Actually, his smoke and feathers knitted back. I have no clue what befell his flesh since, until his five crows reunited, I’d never seen him in flesh.
His spine suddenly stiffens, and his bent neck snaps straight.
I gather he’s sensed me.
The comb I’m still holding drops from my fingers and clatters. I jump; Lorcan doesn’t. He merely twists his head to peer over his chiseled shoulder at me. The first thing I notice is the absence of his black face powder. Without it, he seems almost—
Who am I kidding? There’s nothing normal or natural about this man. He screams preternatural creature with his glowing citrine eyes and those lethal cheekbones of his. And that nose. Real men don’t have such straight, symmetrical noses.
There I go with his nose again. What is my deal?
I clear my throat and tighten my towel. “Um . . . hi.”
Note to self:wear clothes before exporting body into Lorcan’s realm. Or better yet, stop exporting body where body needn’t go.
When he still hasn’t said a thing, and I’ve not winked back into my own bathroom, however many times I try to whisk myself away, I decide to make conversation. May as well profit from this fortuitous meeting.
“Um, the scar on your back . . .” I shift on my bare feet. “Is it from one of the obsidian screws I removed from your bowl-shaped crow?”
The Sky Kingdom may have running water like Timeus’s house but it does not boast heated floors.
“You came to discuss my scars, Behach Éan?” The faintest hint of humor gilds his words.
“Do I look like I came to discuss your scars?”
“You look like you came to share my shower.”
My cheeks smolder, and I take a minuscule step back even though I don’t actually think the Crow King is about to stalk toward me and pitch me beneath the falling water. “I prefer baths. Not that I came to share one of those.” I look around, discovering a tub made of the same gray stone as everything else inside Lorcan’s mountain.
It’s not oversized but it seems deep. I wonder if the Crow King ever steeps in it. Birds do so enjoy baths. And . . .
What am I going on about?
“Lorcan, you know I have no control over where my body goes.” I tighten my towel some more, regretting not having slung on a bathrobe.
“Is that the excuse you’ll try to feed me if you attempt to visit Antoni’s private quarters?”
I gape at him, first in shock and then in fucking fury. How is he so well informed? Last I heard, I was the only one who could speak into Lorcan’s mind. Or can his people communicate with him when they’re all in bird form?
“WhenI visit Antoni’s room”—I make sure to insist on the preposition—“I’ll have no need to make excuses since I don’t owe you a play-by-play of my comings and goings.”
The knuckles on the hand he’s splayed on the wall whiten.
Before my next heartbeat, he turns, and although threads of steam still crosshatch the air between us and dark smoke has begun to roil off his naked form, neither do much to hide the full frontal.
After a shocked glimpse of . . .everything, I bounce my gaze back to his clavicle and study it so acutely I could draw it from memory in the steam fogging his mirror. “Would you mind wrapping a towel around yourself?”
“I prefer to air-dry.”
My gaze jerks to his golden stare that twinkles as though he finds my predicament thoroughly amusing.
“Besides, this is my bathing room.” He stalks closer.
I don’t know what soap he’s washed with, but it seems to have deepened his thunderstorm scent. Before I can choke on the male, I start breathing through my mouth.
“Perhaps this is my way of proving I mean you no harm.”
I glare up at him. “Funny, Lore. Who knew demonic kings were endowed with such a developed sense of humor?”
