Page 37 of Blood Singer

Or whether I was even supposed to try.

Sanyra's words settled over me again, uncomfortable as a wet coat. He may never let himself take another mate. She'd said it gently, but she'd said it.

A soft chime from my tablet pulled me out of my spiral. I wiped at my face, which had morphed into an ugly cry at some point without my consent, and moved to the desk. Chloe's face appeared when I accepted the call, her brown hair pulled back in a messy bun and her gray-green eyes already sharpening with concern the moment she saw me.

"Are you okay?" she said. "You look like you've been crying."

"I'm fine," I said, which convinced neither of us. She raised one eyebrow and waited. I sighed. "Okay, I'm not fine. But I don't want to talk about it right now. What's up with the app?"

She studied me for a moment, then let it go. "I've been working on the species compatibility matrix," she said, pulling up a spreadsheet. "Aside from humans there are several potential species. The Vaktaire, the Aljani, and the Threnodi as potential mate candidates in addition to humans."

Something cold settled in my stomach. "Great. More options."

"The Threnodi are particularly interesting," Chloe continued, either missing my tone or deciding to ignore it. "They're a matriarchal society with advanced bioengineering capabilities. And they have this beautiful lavender skin with bioluminescent markings that—"

"Do they have tentacles?" I asked.

Chloe blinked. "What?"

"The Threnodi. Tentacles for hair, limbs, general body plan."

"No," she said slowly, the suspicion in her expression sharpening into something more pointed. "They have hair similar to humans, actually. Why would you think they have tentacles?"

"I'm just trying to picture the user interface," I said. "You know, for the matching algorithm. Different anatomical configurations might require different profile photo guidelines."

It was an objectively terrible explanation and Chloe knew it.

"Leila," she said, in the voice she used when she was about to be kind and thorough at the same time. "Has something happened?"

"Nothing," I lied. "Everyone is working well together. Very professional."

"Professional," she repeated. "You asked about tentacles."

I wanted to tell her. Some part of me desperately wanted to lay all of it out—the mountain, the alcove, the way he'd touched me and then stepped back like I'd burned him. But the words were stuck somewhere between embarrassment and the fear that saying them aloud would make the hurt more permanent.

"I'm just tired," I said instead. "Long couple of weeks."

She looked like she wanted to push. Something in my face stopped her. "Okay," she said finally. "But Leila, if something's going on, if the king is treating you badly, you don't have to manage it alone. My dad would want to know. Serna would want to know."

"I know." I meant it, though I wondered if the Alliance Prime would be particularly interested in knowing Kavan had just given me the best orgasm of my life with only his fingers. "If it becomes an actual problem, I'll say something."

"All right." She still looked worried, but she let it drop. "There's actually something else I wanted to talk to you about. Something I found while I was doing research."

The shift in her voice made me sit up straighter. "What kind of research?"

"Historical research," she said, pulling up what looked like a genealogical chart. "I was trying to understand why Kavan reacted the way he did to your scent when you arrived. Just out of curiosity, I started tracing Lady Marion Huntingdon's lineage." A measured pause. "Leila, her sons survived. They were at court in Paris when Kavan attacked the estate. They married, had children. Her line continued."

I felt the room go slightly off-kilter.

"She has descendants," I said, a slow tingle spreading up my spine.

"One in particular." Chloe's expression was careful. "You. You're Marion Huntingdon's direct descendant. Great-great-great—I lost count of the greats somewhere around the seventeenth century, but it's a clean, unbroken line."

The words settled over me one at a time, slow and heavy.

"That's why he could smell her on me," I said finally.

"That would be my guess. Drakhoni olfactory sensitivity is extraordinary. If Marion had a distinctive scent profile and you inherited enough of those genetic markers—"