“Whowhat?” I snap.
“Who is to be your newmate?” He bites out the word as though it now tastes foul.
“I not know him.”
“But, perhaps, I do? Who?”
“Why you want know?”
“Call it morbid fascination.”
I don’t understand what that means, but I say, “I meet him on beach tonight. He no hair.”
“Did he have a feather? Stripes?”
I dig into my memory. “No. Face bare.”
His lips curl.
“Why you smile?”
He walks toward the door and opens it.
“Cathal Báeinach, why you smile?”
“Because your mate is not one of my brothers.”
My eyebrows glance against one another. I hadn’t even considered the Mahananda mating me to another Crow.
“Come,mo Sífair.”
The word serpent, I understand, but notmo. That’s twice that he’s used it. “What meanmo?”
The impossible, mercurial male grins wider, so wide that it makes my heart hold still before bumping like a tossed pebble. He flings open his cave’s door and waits. It’s only as I step past him that he murmurs, “My.”
He shifts before I can remind him that I’mnothis. I suppose he’ll only understand this once he sees me with my new mate. I suddenly picture how this will go and the expression that’ll score his face. It’s best if he never lays eyes on the male, for Cathal might decide to also lay a talon on him, and since the male the Mahananda chose for me won’t be a shifter, a talon would hurt him.
My breath suddenly seizes, and not because we hurtle out of the Sky Castle, but because I finally grasp the cause of Cathal’s dusky smile. Had my mate been a shifter, nothing could’ve harmed him, neither the Crow I ride, nor a weapon made of obsidian, thanks to my healing tongue.
If my mate is human…
Oh, Great and Powerful Mahananda…
What will Cathal Báeinach do to him?
Chapter 21
Zendaya
I’m still running through the terms of the bargain I’ve concocted inside my mind when Cathal flaps his wings and pivots. Instead of heading toward a patch of water crawling with boats and Crows, we arrow toward a lone ship that bobs just off a beach of black sand. Even without its blood-red flag, I would’ve known it was Priya’s vessel from the number of frolicking serp?—
Black sand.
I snap my gaze off the undulating scaled bodies and onto the beach.
That was the color of the sand in Behati’s vision.
I’m still scrutinizing it when Cathal lands. I dismount from the Crow to the sound of Priya’s frustrated diatribe, entirely aimed at Cathal, and walk on gummy legs toward the stern of the ship.
