Page 33 of Carnal: The Beast Who Loved Me

“Yeah, you did,” Carnal smiled at Rosie, while Free and Serene exchanged worried glances.

“I gave Rosie a tour of the Weavers’ Barn today.”

Free stopped eating. “You did?”

“Yes. After the scare at the training field.” Serene looked at Charming pointedly.

“That was not my fault,” he said, shaking his head.

Serene went on. “I’ve suggested that Rosie might want to teach, in her spare time.”

“Rosie has spare time?” Charming looked at Rosie like she’d been holding out on him.

“You know, like when I take walks with you at night sometimes?”

“Yeah?” he said.

“That’s spare time.”

“Oh, well. If that’s what you mean bysparetime.”

“What doyoumean by spare time?” Rosie put the question back to Charming.

“Time when there’s nothing going on that you want to do.”

Rosie laughed. “Oh. Okay. Well, that would be never.”

Carnal had been studying Rosie throughout her exchange with Charming. “Are you interested in teaching, Rosie?” Carnal asked quietly in a tone she hadn’t heard him use all evening. It was not his entertaining storyteller voice, or his I’m-taking-charge voice that she’d heard him use on the training field, or his seductive voice that he’d used sitting at the bar. It could have almost been described as tender.

“I haven’t decided. But maybe. I’m going to hang out when I can and see if anything fits.” Her eyes flicked toward the end of the table where his mother sat. “That’s Serene’s suggestion.”

Carnal looked at his mother briefly before retraining his focus on Rosie, only his tone had changed. “Logical. What do you think you’re qualified to teach?”

It sounded a little like a challenge.

“Might surprise you, Carnal.”

“Might. You know how to read?”

Rosie barked out a laugh. “Yes. I know how to read.”

“Write?”

“What is this?”

“Just trying to find out what you have to teach Exiled?”

“I know a lot of languages.”

Carnal grinned. “Only one language here. Do you know math?”

“I could teach calculus, but I definitely wouldn’t enjoy it.”

“What’s calculus?”

“It’s advanced math that has to do with establishing volume.” She looked at Free. “I could teach how not to be like the frog that complacently sits in a pot of heating water until it explodes, when it could have jumped out.”

Free kept his expression stoic, but his head jerked up slightly at that.