House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(45)

The softest snort escapes Lorcan. “You’re an odd little creature, Fallon Báeinach.”

Although it’s said with affection, it makes my hackles rise. “I’m not a creature. I’m a woman, Lorcan Reebyaw. If anyone’s a creature, it’s you.”

The corners of his mouth cant, and his eyes begin to smolder again. And then his big body begins to rattle as though a chill has enveloped his skin, but when I hunt for goosebumps, I find none. At least, none on him. There are plenty on me.

“I heard the marquess disappeared.” I avert my gaze because, even with a foggy mirror between us, the intensity of the Crow King is entirely too disarming.

Water splashes Lorcan’s blade. When the metal is clean, he sets it down beside his sink. “Did he? How tragic.”

“You wouldn’t have anything to do with his disappearance?”

“Why don’t you tell me, Fallon?” Even though my gaze is locked on the little puddle forming around the shiny razor, I catch his fingers lifting to his damp locks as he turns toward me.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking, now would I?”

“My mind, Little Bird. The answer’s there. If you want it, come and retrieve it.”

“Am I not already in your mind?”

“No. You’re in my bathing chamber.”

“But I’m also in mine . . . right?”

“Right.”

“So this isn’t one of your memories, Lore?”

“It isn’t.”

“Is it like when I popped up into your library?”

He nods. “If mates think hard enough about each other, they can project their bodies toward their mate’s, the same way they can project words into each other’s minds no matter the distance.”

“So my body is in two places?”

“Correct, but you can only hold this cellular replication for a short while, so if you want to glimpse the contents of my mind, I advise you to hurry.” The gold churns around his pupils that have become mere pinpricks even though no light shines into them.

Although I’m still reeling over the fact that I can replicate myself, the bathing chamber darkens and Lore disappears, and in his place, a Fae appears. The one who had me dragged in front of King Marco. Ptolemy’s amber eyes are pitched so wide that there is more white than color in them.

Demon, I hear the awful male sputter. Dee— The second syllable comes out as a wet gurgle a moment before his head topples right off his neck and blood sprays my face. I gasp and blink. When my lids reopen, Lorcan’s head is where Ptolemy’s was right before—

I barrel past Lorcan and clutch the rim of his sink, the edges of my vision graying and whitening before filling again with color.

Lore stands behind me, his head notched above mine, his bare torso so close that the chill of his skin cools the sweat gathering at the nape of my neck. His palms coast along my biceps, except—except his hands are locked by his sides.

Breathe, Behach ?an. His whispered guidance does nothing to quell the acid scalding my throat. Breathe.

One of his hands—his real one and not the phantom smoke he uses in guise of it—wraps around my hair and lifts the short, heavy strands while the other strokes a line from the base of my skull down the rigid line of my spine.

“You killed him,” I croak, my throat as raw as Syb’s the morning after Bottom of the Jug’s annual Yuletide revel. My friend so enjoys singing louder than the hired bards even though she cannot hold a tune for her life.

His gaze follows the trajectory of his fingers that are gently bumping along my vertebrae. “I did.”

“But he died a week ago. We were gathering your crows. So when . . .?”

“You forget that I traveled to Tarecuori to check on Phoebus.”

Oh. “Did Timeus—did he spot you flying around and call the sentries? Is that why you—you—” I decide not to finish that sentence since Lorcan is plenty aware of how he ended the man’s life.

“No one saw me.” The smallest smile tugs up the corner of his mouth. “At night, I am no more distinguishable than air.”

“Then—I don’t—”

“Yes, you do, Behach ?an. You understand perfectly well why I murdered that man.” He now thumbs little circles at the base of my throbbing skull, and I let him because—because it feels divine.

Even though my mind is still bursting with gore and shock, I stop to wonder if Lorcan was a masseur before the Shabbins transformed him into a shifter king.

No, he murmurs into my mind. I herded sheep. “I don’t like touching people, and I don’t like being touched.”

“Could’ve fooled me. About the touching people part.” I try my hardest to stifle the little moan that escapes through my barely parted lips but my hardest is lousy. Hopefully, the still-crashing water eclipses the sound.

Come to think of it, why hasn’t he turned off the shower? Did he not finish washing?

“I don’t touch people, Behach ?an. I touch you.”

“I am people.”

“You are not people.” His throat dips. “You are my . . . Crow.”

That snaps me out of my daze, and I spin around, disconnecting his hands from my body. Although tempted to remind him that I belong to no one for the hundredth time, I ask instead, “How did you know about my quarrel with the marquess?”