He returns to my bedside and lifts my chin. “Eat. It will make you feel better. I’ll be back later to sit with you tonight.”
“I’mall right,” I repeat. “I don’t need you to watch over me.”
I don’t say what I’m really thinking, that if either of us needs tending through the late hours, I have a growing suspicion that it’s going to be him. I also don’t mention that nothing and no one will stop me from sitting in on Fia’s meeting.
At the doorway, Hel appears. She stares up at Neri with those big brown eyes narrowed to lethal slits. Her growing distaste for him is evident on her face, even in the way she stands—jaw clenched, fists tight, shoulders strong—like she’s ready for a fight.
The wolf looks down at her with an amused smirk. “That vicious snarl would be much scarier if it didn’t remind me of a pup baring its teeth.” He feigns fear, widening his eyes and holding trembling hands up between them. “Terrifying.”
Hel drops her hand to the knife sheathed at her hip, a dare in her eyes. “Mock me again, dog.”
“Save it,” Alexus says. “Both of you.” Neri arches an irritated brow, and Hel tightens her grip around the hilt of her blade as Alexus strides toward them, stopping inches away from the wolf. “One of these days, one of these women is going to carve your tongue out of your throat, and I’m not going to stop them.”
Neri’s bold smirk only grows brighter. “Let them try. I’m sure either of them would be more fun to fight than you.”
“My power is returning,” Alexus warns, his voice still so calm. “If it’s violence you want, it’s violence you will get—once I’ve found Raina. Until then, I refuse to let you become a distraction.” He turns his attention to Hel. “Keep an eye on Nephele? She says she’s going to try to eat, but I know her lies when I hear them.”
I draw in and exhale a deep, annoyed breath as Hel nods once and cuts a side glance in my direction. “Consider it done.”
Alexus stalks out the door and into the hall, but Neri casts a long and lingering look at me. I can sense him trying to hear my thoughts, but I just raise my brows and smirk at him.
He smirks back and says, “Eat, or I’ll return and make you.”
I force as much disdain into my voice as possible. “I’d like to see you try.”
“You keep saying that. Understand that I take your telling me totryas an invitation. One I won’t turn down.” With a wink and a wicked grin crooking his lips, he turns on his heel, but then he turns back. “Oh and be a good girl and stay put. You need your rest.”
I fake a smile. “You know me.Good girlis my middle name.”
“Much as I would like to think differently, I know better. So behave.”
“You might be a god wolf, but remember, you are notmygod.”
His grin widens. “We’ll see about that.”
He likes a challenge, especially when it comes from me. I don’t know why I keep giving him so many godsdamn opportunities.
When he vanishes into the hall, Hel closes the door and spins around, arms crossed, eyes still narrowed. “I hate him. I can’t imagine how you must feel.” She snags a leather tie from my dressing table and comes to sit with me, tying her black hair in a knot atop her head along the way. “To keep me from being a liar, at least try afewbites before we storm downstairs and disrupt the queen’s gathering,” she says.
I smile at how easy that was and scoop up a spoonful of tisan, shoving it into my mouth. I might as well be chewing on a lump of mud for how difficult it is to make myself swallow it down, but I do it.
Hel watches me, her brows knitting with concern. “You don’t think you’re…” She pauses, as though unsure how to say her next words. “Did you… Have you fucked Joran since we left Winterhold? Or worse, Neri? Was that even possible?”
Hel is so plainly spoken sometimes, and I was not expecting that to come from her mouth. I’m so taken aback that I almost choke on the last of the lentils making their way down my throat.
Though it makes me question my instincts and many other things, sex with Joran—once taken over by Neri—was very possible. I’m not sure about Neri, physically, outside of that. But it’s not like I’m going to share the details of my time and temptations with Neri withanyone.
Instead, I grab a small throw pillow and chuck it at Hel. “No!” I croak. “I did not sleep with either of them. Why is pregnancy always associated with a woman being faint? I’m not with child, Hel, thank the stars. I’m justill.” To smooth away the cough that follows the near-choking incident, I chase it with wine. The bitter, deep red is actually appetizing. “Where’sJoran anyway?” I inquire, truly worried for his well-being and what Neri might’ve done to him.
After a weak chuckle, Hel tosses the pillow aside and rests her hands on either side of my crossed legs. “He’s fine. A little shaken and not very fond of the wolf, but he’s unharmed. Rhonin has been with him much of the day, filling in the bits he couldn’t remember along with Fleurie’s revelations.” She squeezes my ankle. “Enough about him though. Back to the subject at hand. There’s no baby. We both agree that’s a good thing, because Joran is an ass and Neri is a literal beast. Can you evenimaginebeing the mother of his godling?”
This time, it’s the wine that almost gets me. But I swallow, hard, and for a moment, it’s as though the world stops, teetering on that one word.
Godling. A child with the wolf.
I turn up my wine glass and down the rest of the red in one gulp. The sharp, metallic bitterness makes my teeth ache. I’m clearly far more ill than I perceived.
“No.” I sit my glass down with aclink.“Icannotimagine that.”
