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“She was jealous?” Tegan asked curiously.
“Yeah,” Sloane nodded. “Of course, I didn’t realise that at the time. I just thought Michael’s little sister was trying to ruin my day. I mean, I had just had my first kiss with an older female.”
“That makes it sound sordid,” Tegan reprimanded him.
Sloane sniggered in the dark. “Zahra was really difficult to live with after that. She was mean and spiteful.” He sighed. “One day I asked her what the problem was.”
“I thought you knew what it was? You kissed another female.”
“Hindsight, cousin, it gives you twenty-twenty vision. At the time, I had no idea what was wrong with her.”
“Oh.” Tegan frowned. “What did she say? That this was what her problem was?”
“She called me a bunch of names and then asked if I liked kissing Olena.” Sloane still cringed when he remembered how he had answered. “I told her it was brilliant.”
“Oh. That may not have been the answer she was looking for.”
“And Zahra told me I should enjoy it, as I was never going to kiss her.” He flushed in the dark of the room. “And I asked, why would Iwantto kiss a brat like her?”
“I understand now why you consented to the betrothal,” Tegan said as she listened to her cousin.
“You do?”
“You felt guilty. As you got older, you realised Zahra cared for you and you had hurt her.” Tegan lay staring at the roof. “I assume that it was then that she started to ask for a human life?”
“Yeah,” Sloane answered.
“You cannot blame yourself,” Tegan told him firmly. “She is no longer a child with long curls and ribbons. She had an…attraction, but there was no promise made to each other then.”
“I guess not,” Sloane admitted.
“Do you think she still cares?”
“No,” Sloane answered tiredly. “I think she realised later that I was simply a crush. We have absolutely nothing in common.”
Tegan did not understand whatcrushmeant, but from her cousin’s tone, she determined that it was something fleeting. “Do you care for her?”
“No. Not in that way.”
“Then why agree to a betrothal?” Tegan had been pleased she had been keeping up with the story, but for both of them to then enter a betrothal made no sense to her.
“She reminded me that I had broken her heart once and asked that I not break it again. She wanted to live as a human, and I could give her that.” Sloane felt the familiar guilt. “I owed it to her, she said.”
“That is detestable,” Tegan growled, the sympathy she had been feeling towards Zahra evaporating in the heat of her anger. “You owed nothing.” Tegan sat up in bed in annoyance. “You are well rid of her.”
“Tegan,” Sloane protested.
“No, she is manipulative and sneaky.” Tegan crossed her arms angrily. “If you do not seek the end of the betrothal, I will make Cord do something horrible to you.”
“You’re threatening me with my brother?” Sloane asked with amusement.
“Yes.”
“Lie down, little tiger,” Sloane mocked her by using his brother’s pet name for her. He could almost feel Tegan’s glare in the dark.
They lay in the dark, both lost in their own thoughts. “Did I help?” Tegan asked after a while.
“Yes.”
