Page 80 of Tarnished Crown
Evander’s voice drifted in from the sitting room along with Yuriy’s, discussing one of the villages on the border of Crane.
A small meow pulled my attention back to the cat on my pillow.
“Oh, you want to be my friend now, Koshka?” I asked, scratching the cat behind the ears.
He responded with a soft meow and a long stretch.
“Then, I suppose we need to give you a real name.” I ran through a list in my head, surveying the fluffy orange cat with his delicate white paws and his overly serious face.
“Mittens?” I could swear the cat rolled its eyes.
I listed off several others, ranging from Feliks to Max to Laird Meowington, but none of them seemed to fit.
“Boris?” I half said the name as a joke, remembering Evander’s casual lesson on the meanings that names here carried.
How could a name that meantfightersound so stodgy? To my surprise, the cat purred and pressed his head into my hand.
“Boris? Really? All right. Boris, it is.”
“Lemmikki,” Evander’s voice sounded closer than I expected, and he slid the curtains open. “Do you think you will leave bed today?”
The cat and I looked up at him at the same time before I narrowed my eyes.
“No. Boris and I are rather comfortable where we are, and likely to stay here for the foreseeable future”
Evander crossed his arms, looking between me and the ball of fur now needling at my pillow.
“Boris?” He raised an eyebrow. “Naming other people’s cats is presumptuous, even for you.”
“I thought he wasn’t your cat.” I smirked.
Evander just shook his head. “So you and Boris are content where you are?”
“Yes,” I said cautiously, suspicious of his overtly casual tone. “Why?”
“Because I have business to attend to at the cabin. I need to leave tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
In spite of our constant bickering, the idea of going back to being alone in my rooms again made it feel as if the walls were closing in. I took a steadying breath, but it did little to ease the panic rising inside me.
“I thought you might want to come along, but if you’re happy where you are...”
I got to my feet.
“Now that you mention it, I find lounging in bed is getting quite monotonous.” As much as I had wanted to stay here for the rest of my life only a few short moments ago, the mere idea of leaving this castle and Ava was enough to make me willing to walk all the way to the cabin if I had to.
The corner of Evander’s mouth twitched. Then his eyes skated from my mess of curls down the length of his shirt that I was still wearing, before he met my gaze again.
“We should have Taisiya bring you your clothes,” he said, clearing his throat. “My shirts aren’t exactly road-worthy this time of year.”
Tension stretched between us. The subject of me wearing his shirts was skirting dangerously close to things neither of us talked about.
“Well, that’s your opinion.” I shrugged. “I think it would lighten the mood substantially.”
He let out a dark chuckle. “Indeed. And I’m sure my men would be very focused with you on a horse in that. Storms, we’d be lucky if the Unclanned didn’t kill us all.”
“Well, that’s reason enough for me,” I agreed pleasantly.