“I realize I’m not entirely blameless for how poorly tonight went, but?—”
“You are.”
“I dressed like a whore.”
“You looked fucking sexy.”
My brow furrows. “How badly do you want my crown and coin?”
“What?”
“You said you wantedeverythingearlier.”
His lips finally flex. “I want everythingbutyour parents’ throne and coin.” All of a sudden, he unclips his fur cloak and tosses it onto the ornate trunk at the foot of the bed, and then he attacks his jacket collar.
My pulse quickens as he slides button after button free. “What are you doing?”
“I want to get to know you, Isla.”
Since I cannot imagine he’s getting undressed toget to know meintimately, my mind doesn’t go there. Fine, it does. A little.I’m a warm-blooded woman with flawless sight and a fledgling crush on a very mercurial Faerie with white hair.
He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it atop the fur. “I want to know what makes you cry.”
“Cry?” I echo in surprise. Is it me or does my voice sound husky? Mórrígan, I hope it’s me. I swallow, hoping it will lubricate my throat and enable clearer, less demonstrative diction. “I don’t cry.”
“Ever?”
“Not since I was a toddler.”
“What makes you scream?”
“Um…” I dart my eyes toward the bed, wondering why my first thought would be a dirty one.
There are plenty of things that have made me scream. Like… I stick my tongue in the corner of my lips, attempting to wrangle one out.
“When I get scared,” I all but exclaim, relieved to have found an answer that isn’t sexual. “I scream when I get scared.”
He heads over to the armchair in the corner of my bedroom, on which I’ve discarded my black dress. He lifts it, then folds it with methodic care, before draping it over the backrest and then he takes a seat and hooks one ankle over his knee.
“What scares you?”
“Crazies who have no qualms taking lives.”
“You’re safe here. With me.” He says this with such gravitas that it stirs something deep within me.
“I’m not so much worried for my safety as I am for the safety of the people I love.”
“What do you loathe? Aside from me at the moment.”
“Sofiya. I loathe her.”
With a sigh, he says, “So do I,Yegmenka.”
Why the underworld does being called Little Witch speed my pulse? “You do?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
