my mouth before smoothing it and continued to process this out loud. “But Merrick’s father,yourfather…” I paused, and he blinked. Simply amazing. Not Lorant, per se, but this situation. In a cruel, insidious, incredulous way. “Your father was split into the advisor at night and the king by day.” The advisor who talked Erisandra into marrying the king, into becoming a “willing” bride.
I was drawing a blank now, so I started pacing to help myself think. No more patches needed for my quilt, though I supposed there would be no harm in adding to it.
Finally, I stopped in front of him, doing all I could to keep my eyes on his and not let them wander down his—still—naked form. His cock was big. Thick. Semi-aroused.
Do not look at his cock.
I dragged my gaze back to his face, ignoring his smirk, because heknewexactly where I’d been looking. “You only talk to each other at dawn and dusk. And both of you have been trying to seduce me.”
“You’re my wife.”
“I married Merrick.”
He just grinned.
“I didn’t marryyou,” I huffed.
“We stood on that ship, speaking our vows to each other.”
“Proxy, Lorant. By proxy. You signed his name.”
“Nothing is real and everything is.”
Yeah, try to figure that out. “I’d complain about how vague that statement is if we weren’t making a bit of progress here. Regardless, I married Merrick, not you.”
He lifted his arm, showing the mating mark, the match to mine I’d spent weeks trying to deny. “I believe you’ll find someone else has this mark as well.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t seen anything like that on Merrick’s wrist.”
“Magic works in wonderful ways. It’s in your best interest that it remains hidden.”
“How is it possible for someone to be the fated mate oftwomen?” The fates didn’t work that way as far as I knew.
“Cake, Wildfire.”
I thought about it for a second. “I’m the fated mate of two pieces of cake?”
