She eyes the chair next to me and then perches awkwardly on the edge of it. Like all the chairs in this room, it’s made for someone with tentacles, which means it’s far too wide and sloped for a human.
“I didn’t bring you here to punish you.”
She looks up, startled. “What?”
“To the tower.” I motion around us. I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I don’t know why I’ve done anything in this woman’s presence that I have. She simply seems a bit lost, and I want to chase that look from her hazel eyes. “Henryk threatened you. I wasn’t thinking. I was reacting.”
“He was just angry. It really wasn’t that deep.”
There it is again. Her insistence that her health and well-being are somehow not worthy of note. “He had a knife.”
“He didn’t cut me.” She shrugs. “I didn’t need your interference. I would have handled it.”
Just like that, I understand something that had been bothering me for weeks. “That’s why the contract wasn’t triggered the first day.” By all rights, it should have been. We needed Embry’s healing magic to save Catalina or she would havedied. There is no other way to define that except as harm, but Azazel only knew about it because I contacted him.
“What are you talking about?”
“You expect to be hurt, so it barely registers when it happens.”
Catalina flinches. “Wow, make me sound pathetic, why don’t you?”
“That’s not what I mean.” I scrub my hand over my face. I don’t want to lose my territory, but I am increasingly uncomfortable with how lackadaisical Catalina is about her safety, physical and otherwise. “Tell me what you need. I can’t promise that I won’t misstep, but I will do my best to ensure you’re provided for.”
“Pass.”
“Excuse me?”
She looks around the room, obviously not wanting to meet my gaze. “I might be willing to take a pity fuck from you, but I’m doing just fine, Thane. I don’t need a pity... whatever it is you’re offering.”
She’s doing it again. I have to fight not to clench my fists. “I do not pity fuck.”
Catalina opens her mouth, seems to reconsider what she’s about to say, and twists a strand of her hair around one finger. “Okay.”
“You’re saying that like you don’t believe me.”
“Thane, you fuck me with your tentacles like you’re mad at me and yourself.” She holds up a hand before I can process that. “I am not complaining. That’s not what this is. I just don’t get the one-eighty you’re pulling right now.”
I don’t truly understand it either, but I’m not willing to take that conversational turn with her. Being here is challenging enough, but not because I don’t find myself enjoying her company. It’s the guilt. There’s both too much of it and not enough, and I can’t begin to untangle the mess in my head. “I am trying to make things right.”
“You know how you can make things right?”
I know I’m going to regret asking, but I find myself looking forward to whatever wild thing will come out of her mouth next. “I’m sure you have some suggestions.”
“An orgy.”
“Absolutely not.” The words snap out of me like a whip.
Catalina grins at me, her eyes sparkling. “Okay, if not an orgy, then a little bit of exhibitionism. We could—”
“You will not be fucking in public, Catalina.”
She pouts. “Spoilsport.”
I give her a long look. She’s inciting me on purpose, and we both know it, but that doesn’t mean I’m unaffected by this line of conversation. I don’t like the idea of her with someone else. At all. “I will not indulge this further.”
“Oh, come on, Thane.” She leans on the table and gives me sultry eyes. “Indulge me. I promise it will be fun.”
Of that, I suddenly have no doubt. I actually reach for her with my tentacles before I catch myself and force stillness. “Be good.”