House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(101)

Again, I avert my gaze. “Because I need to get dressed for dinner. Please turn so I can get out.”

“Dinner won’t commence without me.”

“My dinner will.” I scrutinize a chink in the rock wall. “Turn.”

“Why so adamant to get away?”

A growl vibrates up my throat, and I slam my gaze back on his. “Because I’m all bathed out.”

“You’re all bathed out, or you’re frightened to soak with me?”

“Frightened?” I roll my eyes to emphasize how not frightened I am. “Are you planning on shredding my skin with your iron talons?”

“This may come as a surprise”—he tugs on the ties of his leather trousers—“but I’m no fan of bloodbaths.”

I attempt to map out an exit that doesn’t involve circling him, but the only other way past Lorcan is scuttling up one of the boulders and doing so slick and naked is truly not ideal. I decide to wait for him to step into the pool, then I’ll swim past him and climb out.

The lazy smile that draws up one corner of his mouth makes my spine prickle. I cross my arms and scowl as he pulls off his boots excruciatingly slowly.

“Should’ve bathed in bird form. Would’ve been quicker.”

“I believe that pleasurable things should never be rushed.”

“You find undressing pleasurable?”

He just keeps smiling as he hooks the waistband of his pants.

I turn my glare toward the boulder keeping me corralled into this pool. Why did Phoebus have to lead me so deep into the grotto? Right. Because I insisted on sitting in the most secluded area. Damn him for listening to me.

The water ripples as Lore gets in. I side-eye him, briskly at first, to make sure he’s decent. Once I’ve established that he is, I turn fully toward him. I wait for him to move to the side so no part of our bodies brush on my way out of the basin. I may be slight, but I’d have to be missing a few major bones to weasel past him without our limbs connecting.

If only he weren’t so . . . massive.

Unbothered by my desire to escape, he sits and cups water, dribbling it over one ropy shoulder, then over the other. Every one of his movements is deliberate. Calculated.

Surely calculated to madden me.

“Water’s warmer thataway.” I nod to the far side of the pool where the water is the exact same temperature as everywhere else.

“How fortunate that I prefer cooler water.”

“It’s cleaner also.”

“May as well stay put or I’ll just make it filthy.”

I grind my teeth.

He wants to play it that way? Fine. Keeping my eye on him, I move forward, then hunt the slender divide to his right and to his left trying to decide which exit is wider.

I dart right.

He sprawls.

“Seriously?” I grumble.

“A problem?” He drapes his arms on the stone ledge, taking up more space. All the space.

I back away to regroup. “Unlike you, I’m incapable of flying—”

“A shame.”

“—so unless you want me to scale you, move.”

His golden eyes spark like a predator who’s trapped his prey. “By all means . . . scale me.”

The nerve of him! “Fine.”

I don’t miss the stunned flutter of his jaw as I shoot to my feet and plow forward. I smack my hands against his left shoulder and stick my foot on the submerged stone ledge he sits on. When the stone shifts beneath my foot, I realize—with horror—that I’ve stepped on his thigh.

My foot rolls, and I lose my balance, but before I can smack backward into the pool, he hooks my waist, and I land astride the hard thigh I mistook for the bench.

Perhaps for the first time in my life, it isn’t the fall that rattles me but the landing. My pulse strikes my ribs and neck, making both vibrate so hard that ripples form around my body.

As I squirm to scoot off his lap, Lore spreads his fingers and clasps me, not hard enough to bruise but hard enough to make me feel like a fish caught on a lure.

The black dots in his eyes throb just as hard as my pulse. “Don’t move.”

His husky growl makes me go stock-still and scan the darkness for a threat. When the muggy air doesn’t move with more than steam, I murmur, “Why?”

His lids close, and his nostrils flare. If we were about to be attacked, he wouldn’t be closing his eyes, which means—

Something grazes the side of my knee, and . . . oh my Gods, are there eels in these pools? I’m not intrinsically scared of eels, but I heard they can shock a grown male with a flick of their tails. I’m in enough shock as it is at the moment.

When I feel it brush up against the side of my leg again, I yelp and plunge my hand under the surface to bat it away, wondering why Lorcan doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the feel of something slithering so close to his—

I freeze just as my palm connects with—

Lorcan shudders, and because our bodies are connected in many a place, the tremors shoot into me and make me rattle as though I were part-serpent. I jerk my hand back out of the water, feeling the imprint of his . . . of his . . .

“Eel?” Lore supplies.

My face burns, and although his mouth bares just the faintest hint of a smile, mine bares a full-fledged scowl.