Page 60 of Beneath the Cursed Veil

“I’m tired just watching you.” I jumped in surprise and Corvo laughed.

“When did you get here?”

“A few moments ago,” he answered, slowly blinking his golden eyes. He sat primly in front of the armchair, his long fluffy tail wrapped around him. “I convinced one of the kitchen staff that Vareck didn’t feed me breakfast. Now I have a full belly and a desire to sleep it off. Instead, I’ve been watching you talk to yourself while you walk around in circles.”

“No one’s making you watch me.”

“No reason to get snappy with me. You’re the one who did a blood oath with him.”

I sighed. “He said it didn’t work. What does that mean? Why didn’t it work?”

I walked over to the bed and started pulling the covers up and fluffing the pillows. I needed to keep my hands busy, and cleaning was the productive thing to do whenever my head was in a different place.

Corvo hopped onto the covers, enjoying the rewards of a freshly made bed.

“Seriously, cat? I just straightened up,” I muttered.

“Beds are made for napping, Meera. Why else would you make it if not to use it?” he replied with his usual smugness.

“I can’t argue with that,” I sighed, surrendering to Corvo’s logic. I kicked my boots off and crawled onto the blankets.

My entire body was buzzing with anxiety. It wouldn’t hurt anything if I tried to rest. As I leaned against the headboard, crossing my ankles and trying to settle in, Corvo curled up on a pillow next to me.

“What are you doing?” I asked, gesturing to the rest of the bed.

“What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m going to sleep on Vareck’s pillow. He hates it when I do that. Makes it all the more satisfying. Especially when he sneezes.”

“The two of you are something else, you know that?” Reaching over, I ran my fingers through his fur, and he started to purr. “We made a blood oath, or tried to at least. It didn’t even occur to me that it could go wrong. I’m an idiot. Why did I do that, Corvo?”

“Is this a rhetorical question, or do you actually want the answer? Frankly, I’m happy. Maybe the two of you will finally fuck and see what everybody else sees.”

I yanked my hand back, and he protested with a loud meow.

“What do you mean, ‘what everybody else sees’?”

“Well, me and Kaia. That’s everybody that matters. Bring back the pets, please.” I lowered my hand back to his flank, brushing the soft fur there.

“A blood oath is forever,” I said, not expecting him to respond. “I don’t know what went wrong, but I can only assume this one is too.”

“So?”

I rolled my eyes. “What part of forever did you miss?”

Corvo slowly blinked at me. “Why did you do it?”

“I literally just asked you that question because I’ve been asking myself for about an hour now.”

“No, what was your reasoning when you said yes?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I wanted him to know that he could trust me.” When I said it out loud, it sounded a tad bit desperate. Embarrassment made me look away. I stared at the ceiling instead.

“So . . . you entered into a lifelong bond with him, so he’d take off a necklace? Nah, I don’t buy it. This doesn’t have anything to do with one of your romance books, does it?”

“No,” I said quickly. Then sighed. “Maybe? I don’t know. It just all happened so fast.”

“You knew what it was, and you agreed to it.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out except a sigh. On the surface, it didn’t scare me. I’d been dreaming about him for four years. In a way, I felt like I knew him better than I actually did. I weirdly trusted him, even though I had nothing to base that on—especially considering he had essentially collared me. With a blood oath, we couldn’t control each other. That felt safe to me.

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