shoved his feelings down and forced himself to continue, driving the wedge between them deeper.
“I saw the letter on your desk.”
Chapter 16
Cass cursed Daimon in Russian. A whole string of them. Every single one she could call to mind. He deserved all of them as he stood there, casual as anything, his expression flat and empty, concealing all of his feelings from her. She wished she could do the same, masking the anger and hurt that swamped her, the fierce need to explain things even when she knew that whatever she said it wasn’t going to make things better.
He had already made up his mind about her and what he had read.
“You snooped at my private things?” she snapped once she could say something that wasn’t a swear word.
“It was right there.” He folded his arms across his chest, the navy roll-neck long-sleeve T-shirt he wore tightening over his muscles as they flexed. “It was pretty hard to miss.”
A little like the bite in his tone.
He had read the letter the coven had sent to her. That was the reason he had turned so frosty with her back at her home, had announced he was leaving with or without her, and had been flip-flopping between pulling her closer and pushing her away more rapidly than before.
He was jealous.
Even when there was no need to feel that way.
He was angry too.
It flashed in his eyes as his irises brightened, turning as white as snow ringed with black, flecked with diamonds.
“Besides, you’ve done your share of snooping.” He threw the words at her.
She planted her hands on her hips but couldn’t deny that. Just because she might have poked her nose in here and there, didn’t mean she didn’t get to be angry when he did the same thing.
She wanted to lash out at him, slave to a powerful urge to slap him for looking at the letter she had discarded on her desk the moment she had opened it, tossing it aside without reading it when she had seen the coven letterhead.
It would only make things worse, and she ached for things to be better, back to how they had been before he had turned cold towards her. Only a minute ago, things had been good between them, better than they had ever been, and she had been enjoying it. For a moment, she had honestly believed he was close to giving in to her.
Now, he was so far away from her that she felt like a fool for thinking something was about to happen between them.
She nibbled the corner of the brownie she had cut for him, needing the sugar and the sweet fix, a dose of chocolate to keep her spirits up and maybe give her a little courage.
She should have kept the ambrosia on hand in the kitchen, regretted taking it to her quarters now.
“It’s tradition.” That word sounded cold, hollow, no doubt revealing how she felt about it. She was done hiding things from Daimon though. He might be happy switching emotions every minute, and keeping everything to himself, but she wasn’t. He was the only one who knew what awaited her, and gods, she needed to talk to someone about it, even when there was a chance she was only going to do more damage to the fragile bond that had been developing between them. If she was lucky, it would both lift some of the weight from her shoulders and make him see that she wasn’t really getting a choice. “When a witch in my coven reaches two hundred years old, they must return home to bear a child with what you and your brothers call a Hellspawn. The child will be female and a witch. It’s the way of our coven.”
It sounded so sterile when she put it like that, and she wanted it to be that way.
What she didn’t tell him was that she had been putting it off. She was loyal to her coven and planned to obey the summons eventually, but first she needed to be sure Mari would be safe and she needed to keep her promise to Eric.
“You seem all right with this.” Daimon sounded bitter, his deep voice colder than she had ever heard it, and the air around him chilled a few degrees.
“It’s tradition.” And she wasn’t all right with it. Not anymore.
She wanted to tell him that, but her voice failed her. Her coven was her everything. Her family. Everyone did their part to keep it