Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Oh goddess.
There was nothing for it and not just the part where there really wasn’t.
The part where he clearly wished to meet her in order to know her.
“When you’re not engaged with meetings,” I decided. “And we’re not engaged with attending royal weddings. When you have time for her and I have time to see to her and assess how she feels about it after you do.”
“The day after the wedding. Mars will be occupied. No meetings will happen.”
I considered this.
He gave me a shake.
“Elena? Do we have another bargain?”
I couldn’t escape it.
Nor could I protect Dora from it.
Though, with the way he reacted simply to her as a child hearing my sister doing adult things, I was beginning to wonder if I needed to.
“We have a bargain,” I agreed.
“Good,” he murmured, bent, brushed his lips along one of my eyebrows (which felt warming).
After that, he moved us both, adjusting me to my bottom on my rug before he took his feet.
He stared down at me. “I hope we can dine together, but matters are weighty, so that might not be possible.”
Matters were weighty?
How could matters be weighty?
The Beast was rising.
That was weighty, the weightiest, but everyone knew about that.
We were all coming together to quell the Beast.
Alliances were forming because of it.
History was being made.
How was that weighty in a way that he’d miss dinner?
Again.
Not that I pined for him last night. Though his absence was noted, as were all the princes and kings.
Oh, who was I fooling?
I’d just climaxed for him on a rug in a palace garden. My first climax that wasn’t given to me by, well…me.
It wasn’t pining, but it was…something.
He broke into my thoughts and when he did, I felt my cheeks heating.
“At the very least, I’ll see you as I escort you to the wedding. Though I should hope to see you before.”
I nodded up to him.
“Enjoy your day, my princess.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
His eyes grinned even if his mouth didn’t (he’d noted my cheeks had warmed) and he turned to walk away.
He’d taken three steps when I called, “Cassius.”
He turned back to me, his brows raised.
“Don’t be too hard on Serena.”
He tipped his head to the side, considered me a moment, then replied, “We shall see.”
And with that, my prince walked away.
28
The Courtship
Queen Ha-Lah Nereus
Guest Suite, Second Floor, East Corridor, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
I sat cross-legged on the bed as my husband moved around the room.
I was annoyed.
But I did not share this with him in any way for he was talking and what he was saying should not make me annoyed, but instead concerned, relieved, and in part, joyous.
The problem was, my husband had started courting me.
And that was all well and good.
In fact, it was extraordinary.
Not to mention the way he was going about it was very sweet.
But now we were getting along.
Communicating.
A great deal.
He knew all about the fishing village from where I came.
How my mother caught a chill when I was thirteen and had died alarmingly quickly.
How my father was a seaman which meant he was away most of the time thus I was raised by my auntie, his sister, a woman I loved and considered my second mother.
How my father never really recovered from the loss of his beloved wife, who I looked much like, and thus he didn’t often spend time with me even if he was ashore.
I’d also told him how my grandfather was a smuggler, his territory: The Mystics, and sometimes the Northlands. He’d died to these activities, somewhere in The Mystics. One of his sailors finding his way home years later to tell the tale.
And I’d told him how my grandmother was like my mother, a great beauty. So much so, my grandfather had hidden her away and taken her on his ship before he wed her, so she would not come to the attention of the king.
Aramus knew my auntie made very good fishing nets.
He further knew I preferred coffee to tea in the morning. Ale to wine, if I wasn’t eating, for then I preferred wine.
And that I still had two crates of smuggled rum my grandfather had left behind. And, outside my clothes and some other personal belongings, because my grandmother had guarded these because they were of her beloved husband, and my mother had guarded them because they were of her beloved father, these were the only things I brought to his castle for now I guarded them too.
We had also discussed at length what was happening between Cassius and Elena. Mars and Silence. And what didn’t seem to be happening between True and Farah (even though it did, just in a friendly fashion—not exactly a love match were those two).
I had shared with him in some detail the piercing ceremony.
Indeed, my husband could (and did) lie for hours beside me, asking me questions and listening to me speak.