"Yeah," I replied. "I know the way you should look, move, and sound, somewhere deep in my subconscious. Having the evidence of my eyes match my expectations was a lot better than the glamor."

"I'm handsome like that," Dain said cautiously. "When I meet human women while glamored, they follow me with their eyes and smell like desire."

Oh, great. Of course he had a nose like a bloodhound. Add it to the friggen TV Tropes page of my life.

"I genuinely can't offer an opinion on whether you're hot or not while you're wearing a glamor," I said. "It is way too freaky for me to even begin to appreciate. You're going to have to be au naturale if you want to be around me without my skin creeping."

One corner of his mouth twitched back. "Aw, my master plan," he said, matching the tone I'd used to say those words earlier exactly.

I burst into laughter, and he froze, looking like he hadn't expected me to respond positively to him parroting my words back at me. I leaned forward and patted him on the shoulder. "There, there," I said with pretend sympathy. "I'm sure you'll get over it. Think of all the things you can do with four hands instead of two."

His jaw clenched. "You don't need to mock me."

"Dead serious," I assured him. "I'm honestly surprised all you do with the wing-arms is posture."

"I'm being polite," Dain said with an edge of anger. "I have had a century of watching people react to me using my body naturally and a childhood of having a rod cracked against my fingers for touching things with them. I've learned very well what it means to use them for anything other than posturing."

Fury rose up in me, and not at him. "She did what."

Very slowly, he turned his head towards me, as if I was a feral animal that might like to bite him. "What did you just say?" he asked in a flat tone.

I dropped the book onto the table and clenched my hands into fists. I would have yanked my feet off Dain's lap and started pacing, except that his hands were holding me in place, his fingers gripping me more tightly than I thought he realized. "Your mother," I said, biting off the words. "The Queen. She had you struck across your wing-hands every time you used them?"

"Yes, of course," Dain said. "She tried to make me into a normal fae." His face twisted. "A pity all her efforts went to waste, for I am what the gods made me, and not what she tried to turn me into."

"Her child," I said. "You were her child."

He only looked at me, his expression unreadable, his claws digging into my legs.