He looked away, the muscles in his temple jumping and his ears pinning back. "I told you that women come to me, and that my reputation for giving them pleasure is well-deserved. Did you think I earned such a reputation by not doing the things women ask of me?" His voice came out harsh and accusatory, but from the tension in his body and the way his wing-hands closed into fists, I thought that he was trying to defend his actions to himself, and not to me.

"Sure," I said, watching him. "But, like... why tonight? We're here together, and you don't like that sort of thing anyway. It's not like the garden is super private, either." I paused, my brows coming together as I regarded him. "Did you want to get found, or something?"

His ears flattened against his skull again, his fingers tightening against mine. "I'll trade for that answer," Dain said, still with roughness in his voice.

"Fair enough," I replied. "Ask."

"Why are you being kind to me about this?" He didn't look at me as he asked, staring out at the water, but I thought that had more to do with not wanting to see my expression than anything casual.

I had to ponder that question for a moment. He'd been shitty to me at dinner, then creepily glared at me for hours from his throne while I danced, then vanished to fuck a woman in the garden with a pretty high likelihood of someone seeing them there, or at least putting the pieces together as to what he'd been up to. At the very least, he'd been courting gossip and the opinion of the Court trending towards thinking we were in opposition. On the more extreme end of things, he might actually have been doing it to be cruel to me.

"It seems like the friendly thing to do," I said at last, deciding not to mention jealousy, which would only give him the wrong idea about things. "You're unhappy in a way you're not usually unhappy, so I'm being nice about it."

The corner of Dain's mouth twitched back, and he sighed, some of the tension going out of his shoulders. "You were unkind to me at the banquet, and you didn't once come to speak to me at the revel. I was angry and upset, and I wanted something that would... feel good."

I decided not to point out that he'd started out the exchange of unkindnesses. It didn't seem like it would be that useful at this particular junction. "Well, I'm talking to you now," I said instead. "Since you didn't have a great garden time, is there something else that would feel good?"

Dain was silent for a while, but at last he took a deep breath and sighed it out. Without looking at me, he asked, "If I put my head in your lap, will you pet my hair?"