I’m not going to ask him to kill you,I murmur.
He blinks as though my mercy genuinely surprises him.Thank you.
“I won’t take you by force to Shabbe this time, emMoti, but I urge you and…” The queen switches to Lucin to ask the male a question to which he replies:Enzo.
I surmise this is his name.Enzo. Enzo the Shifter.
“I urge you and Enzo to head to Shabbe with us. Especiallynow.”
Nowthat I’ve made a shifter.
Imadea shifter.
If it wasn’t for the mind link, I would, like Fallon, find this most extraordinary.
Mind link,Enzo murmurs in wonder.That’s why I can talk without moving my mouth. What language are we speaking? It’s not Shabbin, is it?
I grimace.
Sorry. My mind is just…Enzo kicks another shell.Sorry.
Stop! Stop apologizing!I growl.
His eyes grow as wide as the stupid wound I healed. That’ll teach me to keep my tongue off foreign bodies. The second the thought enters my mind, I turn toward Cathal. When our eyes collide, my lungs tighten.
Ask me to stay, I think, but unlike Enzo, Cathal cannot penetrate my mind—only my heart—so he doesn’t hear my silent entreaty.
I realizeIcould ask to stay, but what if he refuses and turns his back on me? Or worse, what if he seeks a mate of his own?
Ask me to stay,I beg.
“You should go with your grandmother.” His words are a blade that flay me open from collarbone to navel. “She’s the only one who can truly keep you and your—” His jaw flexes. “You and the kid safe.”
I blink back the wetness pooling behind my lids.
“I won’t seal off Shabbe,” Priya says. “Not unless the toxin spreads. If it does, though, wards will go up, but in the meantime, you may come and go as you please.”
It doesn’t matter whether she puts up wards or not. Cathal will not visit.
Fallon gives my fingers another squeeze, forcing a smile. “We’ll come every day. Right, Dádhi?”
He stares at the mirror-smooth ocean that unspools toward my birthplace. “I’ll go inform the Siorkahd of this new development. Imogen, dispose of the deceased, and please fucking remind everyone that they will incur the same fate if they so much as look sideways at a serpent. Evidently they didn’t think we were serious when we passed the edict.”
Without so much as a backward glance or a goodbye, Cathal dissolves into smoke before morphing into his winged form. I press my palm against my chest that feels hollow, as though he left with not merely a piece of my heart but the entire thing.
I’m going to Shabbe!Enzo’s exclamation clangs against my eardrums.
I stare at his excited face, at his cheeks that are high in color, at his mouth that is round with wonder, at his gangly limbs he’s yet to grow into. Why in the world would the Mahananda match me with a juvenile?
Was this how Fallon…or rather Lorcan viewed his match when they first met? Like an unappealing child?
I don’t think Enzo hears my deliberations, entranced as he is by the queen growing a gang plank from the bow of the ship so we can climb aboard.
“You made a Serpent. I can still hardly believe it,” Fallon murmurs as Enzo walks up the plank toward my awaiting grandmother. “I’ll come for breakfast.” My daughter drops a kiss on both my cheeks. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Fallon. So much.” I turn my gaze toward the starlit heavens, hunting its infinite depths for the male who, once upon a time, would never have left me.
“I think Dádhi’s a little bit in shock.” Of course, she guesses who I seek. “But you know him…a restorative stroll through the clouds, and he’ll be right as rain.”
