Page 36 of This Monster of Mine

She cleared her throat. “Do the other Tetrarchs get this many petitions?”

“Every day.” He set down the one he’d finished. “Not what you expected the job to be?”

“I expected more writing than reading.”

“That’ll come in two days.” He rolled up the scroll, large hands securing the tie around it. “We’ll be adjudicating these over the week.”

“This week,” she echoed weakly. A hundred cases in a week, and she was the poor sod who’d be determining who was lying. She turned to the remaining half of the petitions with the painful realization that she was going to have to read them, too.

As if he’d read her mind, Kadra indicated the small mountain of parchment. “When you can,” he said pleasantly. “Is five hours enough?”

Now you’re just mocking me.“Plenty.” She ignored the fact that it was going to take her at least eight. “I won’t slow you down.”

Kadra looked as though he were fighting a laugh. “Of course.” He made a notation in the margins of a scroll.

She watched the sharp strokes of his pen with a sinking feeling.Might as well get it over with.He’d notice the second she started writing.

“Do you require good penmanship?” she asked in a rush.

“Why?”

Taking a scrap of parchment, she dipped her pen in the inkwell and, with a deep breath, wrote her name, acutely aware of him tracking the wobble of the letters, how some sat slightly higher than the rest. Every flaw, magnified.

She set the pen down and splayed her fingers on the desk, which quivered even worse under the attention. “It’s a … condition I can’t control,” she reluctantly admitted. “I know judgments need to be legible. If this is unacceptable, I’ll train myself to do better.”

He rounded the desk to extend a hand into the tense space between them. After a moment’s hesitation, she gave him the parchment.

“I don’t see a problem.” His scrutiny went from the letters to her. “Your writing suits you.”

The swell of pride that had foolishly rushed into her chest at the first half of his pronouncement immediately disappeared.

“Because it’s irregular and imprecise?” It came out grimmer than she intended, and his face turned thoughtful. He flipped the scrap to reveal dark wounds on the back where she’d dug the pen too deep in an effort to steady her hand. Embarrassed, she winced, but he looked unsurprised.

“I only see determination.” His voice was a low rumble, surely calculated with the effect of undoing her because every word sank into her bloodstream, potent as wine.

She would have let herself be swept off to a world where men like him were kind without reason, if it weren’t for the way his gaze tracked her, studying her response.Manipulator. He’d say anything to make her choose him over the Tetrarchy. And yet, her body didn’t panic despite the scant inches separating them. Her shortness of breath seemed less a product of anxiety than … anticipation.

Absolutely not.Crumpling the parchment, she stood just as he leaned down and collided into his shoulder. She instinctively gripped him to steady herself. The second her fingers clutched the front of his robes, she knew it was a mistake. She stilled. Whatever she’d been about to say died in her throat. And for a moment, they simply stared at each other.

Why you?she wondered bitterly. She’d resigned herself to the fact that a normal life wasn’t possible, that no man would want her when she flinched away all the time. So what cruel joke of the gods was it that onlyhedidn’t trigger the panic?

After a breath, the indifference on Kadra’s face gave way to faint surprise. His stern jaw tightened, guard visibly going up. Sarai couldn’t tell if she was relieved that he was taken aback as she was. She released her grip, palms up to convey that she hadn’t meant to touch him and hid her embarrassment by brandishing the long-forgotten bit of parchment with her writing.

“I don’t need pity,” she muttered.

“I have none.” His voice held no softness. “But I won’t hold you to the standards you hold yourself. I will ask many things of you, Petitor Sarai, but I will not ask for perfection.”

Damn you. For an awful second, she felt utterly exposed before him. Before she could snap that not everyone could flout the world’s unwritten rules the way he did, the tablinum door swung open.

“Tetrarch Kadra, there’s a—” Cato halted in the doorway. “Visitor.”

Breathing fast, she stepped away from Kadra, searching for something to occupy her hands. She’d barely begun gathering the remaining petitions when Cato cleared his throat.

“The visitor’s for you, Petitor Sarai. It’s Petitor Cisuré.”

Juggling an armful of parchment, she turned in time to see Kadra’s face harden. She raced upstairs and dumped the scrolls on her bed before joining him outside.

Beyond the gate, Cisuré waited in ivory and silver robes. Evidently unable to see them through Kadra’s wards, she squinted at Aoran Tower, then jumped at the sound of him unlocking the gate.

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