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Her chin edged up. “I am not having a tantrum, I am—”
“Wasting both our time,” Cain finished. “If you hadn’t been so dismissive of my possessiveness toward her, you’d have seen this coming. The other Ancients all did—every one of them contacted me today on hearing about the seal, and none expressed even a lick of surprise. But you wanted to believe that I wasn’t truly serious about Wynter, so you did.”
“I don’t see the sense in you being serious about a mortal.”
“I don’t need you to see it. How you feel about any of this doesn’t interest me. It has nothing to do with you.”
A smirk touched one corner of her mouth. “Oh, but it does. Because in revealing your secrets, you would also be revealing mine. You would be revealing the secrets of all the Ancients. You will need our permission first, and I will never agree to you telling Wynter.”
“True. But unless you have a valid reason not to agree, your vote will be rendered invalid and you will be overruled. You already know that.”
Again, Cain heard muffled voices in the hallway. One belonged to Maxim, the other belonged to Wynter. It was rare that anyone escorted her to him these days, since his aides knew she had free rein of the Keep. Cain suspected that Maxim had chosen to accompany her to the solar room out of worry that Ishtar might try to attack her. The gargoyle had grown to be quite protective of Wynter.
Cain looked at Ishtar. “Unless you’d like her to learn some of those truths now, you might want to pull yourself together and keep your voice down.”
She snapped her mouth shut. “You are one condescending bastard.”
“Only when the situation calls for it.”
Mere moments later, a knock came at the door at the very same time that it swung open. Wynter breezed inside, not looking the least bit surprised to see Ishtar—Maxim had likely warned her that the Ancient was here.
Wynter looked from Cain to Ishtar. “I can come back,” she offered.
“No need.” Cain rose from his chair and held out his hand, urging her to come to him. “Ishtar is leaving.”
Wynter crossed straight to him, unfazed by the look of sheer resentment aimed her way by the female Ancient. It wasn’t an act. His witch genuinely didn’t fear her, and he knew that was another thing that angered Ishtar.
He pulled Wynter close and kissed her. “Hmm, you taste like chocolate.”
She smiled. “Hattie made some wickedly decadent dessert.”
“You are foolish,” Ishtar barked at her. “You have no idea what you have done by letting him imprint his seal on you.”
Cain tensed. “Ishtar.” The word was a silken warning.
“Do not worry,” the Ancient said to him, “I will not blurt out your precious secrets. But she should be made aware that she made a mistake.”
“Jeez, there’s no need to get all uptight about an itty bitty seal,” Wynter told her. “I’m sure you wore one back in the day when you two regularly played hide the sausage.” Her brows rose as the Ancient’s face darkened. “Oh, you didn’t. Huh. Well, this is awkward.”
Cain felt his mouth quirk. His witch was well aware that he’d never imprinted his seal on any other woman, and she was delighting in rubbing it in the Ancient’s face. He couldn’t blame her, considering said Ancient took every opportunity to poke at her.
Ishtar shot them both another look of scorn and stalked out of the room, almost ramming her body into that of Maxim, who had waited just outside the door. The aide quickly sidestepped her, shaking his head, and then pulled the door closed to give Cain and Wynter privacy.
“I figured she wouldn’t take the whole seal thing well, so I’m not surprised she came here and bitched at you.” Wynter leaned into him a little more. “I still want to punch her right in the boob for it, though. Only I get to bitch at you.”
Cain snorted. “Is that so?”
“Yup.”
“Hmm, I get to mess with your head. You get to bitch at me. Seems fair.”
“More than. I expected a little more ranting from her. Maybe even some finger pointing and stuff. Admittedly, I would have found it entertaining. It was disappointing that the worst she did was call me foolish. You know, she’s the second person today who did that.”
“Who was the other?”
“Ah, funny story.”
Cain felt his mood increasingly blacken as she told him of her strange encounter with Saul. And he found nothing “funny” about it. Swearing beneath his breath, he shoved his fingers into his hair.
