Page 201 of Sky’s Edge

Once it was on display, I showed it to him.

Like me, it took him a moment to see what there was to see.

I knew he saw it when he said, “Bloody hell.”

“Yes,” I agreed, dropping my hand with the Palm to my lap and regaining his attention. “Now, I haven’t shared this with Gayliliel because…” I shook my head. “I don’t know why. Maybe because she’s so upset about Cormac that she paid five thousand marks for a potion to smother her mately urges.”

“Godsdammit,” Tanyn bit, the red seeping into his eyes. “He’s driven her to that?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “She’s desperate. She’s worried her job will eventually be in jeopardy, and she’s right to worry, since she’s here, so she’ll again be out of the office tomorrow with no warning. She can work remote, but even so. She has a life, honey. It’s that she needs to make money to live it but more, she should be free to just live it. Not be randomly snatched from work or on the street and whisked to another realm.”

“And you’re worried how she’ll react if she sees that portrait,” he deduced.

“Gayle isn’t exactly a fragile female, but she’s coming to her wit’s end. It’s understandable.”

“We have to find some kind of compromise to this tonight, because Mac’s behavior is understandable too.”

I reared away, saying, “I beg your pardon.”

Tanyn wrapped an arm around me not only to pull me back, but also to tuck me to his side. “I don’t know what’s going on with him emotionally, in the sense he doesn’t just claim the female who was made for him, as he was for her. What I do know is that he cannot escape the protective urges he has for her. It’s physically impossible. I watched all day as he got more and more tense, only for this to release if Aleksei got a text comm from Laura, or I got one from you, which I’m thinking in some manner proved to him Gayle was okay. I think⁠—”

He abruptly stopped talking.

“You think what?” I prompted.

“Baby, until this threat is over, he’s going to have to move in with her.”

I jumped off the bench and cried, “He what?”

“He won’t stop unless he’s close to her and knows she’s all right.”

“Then maybe he needs to take a potion,” I snapped.

“You have to admit”—he dipped his head to my Palm—“there are clearly other factors at play. Ones we don’t understand. Ones that may just be coincidental. Or they may be ones we may not ever understand.”

“Yes, I do,” I freely admitted it. “That said, what you’re suggesting makes things better for Cormac, not Gayle.”

“Perhaps this potion isn’t a bad idea for her,” he suggested.

“She’s going to spell herself, Tanyn,” I retorted.

“Is it from an accredited witch?” he asked.

I threw out both my arms. “Who cares? That potion cost her five thousand marks and only lasts a month.”

“I’m sure Cormac will reimburse her.”

That wasn’t the point!

“So she has to dose herself with magic so he feels better?”

Slowly, Tanyn stood, and equally slowly (in other words, carefully), he spoke, “I’m not sure it’s good in these times for Cormac’s protective instinct for her to be dulled.”

“So what you’re saying is, she needs to dose herself with magic.”

“Baby,” he muttered.

“Even accredited witches get it wrong,” I reminded him, though I didn’t share she’d said she went to the best of the best. “You have to have heard the horror stories.”