“What’s your name?”
“Cainon,” he answers far too swiftly, like the word was already sitting on his tongue, waiting to be thrown. “But you can call me Cain.”
“Do you want something, Cainon? Did you lose direction on your way to your meeting with Rhordyn? Or perhaps you require an escort back to the guest suites on theground floor?”
He pushes off the wall and pockets his hands, shoulders lax as he strides forward a step. There’s a shift in his eyes—the lofty sharpness falling away, replaced with liquid swirls of a summer sea. “I wanted to apologize. For earlier.”
My mouth falls open, closes again, throat tightening.
Oh.
My feet move of their own accord, sending me on a mindless trail down the hall underwhelmed by shafts of gray light diving through the windows, puttingthatparticular conversation well and truly at my back.
I don’t want his apology. I want him to forget it happened and leave me the hell alone.
“There’s no need,” I call over my shoulder as I walk like I have a destination in mind.
I don’t.
I just don’t want to behere,alone with a man who seems to care far too much about how I regard him. That’s the only reason he’d be on the fifth floor, apologizing for something he surely presumes I’m embarrassed about.
He’s suddenly right next to me, walking in long, lazy strides. “You walk very fast.”
I frown, gaze still cast ahead. “Why did you come here?”
The question is spat out like an ember that was scalding my tongue.
“Why did I come here?” he repeats, and I grind to a halt.
We spin at the same time, chest to chest but a foot apart, my head tilted back so I can see into the whirlpools of his eyes. He’s almost as tall as Rhordyn, but I don’t let the fact that my chin is in line with his sternum bother me.
He’s inmycastle. Inmyterritory. And his actions thus far have been questionable at least.
“Yes. You didn’t pledge yourself to the cause,” I say, prodding the badge on his lapel with my index finger—the one that’s Bahari blue carved with the sigil of a mountain pushing from the ocean. “So why did you come here?”
Both his brows lift. “Not just a pretty face, I see ...”
Internally, I roll my eyes. “It doesn’t take a genius to listen. And your flattery doesn’t work on me. Neither does”—I gesture to his ...everything—”all that.”
“Pity,” he mumbles, an amused lilt to his tone that has my brow pleating. “And who’s to say I’m not pledging myself to the cause?”
My frown turns into a scowl.
This male is just as difficult to read as Rhordyn. Perhaps I’m cursed to be surrounded by intense men who make very little sense.
“You didn’t hand over your badge. I assumed—”
“Everyone else at the table has far less to offer than I do, and unlike Zali, I’m not fucking Rhordyn for compensation.”
The words land like nails, the visual sowing deep into the soil of my brain, but I work hard to keep my features from betraying my internal flinch.
“So that’s what you’re after?” I cut him a glare, as if the look alone could convince him to spill. “Compensation?”
He shrugs. “I want many things, Orlaith.”
“I didn’t tell you my name.”
“You didn’t need to.”
