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“Ari! What are you doing?” Reaching me, Taj grabs my arm and turns me to face him. “What’s that?”
“A mantle.”
“Give that back.”
“No!”
“Gods help me. Why not?”
“I need it.”
“What for?”
“I don’t… know, but it’s so soft…” I sigh, somewhere in my mind feeling how ridiculous this is but still unable to let go of the velvety fabric.
“Time to leave,” Taj grunts. “Kiaran, come here! We’re leaving.”
“My mantle!” the woman screeches again, trying to get past Taj to take it from me.
“She doesn’t really need it,” I reason with Taj as he hauls me bodily away. “She has money. That gown she’s wearing is expensive. She can buy another mantle.”
“Gods dammit. Think that’s an excuse for stealing?” He hustles me out of the hall, grabbing some bread from a table on the way. “Here. Eat this while I saddle the horses. Kiaran, where are you? Ah.”
Turning my head, I see him growling something to the screeching woman. She backs away from him, her face going white.
Sudden guilt grips me. Maybe I should give it back. I mean, I know it’s wrong to take things from people. “Taj—”
“Too late now,” he mutters, hauling me to the stables. “Might as well keep it.”
“I don’t know why I’m doing it,” I choke out. “Goddess…”
“Don’t you? All this mess to steal a mantle. I didn’t know you had thieving tendencies.”
“Let me go,” I say indignantly. “I don’t have thieving tendencies.”
“No? Then what would you call that?”
“I needed it,” I try again to explain. “It’s soft…”
“What would you need it for? We’re on the road and you’re stealing cushions and mantles. Why are you gathering stuff like a magpie?”
I frown. “I don’t know… it felt like something I should do.”
It’s irrational. I can’t explain why. I just know I require it.
“Eat your breakfast.” He leaves me inside the door and heads toward our horses. “You’re becoming a menace.”
My eyes sting. “Please, Taj… I don’t understand it myself. I want it for our bed. It needs to be soft and warm and dark and… and…”
He steps out from the stall and stares at me, eyes wide. “Ari… Are you making a nest?”
“Of course not,” I scoff, because that would be too much.
“You’re an omega,” he says. “Omegas like nests.”
“I’m not a bird.”
“Not, but you are Fae-blood. And the ancestors of the Fae were dragons.”
