Page 46 of Cathmoir's Sons

“I’m not a child,” I snap. “I know how long you’ve known him and I know what I saw.”

“Get over yourself, Law. There’s nothing between me and Charlie, but even if there was, you don’t get to come storming in, throwing a jealous fit, just because I choose to dance with another man. You don’t have any say over who touches me. I do not fucking answer to you.”

I don’t need my warrior form to roar at her. “I’m your fated mate! I allow your relationship with the human to appease my brother but I will not endure?—”

Kellan’s eyes narrow further. “Youallow?”

Her voice whips stinging bits of hail against my cheeks and bare chest. I brush them away in a flare of flame.

“Yes, Iallow. I allow you to share yourself with my brother and his human. I allow you to run around unfettered, despite the way you constantly throw yourself into the path of danger. But I willnot allowyou to throw yourself into the arms of other men. Let any man other than the three of us touch you, Kellan, and they won’t live to regret it.”

“Neither will you,” she responds, her voice blowing a breath of ice through the Summerlands.

“Don’t threaten me,” I snap. “We are Cait and Crow. Our souls don’t lie to each other. Our hearts don’t wound one another?—”

She laughs harshly. “Well, that’s some bullshit right there. We may be Cait and Crow but your heart has wounded mineplenty, Law.”

I snap my mouth shut, feeling like she’s slapped me. How can she throw her own words back at me?

I grind my teeth, trying to find a way to turn this around, to help Kellan see that I’m right, that letting other men touch her is a rending of the bond between us. Caileán said there was no room for any but the three of us in her heart and her bed, but who knows if her unawakened self feels the same? What if Kellan, in her heartache and anger, turns to another man? I couldn’t endure it.

“There are wounds that won’t heal,” I say slowly. “Hearing you, seeing you, smelling another man on you—I couldn’t forget it. It would be seared into my mind and heart forever. I couldn’tforgive it, Kellan. Please, don’t do something we’ll regret forever.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “I haven’t done anything wrong, Law. I danced with a friend. I let him hug me because I’m grieving over the loss of someone very dear to me. You haven’t even offered me condolences?—”

“You won’t speak to me!” I roar.

“We’re speaking right now!” she yells back. “Because you won’t leave me the fuck alone! You’re capable of dumping heartbreaking journals at my door but you haven’t even sent flowers for a woman who considered me her daughter?—”

Kellan’s chin quivers and tears spill again. She dashes them away with furious flicks of her claws.

Was I supposed to send flowers? The human offered a plant of some sort when I told him and Luca of my plan with the journal. Is that traditional among humans? To give her something that will inevitably wither and die when she gets wrapped up in her research and forgets to water it? She doesn’t even keep any green or growing things in her house. Is this the way humans commemorate their dead?

“I-forgive me. I didn’t know it was customary among humans to send flowers for the dead.”

“Benighted Mother, never mind.” Kellan brushes away more tears. “Go back to Cait House, Law. I’m tired. I’ve had too much wine. You’re giving me a headache.”

“Let me hold you,” I say.

“What? No. Fuck off.”

“Kellan, don’t. You’re grieving. You let Luca hold you last night. Let me hold you tonight.”

She presses her palms against her red eyes, her claws digging into her hair. “Hells no.”

“Please,” I say, ready to beg if that’s what it takes to have my mate in my arms.

“Don’t-don’t do that. I can’t handle it when you’re sweet to me. It fucks with my head.”

“I’m still your cupcake,” I say. Beside me, Luca makes a noise like he’s about to cough up a hairball. I knee him into silence. “And your filet mignon. I’m what you need. You need to be held. You need to be comforted. Don’t turn to another man?—”

“I didn’t!” she flares, but I can see her anger’s mostly spent as she wipes more tears away.

“Don’t. Let your mates comfort you. Please, Kellan. Please.”

She rocks forward onto the toes of her boots, pressing her palms against her eyes again. “Nothing more,” she says, so low it’s almost a moan. “Nothing else but comforting. Hugging. No ... whatever we did after Teddy’s ball. I know my mind got rolled again and we ... did things. None of that. You hold me. That’s all.”

“I swear to you on the life of our ... on my life, nothing more. Just let us comfort you tonight.”

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