House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(10)

“Why couldn’t she marry me?” Lorcan stands and circles the table toward me, gait unhurried.

I pivot as he stops on the other side of my bench. “Because you didn’t do it for her.”

The male-faced harpy grins now. “I see you memorized her speech word for word.”

“Just get to the point.”

His eyes glow, and suddenly, I’m back on that hill, this time standing so close that I catch the striking green of Bronwen’s irises as well as the tapered points of her ears.

Oh my Gods, Bronwen is Fae!

While my mouth opens around a gasp, hers opens around the words: “Cian is my mate.”

So flummoxed by the shape of Bronwen’s ears, I don’t turn toward Lorcan when he answers, “I’ve heard. He hasn’t stopped speaking about it since you penetrated his mind.”

All the air exits my lungs as Lorcan releases me from this memory and sends me into another, the one where I stood before him naked and asked what he wanted to talk about, and he said . . . he said . . .

I yank myself out of that memory before his lips shape the words, yet they chase me back to the here and now: “You’re the one who penetrated my mind, Behach ?an. Again.”

The weight of my shock makes my ass knock into the table and tip over a wine goblet. Dampness courses down my leg, soaking into Gia’s woolen slacks. “How do you—” My throat is so dry I have to gulp down my wadded saliva several times before I can form my question in full. “How do you cancel it?”

Lore arches a single black eyebrow. “Cancel it?” He sounds entertained, which is ludicrous because there is nothing entertaining about this situation. “Mating bonds are not supper bookings.”

I grip the edge of the table with quaking fingers. “But this can’t—we can’t—I object.”

The male has the audacity to laugh at my crumbling hopes and dreams. It’s not that I was still holding out hope to marry Dante, because that ship sank along with his brother’s galleon, but I was eager to choose my own destiny.

A realization stills my inner chaos, and I shrug. “So what if we have a mystical connection.”

Lorcan’s laughter wanes, and his eyebrows level out. “What do you mean, so what?”

“You can penetrate all your people’s minds, so penetrating mine isn’t all that special. As for my ability to enter yours, I’ll just—I don’t know—stifle it.”

His pupils dilate taking over the gold. “Crows have one mate, Fallon. One. I’ve waited for mine—for you—for centuries, and your reaction is, so what?” Although smoke doesn’t leak from his nostrils, it does bleed off his black fighting leathers.

“How exactly were you expecting me to react? I don’t love you, Reebyaw. I barely like you. Frankly, until a few minutes ago, I flat out loathed you.”

Silence grows between us, heavy and cold like Tarecuorin satin. I eye the door I long to run toward, then the man I long to run from.

The man who’s accepted what the Cauldron has thrown his way.

Who the Cauldron has thrown his way.

This situation is utterly absurd. Marriages of convenience are one thing—one thing I believe should be abolished immediately—but mating bonds? Gods, I can’t decide if I want to cackle at the ludicrousness of it all, or pour my thoughts out extremely loudly.

Lorcan must realize that my will is stronger than any argument he may throw my way because his contours fade. When cool air licks up the side of my neck and drifts across the edge of my jaw, I assume he’s tossed open the tavern door. But then the gust hinges my neck backward, forcing my face to tilt and align with his hazy one, and I realize the air isn’t coming from the hallway but from his shadows.

You know how I feel about challenges, Behach ?an.

Frustration steals across my cheeks. “For Cauldron’s sake, that was not a challenge!” I unscrew my face from his ghostly grasp. “Go slither over someone else, Morrgot. Someone who cares for your attention.”

Someone like Imogen, I think to myself, but since my thoughts always find their way into his mind, he must catch my suggestion.

His vaporous eyes scour mine for a heartbeat longer before flashing into oblivion like polished coins tossed into the murkiest canal. Although I try to kick the male from my thoughts after he leaves and my friends return, he lingers like a musty smell, dampening my mood.

Which only dampens further when Imogen walks into the tavern an hour or so later, hair mussed, makeup smudged, and mouth scraped raw like the doxies at Bottom of the Jug. “Lorcan has asked me to convey the message that your boat is slated to arrive in the morning, Antoni.” Unlike her sister, her grasp of Lucin is flawless.

Antoni raises the gaze that’s sat heavily on my face since he regained his seat. Like the others, he’s curious about all that was said. Unlike the others, he hasn’t pried. “I thought it wouldn’t be ready for another week.”

“As the Fae say, he pulled strings.” Imogen casts a cursory glance my way before whirling on her black boots and returning to wherever it is she came from—probably Lorcan’s bedchamber.

The male evidently wasted not a minute.





Five





Splinters of sunlight wedge themselves through my lids, and I groan. I’m not ready for this day to commence.