I need to prepare for withdrawal bleeding and then the inevitable return of theglorioushormone cycle.
“Love?” Castor murmurs. “You seem distressed? If you’d rather not, we don’t have to.”
I feign a nervous smile—wait, no, that’s genuine. I’m feigning the reasoning behind it. Gently, I say, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but do you have…human money?”
He huffs. “Unlikesome people, I do not have the luxury of minions to run my financial schemes in the other realm. However, I do have someone whose friendship I would like to test. And that someone has a credit card she is wont to use irresponsibly whenever it is most funny.”
Ohfantastic.
I don’t have great options here.
If I say I don’t want to go, I won’t have any supplies when I need them. If I say I do want to go, I will be pad and tampon shopping with a faerie man. And, another thing, who knows if faeries evenhaveperiods? Frelsi hasn’t had one, but I don’t know if that’s because she’s too young or if she won’t ever get them. If the fae don’t get them, I might find myselfexplainingthe menstrual cycle to a handsome faerie man.
I do doubt I’ll be able to contact Zahra for help here. Asking if I can use Castor’s phone to message her would leave a trail of my messages. Deleting them afterward may raise suspicions if he checks to see what we talked about later, and hedefinitelyseems like the type to check on that. He’d overhear a phone call, and I can’t exactly trot off through the trod to her house unattended, considering he seems very unwilling to let me go outside arm’s reach if I’m not behind bars.
Castor’s mouth shifts into a frown as his lips part.
Before he can speak, I interject, “Hey. Where’s Frel?”
“The hatchling woke before you and fell asleep after eating a stack of tiny pancakes taller than her.”
I blink, and some of my anxieties shrivel up. “You…made her a stack of tiny pancakes?”
His smile is nearly tender. “Of course I did. She is quite dear to you, is she not? That makes her quite dear to me, and feeding someone is the most basic of ways to care for them.”
The words blindside me and my heart considerably—on multiple levels.
Without much warning, his lips find my forehead as his hand braces in my hair. “Eat your breakfast, my feather. Assuming Willow was up late reading, as she normally is, she may just be contemplating existence at a functional level soon.”
What a mood.
“Willow?” I ask. “The…person you steal eggs from?”
Beaming, he says, “Well, technically I steal them from her chickens. But, yes. Precisely.”
Chapter 11
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someone’s a little stab happy, huh?
Willow is everything. For starters, she lives in a secluded cottage in the woods with an overflowing garden and a chicken penitentiary that is, in a word, impressive. Her devil-may-care attitude is all I aspire to have. I want to be her when I grow up. I want to deeply sigh at the prospect of guests, roll my eyes from mysprawlacross the couch, and mutter,What do you want?while I read in a white gothic dress.
I want to make people like Castor pout as they sweep past a notably severe man with two different colored eyes.
The sheer security in this woman is beautiful to behold. She is so confident in herself.
Meanwhile, I’m frightened and careful and holding a man’s hand because when he smiled and laced our fingers, I wasn’t brave enough to object.
He’s not smiling now.
And that makes my stomach knot.
But Willow’s lounge persists as she turns the page in her book.
The tall man with heterochromia settles himself like a sentry behind her andhisses, like a cat.
“Zy, behave,” Willow drawls. Then her eyes cut toward Castor and me, lethal. “It’s too early for this.”
