I glowered at his profile.
A smile crinkled into the side of his cheek. Not the taunting smile he’d used on the beach or to Aegir’s face. A real, genuine smile. Despite the youth and vigor of his frame, subtle crow’s feet embedded at the cornersof his eyes. Against my will, a small spark of warmth bloomed in my chest. I tamped it down before he glanced my way, wrestling a sudden unexpected frustration at its appearance.
“You speak as if you’ve done the act,” I said, letting condescension drip between my words.
He snorted under his breath. “The act.Naiads are so proper. You make mating with someone new sound final.”
My response shot through my teeth. “Itisfinal.”
He shrugged. “It will be for you, heiress. Someday. With the right Naiad.” He flicked his knife with thinly veiled disinterest, eyes set into the ceiling.
Curiosity warred with the indignation vibrating in my chest. “So, you’ve done it. You’recordaed.”
Pheolix angled his head to study me, and across the illuminated pool, the slate-gray of his eyes quietly glittered. “Why? Are you interested?”
I rolled my eyes in vague nausea.
“No? Are you sure?” The edge of white teeth hinted under his slashed mouth. “Your heart just sped.”
Rolling my shoulders, I readjusted my crossed arms, sending my gaze anywhere but the annoying sparkle that tugged at me across the other side of the water.
“Hear it?” Pheolix continued. “It’s very soft. But fast. Like the patter of rain.”
“Do you shut up?”
“Pitter-patter, pitter-patter,” he chanted under his breath. “Adorable.”
My jaw clenched, fine muscles flexing all the way into my neck.
“To answer your question,the actandcordaeingare separate things to a gnat.”
My eyes closed.
Damn him. Damn him to the moon and beyond. To every star between here and Perpetuum and every wisp of darkness between them. An inquisitivemind is a curse, and he seemed to know mine, even as I sat at the edge of the gleaming blue pool with simmering impatience set into my bones.
How could that be true? Mating andcordaeingwere one and the same. The question burned within me, creeping up my lungs like a fire that crawls below the ashes, seeking a warm bed and tinder before igniting to life. I stuffed it down, stifling it with the sand in my throat, clamping my mouth tightly closed.
Pheolix dropped the side of his jaw into his fist, inviting restless strands of his red-brown hair to fall from his bun and into his eyes. His skin gleamed even in the dim lighting, hard muscle tugging at the lines of his cloak, the silver silk infuriatingly bright against the deeply tanned canvas of his body.
He waited, his smile slowly growing. “Don’t give yourself a seizure. It’s okay to ask.”
I refused to weave any questions involving his sexual history into a spool of acknowledged thought. “Isn’t the termgnatderogatory?”
The grin suddenly exploded across his face, as though he found me so thoroughly amusing he could no longer hide his entertainment. Something about it fizzled into my skin, swirling in my head.
That he felt free enough to own a smile that wide.
“Gnat. Bug. Weevil. Germ. The mere existence of a drone is derogatory to all Naiads. Why should I care what they call me?”
I stared icily at him. “You should care out of a sense of dignity.”
“Ah. Do I seem like a dignified siren to you?”
I scoffed my answer. Gray eyes glittered. And the curiosity in my head continued its creep, the slow burn for knowledge unobtained. “Breeding drones is an outdated custom.”
“Drones aren’t bred. We’re made,” he said, knife twirling slowly in his fingers. “But as far as outdated, that would be why Thaan keeps us swept under the rug, wouldn’t it?”
“Us? There’s more of you?”
