Page 31 of Bride

“Is this edu... Edu...?” she asks, after I’m done explaining how it works. “Edutacional?”

“Educational.”

“Juno says it’s important that the games are edu...”

“I don’t know if it is, but at least no major felonies are involved.”

There is something disarming about the way she leans against me, soft and trusting, as though our people haven’t been hunting each other for sport in the last couple of centuries. Her tongue sticks out between her teeth as she tries to snatch apples, and when a dark curl slips in front of her right eye, I catch myself with my fingers hovering right there, tempted to fold it behind her ear.

“Shit,” I mutter, pulling back my hand.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I trap my arms between my back and the wall, horrified.

It feels like the middle of the night when Ana yawns and decides it’s time to go back to her room. “My cat is waiting for me, anyway.”

Wait. “Your cat?”

She nods.

“Doesyourcat happen to be gray? Long hair? Smushed face?”

“Yes. Her name is Sparkles.”

Oh, fuck. “First of all, he’s a boy.”

She blinks at me. “Hisname is Sparkles, then.”

“No, his name is Serena’s damn fucking cat.”

Ana’s expression is pitying.

“And he’s actuallymycat.” Serena’s. Whatever.

“I don’t think so.”

“You do realize that he arrived when I did.”

“But he sleeps with me.”

Ah. Sothat’swhere he disappears to all the time. “That’s just because he hates me.”

“Then maybe he’s not your cat,” she says, with the delicatesomberness of a therapist who’s letting me know that I don’t have a diagnosable disorder, I’m just a bitch.

“You know what? I don’t care. It’s between you and Serena.”

“Who’s Serena?”

“My friend.”

“Your best friend?”

“I only have the one, so... yeah?”

“My best friend is Misha. She has red hair, and she’s the daughter of my brother’s best friend, Cal. And Juno is her aunt. And she has a little brother, his name is Jackson, and a little sister, and her name—”

“This is notThe Brothers Karamazov,” I interrupt. “I don’t need the family tree.”

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