The Crow’s gaze finally rolls to mine. For several seconds, we stare at one another.Intoone another. And then his lids sink, and he gives his head a small shake. “Ask him, Príona.”
I don’t want to ask the new Serpent anything.
Cathal turns toward my fellow shifter and reiterates his question in Lucin.
Tell him to go for it. Sami’s a massive faehole.
“What is his answer?” Cathal asks.
“I decide! Not boy.” I squeeze my scorched eyes shut. “Kill Yellow-hair.”
The air shifts and then I catch the wet snap of flesh.
Remind me to never cross your husband.
I propel my fists into my eyes.What have I done? What have Idone?
No one will miss the guy, Princess. Not his wife, who he beats up on the regular, or his customers, who he swindles of coin every chance he gets.
I whirl and lock eyes with the scaly shifter’s. “I no talk about dead man! I talk aboutyou.” I fling an arm in his direction.
He falls quiet. Everyone does. The world’s immobility is so profound that I hear water lap against wood a moment before my grandmother’s voice grinds up the silence.
“Cathal Báeinach!” His name vibrates with a fury that pales in comparison to the one striking my heart. “I have half a mind to plunge an obsidian dagger into your…” Her voice fades as her attention locks on the Serpent, on the shimmer that envelops his scales before returning him to his other shape.
Though the moonlight is scarce, and his hair cropped close to his scalp, I don’t miss its emerald hue as he scrambles to his feet to sketch an awkward bow. “Maezza,” he all but gasps.
The queen’s pink eyes linger on his dark ones. “How?”
“Mádhi turned him,” Fallon says, twining her fingers through mine. She gives my palm a squeeze. “Serpents can be made, imTaytah.”
“Blessed Mahananda.” My grandmother blinks those heavy-lidded eyes of hers that are aglow with absolute wonder.
This is not wondrous. This is disastrous.
Ouch.My new mate rubs his nape.
I scowl at him.Quiet.
He presses his thick lips together, chastened.
“I’m sorry about—about the storm,” Cathal murmurs.
The queen’s chin tilts up. “I’ve no doubt you are.” Her smugness incenses me.
I must roll my fingers too tightly to Fallon’s liking because she murmurs, “I won’t let her take you away if you don’t want to go to Shabbe.”
“That isn’t what’s troubling your mother, now is it, Zendaya?” Priya asks.
Fallon frowns. “It isn’t?”
My teeth chatter too hard to explain.
“I don’t understand.” She turns toward me. “You dreamed about there being another Serpent shifter, and now there is one. And there could be more. You could have an entire den if…”
The sob that notches my throat quiets her.
Please don’t cry, Princess. If you don’t want me to exist, I’m sure Fallon’s father will be only too glad to give me the same fate as Sami’s.He wrinkles his hooked nose and looks down at boots that are so scuffed I can see a hint of toe.Just ask him to do it quickly.He kicks a shell.
