“I am doing you a service by giving youfreeadvice, but you’re too stubborn to take it because you’re jealous.”
I glare at her. Moe shakes her head at me.
So… Imayhave been jealous, but who wouldn’t in these circumstances?
“I see her as I would a daughter,” Lis states matter-of-factly.
I snort. “A daughter?”
“Yes.” The answer comes so immediately, so flatly, that my amusement falters.
She holds my gaze, unblinking.
Then Lis continues in a more quiet voice, “I had one.”
Moe’s expression softens instantly.
My own suspicion wavers. Instead, I start feeling like a proper ass.
Lis glances toward Moe—not with hunger, not with possessiveness, but with something older. Sadder. Something I had not recognized before because I had been too busy seeing threats where there were none.
“She looked like her,” Lis says softly, a smile pulling at her lips.
For once, I have no immediate reply. Then my brain starts working overtime—hard, considering I have limited energy left. But I make do.
“You had a daughter,” I say aloud. “Which would require… a male.” Of course, my logic takes me there immediately, since her having a male, or any significant other for that matter, would make itlesslikely for her to have designs onmyMoe.
Lis arches a brow. “How observant,” she says drily.
I tap my finger against my chin as I continue with my very well thought out thought process. “Meaning you had relations with?—”
She rolls her eyes at me, then throws a pitiful glance towards Moe, as if saying,your mate is an idiot.
“Meaning it would have been rather difficult to produce a daughter with a male if my interests lay with females, would it not?” She tilts her head. “According to your reasoning.”
At that point, Moe bursts into laughter.
My mouth opens. Then closes. Because?—
I think deeply on a good comeback. Eventually I just press my lips together and nod.
Yeah, I have no response to that.
Lis watches me flounder for half a second more before laughing outright.
“Gods, you make this too easy.”
I scowl at her. So what… I may have hit my head in that battle, all right? Give some leeway to a poor, ailing fighter.
She wipes a tear from the corner of her eye and adds, far more gently than before, “Rest assured, Nykander. I have a mate. A male whom I love very much. He is the only one I have ever wanted, and the only one I ever will.”
Something in the way she says it quiets whatever retort I might have made.
“There will never be another for me,” she continues. “Male or female.”
She looks at Moe, then back at me.
“She has my regard. Nothing more, nothing less.” Then, after a pause, she adds. “And because of that, I will accept you as her mate.”
