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It twitched and hissed, with possessive fangs snapping at his too-close fingers.

Valus let out a startled yelp, jerking his hand back. Panic washed over her to keep him from blowing the moment out of proportion. “I should have mentioned—it’s a charmed necklace of protection,” she lied, as reassuringly as she could. “I think… it bites anyone—besides me—who touches it. It’s supposed to keep me safe.”

Valus’s jaw tightened. “Well, that will be the first thing to go once we’re mated. I’ll be enough protection for you then.”

“Of course,” Peri said calmly, despite her chest feeling so tight she almost couldn’t breathe.

He leaned back in his seat, his head nodding forward as if pointing at something. “My coffee’s empty.”

“Oh!” Was she supposed to know when his coffee was empty to explain where to get more? She knew he was an idiot but anyone could see the pot of coffee there for refills. “Did nobody tell you? There’s fresh coffee on that table behind my father.”

In an attempt to not let him see what a moron she thought he was, she took an overly large bite of eggs heaped with spicy tomato salsa. She chanced a glance at him then, expecting him to stand and go fill his coffee cup. When he didn’t, she turned towards him, her brow furrowing. Was he incapable of pouring coffee? How the Hell would he ever become some sort of leader of the Militia if he couldn’t even handle that?

He was tapping his fingers on the table, each tap becoming increasingly forceful. Peri took a slow sip of her own coffee, trying to ignore the mounting tension.

What did he want from her?

She leaned forward, reaching for an empanada from the pile in front of them, the silence stretching ever more uncomfortably between them. She could feel her family’s eyes on them, the subtle shift of silent worry.

Exasperated, she asked, “Is everything alright?”

Valus looked at her incredulously. “You’re supposed to get my coffee.”

She stared at him, searching for a lilt of his lips to show that he was joking. The edges of her calm slipped into something darker as she grabbed his cup, feeling the weight of the request that was, of course, actually a command.

He was to be her mate? This imbecile was the one being who was supposed to make her feel cherished and adored?

She fetched the coffee with rage simmering in her gut.

Is this really what their future together would be like?

She got herself another cup of steaming coffee as well, as if to justify to herself why she’d gotten him coffee in the first place.

Without a word of thanks, he took the cup from her and drank.

A moment passed, and he didn’t glance back at her.

Peri stood there for a minute longer, an inferno hotter than the Lake of Fire building inside of her. He scratched his ear and she wondered if he would miss that ear so terribly. If the feeling burning inside of her was enough hate that she could slice it slowly from his head. Or maybe she’d rather hack off that smug smile.

Maybe Slang would appreciate both.

She blew out a long breath, tossed mountains of ice on her fury, and reminded herself that all relationships took work and that was what made them so fulfilling.

She did not hate Valus. She didn’t hate anyone! This was just a brief, upsetting situation. That’s all.

Unable to bear the suffocating air of the dining room any longer, she escaped to the kitchen. She sank into the first chair she found, her head dropping between her knees as she struggled to steady her breathing. She had to calm herself, to regain her composure before she faced her family again.

Sometimes, the weight of their expectations—of her duty—felt like it might crush her.

When she finally lifted her head, she found she wasn’t alone. Bonegrundle, a goblin with whom Peri was friends with, had been setting up the tea and cakes nearby. The goblin was twice the height of Peri, with long sinewy moss green skin and hair that looked forever wet no matter how long she was away from water. A relieved grin tugged at her lips.

Bonegrundle only worked at their home for special occasions like this one. Yet even then, there had been months where Peri had hoped to find the goblin carefully plating food in the kitchen, only for somebody else to be preparing the food.

She would disappear for whole turns of the moon, yet she always came back in the end, leaving behind an assortment of forbidden books that Peri would later discover tucked beneath her pillow.

The air between them was comfortable, neither one felt the need to fill the silence with chatter. She watched Bonegrundle work, the clinking of the teacups and bowls filling the silence until she finally exhaled deeply. “Would you like some help?”

Bonegrundle’s eyes shifted towards her, a conspiratorial gleam in them. “Are you going to accidentally dump hot tea on someone?”