Instantly, she straightens. “I’malwaysgood. But I’ll behave.” She winks. “I couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity for your cock.”
A bolt of sheer need goes through me. “Catalina,” I growl.
“What?” She’s the very picture of innocence. “Though I do have a few questions about the specifics.” She twists her hair around her fingers again, but the move is more flirty than anxious this time. “How do you even know sex with a human will work? Do you have an octopus penis? Do octopuseshavepenises?”
“A kraken is closer to a squid than an octopus.”
“You have suckers.” She points at the tentacles on my head. “Alotof suckers.”
This conversation is absurd, and yet I’m so turned on, I can barely think straight. “My people are capable of sex with humans. We always have been.”
“Always have been,” she echoes. Her eyes go wide. “Wait, you mean somewhere in the distant past, a human fucked a literal kraken? Not a half-human, half-kraken person, but a ship-killer giant squid kraken?”
“Yes,” I say slowly.
“Wow, and I thought I was adventurous.” She leans forward and eyes my lower half. “So you’ve fucked humans before.”
“Once or twice.” When I was younger and straining against my parents’ rules and so sure I knew best. I almost got myself entangled with a bargainer demon as a result of playing with a human under their protection. “A long time ago.” Before Embry and I became orphans in a war that ended with a whisper instead of a bang. Pointless. So much of the conflict in our realm is so incredibly pointless.
Ironic that I’m up to my eyeballs in a contract now despite escaping that one when I was young.
Catalina sits back, expression contemplative. “I’ll save my next question for later because you’re kind of a stick-in-the-mud and I don’t think you’d consider it beinggood.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to encourage her to be bad, but I bite down on the words before they can escape. What iswrongwith me? “Why did you make your demon deal?”
“Oh. That.” She dims a little, but her lips curve in that wild smile. “Money.”
“Money.” I frown. “You gave seven years of your life for finances?”
“People give their entire lives for money. Their health and time and energy. What’s seven years?” She shrugs. “Besides, I didn’t have much to hold me where I was. No reason to stay, no reason not to take advantage of Azazel’s offer.”
She speaks with a breezy tone that reeks of lies. I have no business demanding to know the truth... but I want to. It’s strange that I want to. My confusion makes my tone sharp. “There’s no one to miss you?”
“That would require them to care if I’m around.” She says it softly enough, I don’t think she means for me to hear it.
But I do.
Goddess, I do.
Suddenly I see Catalina in a different light entirely. She’s so bold and brazen and filled with light, but how many times in our short acquaintance have I wondered at the lie that is her wild smile? A mask, rather than a lie. I should have known it’s a mask.
But who is the woman beneath?
I crave knowing her with an intensity that takes me aback. “Tell me about your family.”
“Tell me about your husband.”
I jerk back. “Excuse me?”
She doesn’t move. “You heard me. If we’re going to start opening old wounds, we’re doing it together. Or not at all. Your choice.”
Under no circumstances am I going to talk about Brant with her. It feels strange and almost like a betrayal, though I can’t begin to say who I’m betraying. My long-lost love or the strangely fragile woman in front of me. I still haven’t unsnarled the guilt inside me, some of which is for Brant and some for Catalina, and attempting to do it in real time will ensure I accidentally speak out of turn. “I take your point.”
“I thought you might.”
We both fall silent as Della and Annis come into the room, each bearing half a dozen trays of food. Too much food, for all that it smells delicious. “Thank you.”
They set the trays on the table without a word and leave. I bite back a sigh. Della still hasn’t forgiven me for my sharp words after Ramanu arrived, and Annis has always been skittish around me. It doesn’t look like either situation will resolve itself tonight.