Rian snorts, leaning back in his chair.
Just a little bit of emotional blackmail from mother to son.
“When were you going to tell me?” Rian asks.
Trina looks him steadily in the eye. “Never.”
“Never? I have two —”
“Sharing some DNA with someone doesn’t guarantee anything,” Trina says.
“You didn’t give me a choice!”
A few of the nearby customers glance our way, then look away just as quickly when Greg deliberately shifts, folding his arms across his chest and radiating menace.
“Well, I never had a choice either!” Trina blasts back. “Not one choice from the moment I found out James was dead. I had circumstances and decisions to make and not a single person torely on. Not all of us are bequeathed with a bond group who want us.” She casts a look my way.
Rian takes a deep breath. But instead of voicing any of whatever has to be whirling around in his mind, he crosses his arms, looking away from his mother.
Trina’s face crumples. She opens her mouth to say something, her hand twitching as if she wants to reach out to her son. She does neither.
My own chest is aching. And I’m getting itchy again, from so much secondhand emotion, from being surrounded by people. I’m way out of my comfort zone. I want to pull out my phone and text Mirth. Bolan needs to hear Trina’s version of what went down, because I have no doubt that Adeline isn’t going to confess to even half of it. And maybe the real truth lies somewhere in the middle.
But I just sit. I sit and weather that silence with my bond mate and his mother.
Trina sighs softly, taking a sip of her cappuccino. Her hand is steady, as is her voice, when she asks, “Now … who is Mirth?”
I can see where Rian gets his composure from. I open my mouth, already grinning madly, just at the chance to —
Rian, expression placid though he’s still got his arms crossed, throws me a quelling look.
I raise my hands, playfully placating. But still pouting about it, of course.
Rian shifts in his seat— the first sight of blatant discomfort I’ve seen from him. “My … potential … bond group is the next conversation we will have.”
And my stomach squelches at the implied rejection.
The disconcerting feeling resolves into a level of disappointment — it scrapes at my insides — that I haven’t felt in a very long time. I don’t get invested in people, in relationships.Certainly not this quickly. And in a single sentence, Rian has reminded me why.
“Potential?” Trina echoes, glancing toward me, then at her son, brow furrowed. “You’re still … courting?”
Rian looks at me. Guiltily, I think.
I glance away, out the rain-speckled window. The building across the street is slightly blurry. A light fog clings to the brick.
This isn’t about me. Rian has already made that clear. He goes where Mirth goes. He’s not choosing the bond group per se.
Maybe he and Adeline have more in common than I would have thought.
I shouldn’t have come to Dublin. I have a list of things that Eli needs me to do. That, and wooing Mirth, is where I should be focused.
“Some of us are courting,” I say into the silence that has once again stretched over all of us, smoothing my hand down my suit jacket as I stand so it doesn’t drag across the table. “Please excuse me. I’m wanted elsewhere.”
Rian half rises out of his chair. His hand shoots across the table to grasp my wrist. “Sully —”
I still at the contact, partially turned away from the table. I can feel Rian’s warmth — and his shifter energy — even through the two layers of fabric between us.
In my peripheral vision, Greg lurches into motion, as surprised as I am. The royal guard crosses the space between us with that shifter swiftness.
