He picked up his fork, and across the table Mireille did the same.
“So,” she began, poking at her greens, “Jurgev. We’re delighted you’ve invited us to dine with you privately this evening. But I’d be lying if I said we weren’t curious about why.”
Ronin noticed her emphasis on the wordwe. Proving to Otto that he and Mireille were a unit. Something fluttered through his chest at her insistence. Something that made his aching desire for a Delirium slightly easier to bear.
“We’d be a little disappointed in you if you weren’t,” Otto said with an indulgent smile that he aimed solely at Mireille. Bastard scooted his chair closer to her, and Ronin’s wolf burbled a warning growl.
Ronin stabbed a sliced cucumber as Otto continued, “Since you two were a late addition to the guest list, we wanted to get to know you better. We’ve already researched the histories of the other guests, but we’re afraid we don’t know much about either of yours. At least, not more than the rest of Kheimos already knows.” He winked at Mireille.
She offered a tight smile that looked more like a grimace, then crunched down on a piece of lettuce.
“Why don’t we start with you, dear?” Otto hadn’t even picked up his fork, his salad untouched. Ronin wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the Deathstalker didn’t eat normal food at all. Maybe dined on the organs of his victims.
Mireille shrugged, her sparkling gold dress shifting in the candlelight. A portion of her coppery hair slid down hershoulder, and Ronin caught himself staring just as intently as their host.
Fuck, she looked even more radiant than normal tonight. There was a softness to her face that he hadn’t yet seen. Was it an act for Otto? Or could their truce this morning have had something to do with it? Ronin didn’t dare hope.
“What would you like to know?” Mireille lifted her glass to her burgundy lips, the lips Ronin himself had painted, and a small seed of warmth bloomed in his chest.
Otto’s forked tongue darted past his teeth. “Start at the beginning. Where were you raised?”
“In a small village in Cernodas,” Mireille answered, and Ronin noted how vague her answer was. A small village oftwo.
“And your parents? Where were they from?”
Ronin hoped Otto didn’t catch the flicker of pain that darkened Mireille’s gaze, the tension that stole through her body. She smoothed both out with practiced nonchalance.
“My mother was a Beastrunner. She ran a small school and travel lodge in our village. My childhood was rather uneventful. I left home at eighteen and came up here to Kheimos to dance.”
“And your father?” Otto asked.
Mireille’s fork screeched across her plate. She set the utensil down, then moved her hands into her lap. Likely to hide the shaking Ronin was sure had overtaken them. “I…”
“Mireille’s father was a choreographer,” Ronin chimed in, and Mireille shot him a shocked look.
“Is that so?” Otto’s viper eyes bored into Mireille, examining every nuance of her expression. To her credit, she’d stilled her shaking, offered Ronin a dreamy smile. Just a besotted female delighting in her lover’s thoughtful attention to her history. HighGods, it looked so real.
“Yes, he’s right.” Mireille scooped up her fork. “It was my father who taught me to dance.”
“Anyone we would have heard of?” Otto offered her an expectant smile.
“I doubt it. He worked for a small company in one of the larger towns not too far from our village.”
“What else can you tell us about your father?”
The servant bustled in to clear their salads. When he reached Otto’s, the Deathstalker snatched a cherry tomato from the plate. He bit into it, and the juicy insides spurted down his chin. It felt like a threat.
Mireille reached for her napkin, then cradled Otto’s face and wiped away the smear. Ronin tried not to howl with jealousy as hunger brightened Otto’s eyes.
“There’s not much more to tell,” she said. “He was a Beastrunner as well. A stallion bi-form.”
Ronin was in awe of how smoothly Mireille spun her lies. Though, he wondered if perhaps she’d already had this story ready. An invention to fill the hole in her heart where the truth of her father should have been.
“What part of the continent was he from?” Otto asked. “Not many stallion bi-forms are native to Cernodas.”
Ronin could almost hear Mireille mentally cataloging the home territories of the other guests. When she answered, she’d chosen a territory that hadn’t yet been mentioned by any of them.
“He was from a town in northern Nephes.”
