“Did you need something?”
He closes the door, sealing us in together. “Confirmation you hadn’t fled.”
“The only place I’m fleeing to tonight is my bed.” When he eyes it, I add, “Alone.”
He snorts. “Have no fear. I’m not planning on getting into bed with a Crow.”
Although I’ve made up my mind about Dante, I deadpan, “He doesn’t sleep in my bed either.”
“I wasn’t speaking of him.”
“Oh, I know.” I prop my chin up. “Good thing for you, I don’t much desire to lie with a man I disgust, so I guess it works out for everyone.” I skirt the prince and yank open the door. “Now that you’ve ascertained my whereabouts, kindly show yourself out, Princci.”
His jaw squares as he works it from side to side. “My intention wasn’t to cause you pain.”
“Perhaps not, but the more you look at me like I’m a monster, Dante, the more you make me feel like one.”
“How am I supposed to look at you?” He tosses a hand in the air in exasperation.
“Like I’m still me! Still a fucking girl.”
He flinches.
“Still your friend, or whatever I was to you.”
He takes a step toward me, looming over my smaller figure, and I think that maybe he’ll grip my neck and kiss me. And that maybe, for closure, I’ll let him. But then his nostrils flare and he pivots and pounds back into the hallway and into the room across the hall. In a manner unbecoming of a future king, he smacks his door shut.
Then again, the throne was never meant for him.
After closing my own door, I look down at myself, at this body that causes him such disgust, even though my nails haven’t hardened into iron talons and my skin remains feather-free.
The lock, Behach Éan.
I slide my lip between my teeth.He’s not coming back.
Perhaps not, but there are a dozen men downstairs, and although their odds of getting past me are nonexistent, I’d prefer not to soak any floors with blood.
Stomach swishing from the picture he paints, I spin the lock, then pad over to my bed.Not all conflicts need to be resolved with murder, you know.
Men don’t only bleed when they’re dead.
Keeping the towel around me, I sit on the mattress which is a mixture of soft and lumpy, then lift the sheets that smell like sunshine and tropical bark, and burrow beneath them. Since I slept the day away, slumber doesn’t wash over me. Not to mention, anticipatory nerves are firing everywhere in my body.
Tomorrow, Lore will be almost complete.
What of your fifth crow? The one from the palace?I dim the lantern on the nightstand and watch the play of shadows on the smooth lacquered-wood ceiling.
Its carrier will reach the southern shores just after sunrise.
I picture Giana toting the bowl, because who else could be involved?
It’s not—
He stops speaking so suddenly that I sit up in bed and spin the dial on the faelight.Lore?
Nothing.
“Lore?” I whisper, before shouting his damn name. “Lore!”
