I inclined my head, and Maudoric left, giving Erina’s arm another touch as she passed.
Then it was just me and my mate in the study. The sunlight shone brightly through the arched window, but I couldn’t help but think of the night we’d last been in here together.
You’re not anything like I’d hoped you be,she’d told me.
I nearly flinched, remembering the words. I’d been so cold that night to her, so detached.
“Is that it?” she asked, gesturing toward the letter held between two of my fingers.
I looked down at the script. Neat and tidy. It was addressed to me, the seal broken.
To Kaldur of House Kaalium, Kyzaire of Vyaan.
I held it out for her, but she shook her head. “You can read it if you’d like. The words were meant for you anyway.”
My brow furrowed, but I slipped my finger below the paper and unfolded it.
It was short, I noticed. To the point.
Kaldur,
I went to a healer today in Laras. His blood test revealed that I’m pregnant. The child is yours. It could be no one else’s, despite what you think of me. The healer estimates I’m four weeks along, but I know that I’m nearly five.
My jaw gritted tight. She knew because it had only happened once, obviously. The night we’d had sex, the night I’d left her.
The night I’d taken her virginity and hadn’t even known it, I thought, regret nearly making me shred the delicate paper with my curling claws.
You deserve to know. I would never keep this from you, but I admit that I’m scared, Kaldur. I don’t know what I should do.
I am staying at Ikrin’s Inn in the SouthDock District of Laras. You can write to me here, and I’ll wait for your reply.
She’d signed her name, a beautiful little swirl of a signature. One I imagined her practicing as a child, over and over again.
I stared down at the letter and then read it again.
I didn’t know how I should feel about it, but I felt strangely angered. “You didn’t ask for money,” I said.
She blinked. “You’re…you’re angry about that?”
I blew out a rough breath, her words already committed to memory. I folded the letter carefully and placed it on my desk. I had a feeling by the end of the night, it might be destroyed by how many times I would open and close it, to read it again.
“Had your credits already been stolen when you wrote that letter?” I asked.
She sucked in a small breath as I approached her by the door. Reaching past her, I closed it, allowing us privacy. I kept my arm up, boxing her against it as I stared down at her. Closer than I should be but nowhere close enough.
“You knew about that?” she asked. “How?
“Because I told you—I was there. I went to Ikrin’s. I was asking people on the damn streets if they’d seen someone like you around. An older Kylorr male said there was a human female fitting your description living in his building in the South Dock District. The fuckingDock District, Erina.”
“It…it was cheap,” she protested, her cheeks heating.
“Gods,” I rasped. “If anything had happened to you…”
I might never have known, I thought, and that realization was a sobering thought.
I breathed in deeply, trying to focus on her scent to keep the anger at bay. It calmed me down and I reached forward to clasp a small section of her dark red hair, rubbing the wild strands of it between my fingers.
“I found Ikrin’s. He told me you’d been there. He told me about the theft. So I knew you had very little money,” I said. “But you wrote to me without communicating the position you’d found yourself in. With very little credits to your name, working at a small inn, and sleeping in a drafty room in the Dock District.”
