House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(46)

“My stone imprisonment didn’t dull my senses.” At my frown, he adds, “Have you forgotten where one of my crows was kept?”

In the Regio’s trophy room. The one contiguous to the throne room in which was held my hearing.

He watches my round-eyed stare. “I cannot tell if you’re terribly angry or terribly touched that I rid Luce of that vile Fae?”

I swallow, but it does nothing to slicken my dry throat. “Are you planning on beheading more men on my behalf?”

Lorcan stays silent yet his eyes betray his answer.

“You cannot go around separating heads from bodies, Lore. Already the Fae don’t trust Crows and call you and your people—” The words on my Tarelexian walls shimmer in front of my eyes. “They call you awful things.”

“Do I strike you as a man who cares what the Fae think of him?”

“No. But—”

“As long as Dante doesn’t punish his people, I will. It is time they learn to respect.”

This cannot end well.

He reaches around me to seize something beside his sink, and the inside of his forearm brushes my bare shoulder. Although I don’t shiver, my humid skin pebbles. He rubs what he’s lifted—a chunk of coal—between his fingers, then sets it back on a little wooden tray, and his arm, once again, touches my skin. I try to shift to the side since, clearly, I am in his way, but freeze as he closes his eyes and lifts his fingers to the bridge of his nose, then drags either hand toward his temples, striping his skin.

When his lids pull up, his irises are arrestingly bright. How I long to paint your face, Little Bird.

My heart flaps around like a butterfly behind my ribs as I picture him dragging those long, cool fingers of his over my lids to show the world that I am his.

One of many of his.

Unlike mine, his chest lifts with unhurried breaths.

“You’ll be too busy painting your Glacin princess’s face to worry about mine.”

To think she will stand where I stand soon.

To think she will gaze upon his golden eyes and silver scars.

The trapped steam of his shower and the roiling smoke of his skin caress my features.

This is too much.

All too much.

I don’t know why I sent myself here, but I want to leave. I twist my face away from his and shut my eyes, and picture the home of the marquess. I visualize the white marble and the gilt-framed mirror. The engraved pebble I propped on my nightstand.

When my lids pull up, I’m back in my body, and another Crow stands before me, lashes as high as Timeus’s just before his head dropped from his body.





Twenty-Four





Eefah looses a breath. “You have mate. That’s it, yeah? You mind-walked.”

My first reaction is to deny deny deny, but I don’t care to lie to Eefah. Not to mention that a blush streaks my face, and my eyes are as glassy as Minimus’s.

“Do you have one?” I ask before she can enquire who I’m supernaturally connected to.

She sighs and shakes her head. “No. I still wait. Immy, too, wait.”

I bet I know who Imogen would like to be mated with. Well, he’s taken. By a Glacin princess, my mind is adamant to toss in.

“But my siér”—I imagine that means sister in Crow—“doesn’t want bond. She too mated to Crow plight.”

I cannot help the snort that steals out of me. “I’m pretty certain your sister would love nothing more than to be mated to Lore.”

“Why you say that?” Eefah’s mouth rounds with genuine surprise.

“Because she’s always with him.”

“She part of Siorkahd. That’s job. That’s why she spend much time with our King. Trust me, Fallon, she not want Lore.” She shakes her head, which propels her heavy braid over her shoulder. “Immy too enjoys fighting to love-make.”

Was her hair and makeup really mussed from plotting Lorcan’s next war?

“Who is mate?”

“I—I—” I bite my lip. “I prefer to keep that to myself.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She sounds so deflated that I add, “I haven’t even told Syb and Phoebus about it.”

“You think they not understand?”

“I think they won’t understand why I’ve turned down the bond.”

“Turn down?” One of her blackened eyebrows arches. “You can’t turn down bond. It’s blessed.”

“I want to choose, Eefah.”

Her lashes beat vigorously as though to clear her eyesight. “Your mate must be very sad.”

I shrug. “He’s already betrothed to another woman, so he got over it.”

Her head rears back. “If he Crow, that not possible.”

It takes me a moment to realize that since I’m part-Crow, I could’ve potentially been mated with someone who wasn’t.

“He not Crow?”

I want her to stop cross-examining me or she’ll find out whose mind I can walk into. “Eefah, while we wait for Sybille to come and get me for dinner, can you teach me your language?”

Her nostrils suddenly flare, and I think she’s put two and two together—after all, I did admit he was recently betrothed—but then her lips bend into a smile. “I honored to teach you Crow.”