Cats don’t cry. I will not cry.
Griffin turns to me, his chest heaving and his eyes feral. I almost can’t hold his stare. “Helen, your cousin, had her baby.”
I blink. My emotions are tumbling like a wild tide, deafening me with their rip and roar, and it takes a moment to latch on to the change in topic. “Here?”
He nods, the movement terse like his words. “She heard you were attacked, for some reason thought she’d be blamed for it, and panicked. It must have triggered labor. Her whole family ended up staying here while the rest of the realm dinner guests left.”
“Her family?” Alarm hits me like a fist in the face. I have to run!
“Her husband’s family.”
Oh. Right. “Who is her husband?” I never took the time to find out. Helen and I barely talked at the realm dinner when we accidentally crossed paths. I was too focused on getting her away from Griffin before she gave away my secrets, or I did something unforgivable, like force her to back off with Compulsion Magic.
“Oreste,” he answers.
“Oreste? Agatone and Urania’s son?” I remember him being preoccupied and waiting for someone to join him at the realm dinner. Helen, I guess.
A scathing smile twists Griffin’s lips. “Not jealous, I hope?”
I scoff. “That’s not funny, you know.” And he obviously knows a lot.
“Oreste and I had an interesting conversation while my mother, Egeria, and Jocasta were tending to Helen behind closed doors. Nerves made him prattle incessantly throughout the entire ordeal, and guess what I learned?” Griffin spears his sword into the upturned table, leaving both the blade and the heavy hilt vibrating from the force of his thrust.
“Helen wasn’t his original choice of brides. He and his parents set their sights much higher, aiming for a Fisan princess and thinking their old lineage, strong magic, and deep coffers could buy them the best there was to have, even if she was little more than a child at the time. But Alpha Fisa must have had other plans for her daughter. She wouldn’t give her up. In fact, Andromeda was so enraged by their presumptuous offer that she sent their messenger back in the form of a bloody stump.” Griffin levels accusing eyes on me. “Know anything about that?”
I don’t answer. I can hardly breathe.
“Oreste, it turns out, is very satisfied now, after all these years of waiting for the ideal wife. Apparently, he’s thrilled he didn’t ‘get saddled with that hellion Catalia. She was wild, hostile, and unpredictable, too much like her mother, and now she’s Beta Fisa and bloody gone, leaving her family in a right mess.’” Griffin’s eyes blaze, burning straight to the bottom of my polluted soul. “Sound like anyone you know, Talia?”
I nod, sickened, unable to force a single word past the awful lump in my throat.
“He described you perfectly. Not physically, but all the rest.” Griffin scrapes his hand through his hair, gives the overlong strands a vicious pull, and then kicks the table again. The central board buckles this time, splintering. “I’ve been so bloody thick about this! About you.” He laughs, and the broken sound makes me flinch. “It had to slap me in the face for me to see it. I just… I never thought you could be part of that…despicable family.”
His words carve a hole in my chest. Despicable. I am despicable.
I start to shake again. A day ago, Griffin was vowing we’d live together, or die trying. Now, he can’t even look at me.
Foreboding, accusing, he asks, “What’s it like being the Lost Princess? The woman everyone is looking for?”
“They’re not looking for me. They’re hunting me.”
“You do a fine job of hunting back.”
I feel myself pale. Griffin saw me kill my own brother. He knows our connection now. Otis deserved it, and it was us or him, but I still did it. I’m that person. I’m everything Griffin despises.
“I didn’t tell you for a reason. This is it.” I hate the way my voice falters, but I can’t help it. Every breath seems to stick in my throat.
“This is what, Talia?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“It’s your name.”
“My name is Cat. I’m Cat.” I don’t want to be Talia. I don’t want to be Beta Fisa. I don’t want to be the girl her brother tortured, or the girl who got her sister killed. I don’t want to be Andromeda’s daughter, and the person who saw that Sintan messenger get his arms chopped off and then his legs. His blood splattered me, and I stood there, watching.
Griffin’s eyes are like stones. “I don’t even know you.”
He believes that. My Kingmaker Magic tells me as much. Any lie would feel like a bonfire inside of me, but this is the marble-cold truth. “I’m the same person I was yesterday. And the day before. Nothing’s changed.”
He lunges for me, grabbing my shoulders and ramming me back against the wall. His fingers dig into my skin, and the impact drives most of the air from my lungs. I struggle to breathe as the knotted sheet slips low.
Granite eyes bore into mine. “Nothing’s changed?”
I force down a tight breath, shaking my head. “Not if you don’t want it to.”
“I think you have no idea what I want. Or who I am.” He leans close, but there’s nothing lover-like in the near embrace. It’s sheer menace. “What’s the one thing I value above all else?”