“She sleeps outside.”
“Mmm.” Rustling sounds. “That would be why there are feathers on your pillow.”
“It’s a pillow. It’s stuffed with feathers.”
“And cat fur?”
“Is this conversation furthering our shared goal of achieving mutual unconsciousness?”
“Is that an admission that you do let the crow-cat sleep on your bed?”
“For Herne’s sake, go to sleep, woman.”
Cathy laughed softly, but went still. He leaned his head back against the wall, listening to the slowing sound of her breathing. He’d just decided that she really had fallen asleep at last when she let out a sigh.
“Sorry.” She rolled onto her back, pillowing her head on one arm. The glow of the bond around her wrist was just bright enough to let him make out her profile. “I’m not used to sleeping with anyone either. At least, not since Kevin stopped being scared of the monsters in the closet.”
He frowned. “How old is your son?”
“He’s twelve.” Cathy sounded perplexed. “Why?”
“Then, unless your offspring is remarkably timid—which I highly doubt given his maternal genetics—that would imply you’ve slept alone for some time.” It was absolutely none of his business, but this had been nagging at his curiosity ever since she’d first revealed her quest. “So, Kevin’s father…?”
“Gone.” The word was flat and hard, not at all like her normal tones. “A long time now.”
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t help probing the subject, like a sore tooth. “You were true mates, then?”
“What?” Cathy lifted her head, the golden glow of the bond highlighting her startled expression. “You mean like Tamsin and Cuan? Why on earth would you say that?”
He made a vague gesture, cursing himself for raising the matter at all. “I can’t imagine that you would lack for company in bed, if you desired it. It’s not a great leap of logic to assume that your deceased partner must have been your mate, since you’ve mourned him for so long.”
“Oh, he’s not dead.” Cathy’s mouth quirked in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Just gone. He lives in Australia now, with his new family. I haven’t heard from him in ten years.”
“What?” He stared at her, floored. “But—he left you? And his own child?”
“Human men do that sometimes.” She tilted her head a little, her expression turning more quizzical. “Cuan said that fae men don’t. When I first met him, he assumed that my husband must have passed away, and it took him a while to grasp what had actually happened. But you’ve read a lot of our books. Haven’t you come across absent fathers in fiction?”
“I have. Along with sewers haunted by demonic clowns, sleepy little villages with alarmingly high murder rates, and unfeasibly attractive firefighters who keep misplacing their shirts. I’d assumed ‘deadbeat dad’ was just another melodramatic literary trope.”
“Unfortunately not.” She lay back, staring up at the underside of the bookshelf above their heads. “He left when Kevin was just a baby. It was… too hard for him. Not what he’d wanted.”
“If he didn’t want a child, there would seem to be obvious things he could have done to avoid fathering one. Or rather, not done.”
“He wanted a baby.” Cathy’s voice tightened, just a little. “But he thought he’d be coming home each night to a clean home and a happy, smiling wife. Not one who couldn’t stop crying.”
Aodhan realized that he was clenching his fist under the covers. He forced his hand to relax, flattening his fingers against the mattress.
“Why,” he said, and thank all the goddesses, his voice came out calm and not shaking with rage on her behalf, “were you crying?”
“That’s what he kept asking.” She rolled, putting her back to him. Even though they weren’t touching, he could sense the tension in her body. “I’d wanted a child just as much as him. It was the right time. We had a comfortable home, good jobs, security. The pregnancy and birth had been as easy as these things ever are. Kevin wasn’t even a particularly difficult baby. There was no reason to cry. No reason to feel flat and gray and like all the life had been sucked out of me. No reason at all.”
Oak branches creaked underneath them. He had to concentrate for a moment on his breathing. In. Out. Calm. Calm.
“We would call that birthing fog,” he said. “Many women suffer from it. And no wonder, when one considers the immense amount of energy required to bring a new soul into the world.”
“We call it postnatal depression,” Cathy said softly. “Though I didn’t have a name for it at the time. All I knew was that there was something wrong with me. That I was wrong. At the hospital, when Kevin was born… I was bleeding and in pain and so, so tired. But I was sure it would all be worth it when I finally got to hold my baby. That’s what everyone had told me. And then the nurse put him in my arms, and I waited for that big rush of love, and… it didn’t come. He was my baby, and all I felt was terrified.”
“I think that’s a logical reaction to being handed a helpless, screaming creature that’s entirely reliant on you for survival.”