Page 139 of Halfblood Deceived

She blinked. “You make whiskey?”

“Not precisely.” He half shrugged. “Well, I know how to, but I didn’t personally assist in manufacturing this batch. I own a distillery in Scotland.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Aella enthused.

He smiled. “It’s a solid business. People love getting drunk. Even I do it every once in a while.”

“I once stole the communion wine and got very drunk,” Aella confessed.

Zeydan let out a surprised huff. “How naughty. What made you do it?”

Aella swallowed hard. She shouldn’t have brought it up. It wasn’t a happy memory.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Zeydan said, perceptive as always.

“I was hungry even after dinner, so I sneaked inside the pantry and stole some bread and cheese,” Aella blurted despite the shame prickling down her arms. “The Mother Superior caught me before I went back to my room. She gave me ten lashes for stealing. I was sore, and they wouldn’t give me any ibuprofen, so I stole the communion wine and drank the entire bottle. Which, of course, got me another beating, but I barely felt it.”

Zeydan’s green eyes were wide with horror now.

Aella cringed. “What do you think the chances are of someone inventing time travel in the near future so that I can rewind this conversation?”

Zeydan’s throat bobbed, but his lips flickered minutely. “None, since we are still having this conversation.”

Aella hugged her middle. “Who knows? Maybe I said something even worse in another timeline. Maybe this is an improvement.”

Zeydan smiled at that. “Best to leave the timeline intact, then.” He examined her posture. “Are you cold?”

“Not much,” she lied.

He removed his gray scarf and closed the distance between them, carefully wrapping the soft woolen garment around Aella’s neck. It was warm with his body heat, and the scent…

Aella’s heart skipped a beat. Those unconnected pieces of information in her head clicked. She could feel her eyes widening. Surprise and a bizarre, utterly calm acceptance mixed inside her, making her feel lightheaded.

“What?” Zeydan asked. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Aella hastened to assure him, a bit too loudly. “No. I, um, I wanted to tell you something.”

“Yes?” he prompted, giving one more turn to the long scarf to drape it over her shoulders.

“I’m sorry I stabbed you,” she said quickly before getting cold feet. “That was very rude of me.”

He blinked. “I was intending to kidnap you and I scared you. You had every right to stab me.”

Aella shook her head. “You didn’t hurt me. Not really. And you wouldn’t have, right?”

“I wouldn’t have,” Zeydan confirmed without hesitation or subterfuge. “But you didn’t know that. So there is no need to apologize, Aella.”

She bit her lip. “It still feels a bit weird.”

Zeydan chuckled. “How about this? I’m sorry I scared you enough for you to jump out of a moving car, and you are sorry you stabbed me. That makes us even in my book.”

Aella balanced on her heels, lips pursed as she thought about it for a moment. “You’ve saved my life a few times, so I still think we are not even.”

“You saved my whole family,” Zeydan argued.

Aella shrugged. “And they healed me, so…”

“So we are even?” he finished, one black eyebrow arched, a corner of his mouth turning up.

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