“I’m not sure what Agrippina told you,” he says in Crow, “but when I said I left my body when she rattled, I didn’t literally mean I’d died and changed shifter race.”
Since Agrippina is fluent in Crow, his disclosure paints her cheeks red. “I’m aware that you didn’t die, you idiot,” she snaps. “Santo Caldrone, I cannot have a self-centered, promiscuous prick as a mate. I just cannot.”
“Aself-centered, promiscuous prick?” he repeats, grin gone. “You think my dream mate was a pretentious Faerie whose transformation into a Serpent has only made hermorearrogant?”
Agrippina crosses her arms.
“Should’ve done more chatting and less banging,” Asha, who’s stationed herself in the entrance, quips.
Where it brings a smile to my mouth, it merely deepens Agrippina and Reid’s matching scowls.
“What’s done is done,” I murmur.
“What’s done can surely beundone,” Agrippina mutters before gesturing toward us. “I mean look at…” Her voice fritters away when she catches my stricken expression. Or maybe it’s Cathal’s clenched jaw that makes her mouth stop moving over the dismal reminder of our broken bond.Ah, shit. I’m so sorry. I forgot and—I’m so sorry.
It’s all right.
“The bond…when exactly did it click into place?” Cathal’s timbre is coarser than usual, as though little Cruaih had used his vocal folds as a scratching post.
“When she and I, um…” Reid’s light-brown complexion takes on a deeper hue. He scrubs a hand up his face, then through his hair. “After… Well, during, but at the end.” He glances toward Agrippina, who smiles now, but like her earlier rocking, it’s slightly hysterical.
“You don’t need my help,” she says, which earns her a scowl. “You’re doing a fantastic job of detailing the circumstances.”
He releases a shallow growl before blurting out, “We were locked together for a while. That’s when it happened.”
Agrippina must say something to him, because his cheeks heat some more, and so does his gaze, and then Agrippina is no longer smiling. She’s swallowing. Hard.
Cathal grimaces before jutting his chin toward the door and muttering a, “Labh.”
Even I know the Crow word for leave.
“Yes. Please,” Asha says, a smile digging into her cheeks as she sweeps open the door for Reid and Agrippina. “No hate-fucking in the Kasha. Unless it’syourKasha,” she adds with a wink in my direction. When I don’t reciprocate her pleasant humor, she sighs. “I’ll just see myself out.”
Enzo?I suddenly call out through the bond.
Yes, Day?
Could you and Taytah…could you communicate inside your minds?
No. Why?
I’ll explain in a second but I need to understand one last thing. It’s intrusive of me, so forgive me for asking, but I swear it’s important. Were yourpartsever locked together?
Our parts?
Your sexual organs.
I’d really prefer not to discuss this with you.
Trust me, I feel the same way.
Then why are you asking?
Because it just happened to Agrippina and Reid, and it opened a mind link between the two of them.
He lapses into silence. So do I.
“Daya?” Cathal touches my elbow, making me jerk back to the here and now.
