“She’s a kitten.” He lifts his arm, carrying the tiny ball of black fur to his cheek. “She needs a lot of attention.”
If I didn’t feel so duped, I may have melted at the sight of such tenderness. But I’m currently not melting; I’m vibrating. “Well, silly me assumed she was a Crow,” I say, tamping down the volume of my anger for Cruaih’s sake. “And not thenon-shiftingkind.”
The kitten blinks wide, shiny eyes at me, one ear perking while the other still lays flat, but that has more to do with the pressure of her caregiver’s cheek.
“Why lead me to think she was a woman, Cathal? Why didn’t you just tell me she was a cat?”
He lowers his arm. “I owed you no explanation.” His gaze slices toward the closed doors of the throne room that he stepped past mere minutes ago. Is he considering flocking out? “I still don’t,” he grumbles.
I unbind my arms. “If we’re to work together, I expect complete honesty from this point on.”
“Honesty is a two-way avenue.”
I cast my stare off the spooked creature and onto the seething one. “I’ve never been dishonest with you.”
He snorts, which snares his pet’s attention.
“What secrets are you accusing me of keeping, Cathal?” When the hollows beneath his cheekbones turn concave, I realize that he thinks I’m lying. “What secrets?”
He snorts.
I tilt my chin up. “Ask me anything.”
“I’m here to advise you, not to trial you.”
“Perhaps, but you’re obviously begrudging me something. Out with it.”
When he smooshes his lips, I understand that the stubborn male will not give voice to what’s on his heart.
I whirl back toward the files stacked haphazardly on the sunstone table, which Asha was helping me sort through. “No wonder Fallon seemed so reticent about us working together.”
He remains quiet.
“This won’t work, Cathal. I cannot collaborate with someone who resents me for something I’ve no?—”
“I’m not holding a fucking grudge, Daya.”
I crinkle the corner of one of the papers. “Really? Then why didn’t you tell me thesomeone you’d metwas acat?”
“Because I was?—”
When a minute ticks by and he hasn’t added any words, I turn back toward him. “You werewhat?”
The whites of his eyes, still pink from too many sleepless nights, flush redder. “I was jealous that you’d moved on with the Green One!” His raised voice steals every beat of my heart. He drops his chin into his neck and gazes at Cruaih. “Perhaps for Serpents, mating bonds are different than they are for Crows, but?—”
“Enzo’s mydenmate, Cathal, not mylovemate.”
His jaw begins to tick.
“I can hear Agrippina, too.” I try to catch his stare, but he keeps it on his pet. “I thought you knew that my connection to them was like Lore’s to?—”
“Idoknow.”
“Then why in the world do you think that Enzo and I are more?—”
“Because I saw you together, Daya!”
“Again, he is my denmate. You will often see us together, Cathal.”
