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"Yes, Byron remains out of doors and lets you treat him as a hound," Asterion answered, his own voice rising to match hers. "I wear my disguise—"
"It doesn't matter, theyknow," Isabel cried out. "It's rather obvious when it comes to you. You are…"
Silence rang.
"I am what?"
"Beastly."
My fingers dug into the wall, my eyes wide. I did not breathe as shock took over every impulse in my body. I was afraid for this woman, and I also wanted tobeher in all her careless bravery, and I wanted to open the door wide and tell her how absurd she was. The minotaur was beautiful. Perhaps beastly too, but not in the way that cruel, sharp voice implied.
"Snoop." The word slipped into my ear, rasping softly.
I let out a sharp cry, my heart starting again with a shock as I spun in place. A wild white grin beamed down at me, surrounded by bright coppery hair. My hand clapped over my heart and behind me, from the office, footsteps ran closer. The man in front of me, the one who'd caught me listening through open doors, was wickedly sensuous, with eyes the shade of the sunlight cast through leaves in the orangery and long sweeps of red hair gleaming under candlelight. He didn't stop grinning at me, two pink scars slashing through his handsome face on one cheek, a third, smaller one on the opposite eyebrow.
"Conall," Asterion said, flat and hard. "You're not meant to—"
"Come in, I know. But you see, I'm incorrigible, so it's not my fault," Conall answered.
He was bursting to the seams with humor and joy. The wink of his eye promised either howls of laughter or pleasure. The gloss of his hair promised softness to the touch. This man was deliciousness on my tongue, a heat that built the longer I stood in the force of it.
"Get in here," Asterion rumbled, and he made no mention of me or of my spying. Perhaps he'd known I stood there all along.
Conall held the door open, bouncing dark eyebrows on his brow. I glanced inside of the dark, close room, then back to the hall behind him. His nearness made my mouth water. The scent of pipe smoke and flesh engulfed him, like he'd spent hours in a bawdy house. I stepped in front of him, and the hair on the back of my neck rose in understanding. He was a predator.
I didn't mind.
"How much did you hear?" Isabel asked me, her arms crossed over her chest, chin held high. She was exceptionally beautiful, I thought, and I looked to Asterion next to see how she affected him. But he was staring at me.
And he was wearing that human disguise again, rugged and handsome and huge, with dark curls and large, liquid eyes, like the cups of chocolate I'd been guzzling all week. They were a lovely pair, if not for the fact that their mutual dislike was fairly tangible and set my teeth on edge.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Plenty about me."
Isabel's lips pressed flat, so I continued.
"You don't mind my being here, but you don't like that I'm the reason Asterion is here. And perhaps Marius too?" I guessed.
"Good ol' Isabel. Happy to accept the generosity of monsters, as long as she doesn't have to look us in the eye," Conall said softly, circling around me and helping himself to one of the large leather chairs in front of Asterion's desk.
Isabel's face reddened, and she shot a glare at Conall before marching past me to the door. "Just remember what you promised," she said in parting.
Asterion sighed, and his steps were heavy as he returned to his desk.
"She's rotten," Conall muttered.
"To us. But not to the women who need her," Asterion said. "That's what matters."
I considered Isabel's cool treatment of me so far, but either she resented my bringing the monsters into the house or she resented that I wasn't human. Either way, it didn't seem worth mentioning, and Conall didn't give me time to do so.
"I don't see how she can object to you looking like that," Conall continued, waving a careless bare hand at Asterion's disguise. He flashed me a smirk. "Isn't he pretty?"
"I don't object to either of his appearances," I said.
Asterion sat heavily in his chair, and Conall's eyes tightened slightly. "Don't you? That's nice." He turned to Asterion again. "Isn't that nice, Ast? And after all, what are you doing that's so objectionable but paying for fine meals and all the little baubles and dresses the women seem to need?"
Asterion was staring at me, his hands raised, in white gloves. "Do you mind if I…?"
Oh, the gloves served as his disguise. I shook my head, and they were removed. He sighed, flexing his fists, and leaned back in his chair, shoulders broader than before, horns polished and shining by lamplight.
