For a moment, Tang felt as though he were a child again, hiding under the covers with some dirty reading. Just as he was about to make a determined charge at his pillow, a family member opened his bedroom door.
Their eyes met. His family member stared at his exposed backside, and the heat inside him wilted instantly under the weight of embarrassment.
Tang abandoned the thought entirely. He rolled his eyes and said:
"If you knew, did you have to say it?"
"Was I supposed to watch without warning you?"
Nightingale rolled her eyes back at him in challenge. Then she stuck out her tongue and said mockingly,
"You surface people talk every day about how open we Drow are. From what I've seen, you're hardly any different. We're just open about it, while you hide it."
The expression lasted only a second, but Tang caught it. She had done it on purpose to toy with him.
If he showed any embarrassment now, she would only mock him more.
So Tang leaned back in the shallows and submerged his body to cool the restlessness stirring inside him.
"Hmm... From a certain angle, you're right."
"I thought you'd argue." Nightingale looked surprised.
"I was going to. But just as I was about to say, 'Humans aren't as sordid as you think,' I remembered reports of nobles forcing themselves on commoner mothers and daughters. Some even went after their own daughters."
"I never heard about that in Dragon Gold City." Nightingale had spent some time there while hunting Night Wind.
"I'm talking about the Tyron Empire, of course. That's where I came from."
"Interesting. So that empire's nobles are like us Drow?"
"I'll take that as you flattering them."
"They're that bad?"
Tang recalled what he had seen during his early