Page 15 of Cinder's Trial

“What threats? I’m not the one in danger.”

“We don’t know that for sure. Or have you already forgotten what happened?”

“You’re being dramatic. Those rats were an accident.”

“And if they weren’t?” his ominous rejoinder.

“The rats wanted Killian, not me. I’m a nobody.”

“I highly doubt that,” he muttered as he took my keys and reached around my frame to unlock the door.

We entered my place, and I called out a warning, “Dearest friends, I have a guest.”

“Who are you talking to? Do you have a roommate?” He glanced around suspiciously.

“I have roommates of a sort.” I crouched and held out my hand. “Izzy, come say hi.”

My lizard waddled out from the bedroom where he’d probably been sunbathing on his perch.

As I scratched his head, I murmured, “This is Izzy, my iguana.”

“You have a pet lizard.”

“Yes.” And then, because might as well warn him before he did something to upset me, “I also have mice.”

“As pets?” he clarified.

I nodded. “Some neighborhood robins often visit as well. Then there’s Roxanne, the raccoon, and her kits, Benjamin and Hank. I have a spider named Charlotte up there.” I pointed out her web. “And a squirrel who comes around named Dory.”

“Most people stick to cats and dogs.”

I shrugged. “What can I say? I didn’t actively go out and seek them. They kind of chose me.”

“Like a real Cinderella.” He shook his head.

His conclusion before I’d even mentioned my deer friends, Bobbi and Kira.

“Mind if I poke around?” he asked.

“Sure, but there’s no one here.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” he declared as he headed into my cramped bedroom.

I glanced down at Izzy, who flicked his tongue. “Actually, I can. My friends would have told me.”

He emerged and frowned. “You talk to them?”

I shrugged. “Of sorts. I can more or less understand when they speak, and they understand me. Part of the Little Ash Girl gift.”

“I thought it was a curse.”

“Only parts of it, like the whole being mistreated and the fact one time I had a really old and gross prince try to force me to marry him.”

“Killian isn’t old and gross,” Levi pointed out.

“What is your obsession with matchmaking?” I huffed. “For one, I just met the guy, two, not looking to settle down, and three, I don’t need help getting a date.”

“I’m not matchmaking.”

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