“You still haven’t mated him. I could scent it,” Merda accused, crossing her arms across her chest as she glared at Kincaid from the doorway. He didn’t bother looking up from the report he was reading. One of many that stacked on his desk while he had dropped Pelryn’s pair off with his redrya. 

It had worked surprisingly well as a distraction. Aside from the occasional spikes of excitement or fewer of apprehension, the restlessness had faded and he was able to get some work done. He’d have to thank Pelryn with a bottle of rouj. 

“King Bodric won’t be happy to hear this,” she warned. 

Irritation flared through Kincaid as he lowered the hologlass in his hand and glared at his Lieutenant. 

“Do you not tire of it?” He asked. 

Merda raised one brow. “Tire of what?”

“Pining for a male who will never return your affections? Kissing up to someone who thinks of you as nothing more than a tool?”

Merda’s mouth opened then closed, her morá flaring red before a deep sorrowful blue settles in it’s place. 

“You’re cruel,” she mutters. 

“And you’re an annoyance,” he retorts with a roll of his eyes, picking up his hologlass once again. 

She may think him cruel, but really he was doing her a favor. She could never be with the King, for several reasons. The only one she thought of was her inability to birth a clutch, as was the curse of all Naerian females during the poisoning from Tarlikk. But it was not that alone. 

No, the best kept secret in all of their kind, was that King Bodric was touched. With Tarlikk in his veins, he could not sire a clutch even with a human. It is why he relied so heavily on Kincaid to continue their line. To sire the next heir. To steal from his brother’s clutch. 

The longer Kincaid waited, the more suspicious their kind grew.

Whispers already plagued the palace and the center city with speculations on why the King has yet to pick a mate. 

The more pressure Bodric felt, the more he placed on Kincaid. A punishment he was forced to endure. 

Well, he could keep waiting. Kincaid would not be pushed. 

“King Bodric expects you and your mate to be present at the Laying,” Merda added after a silence, her voice not holding the same bite as earlier. “He won’t accept no as an answer.”

Kincaid sighed, taking another sip from his glass of rouj and continued working on the never ending pile of reports.