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)
I opened them.
His tongue slipped inside.
All right.
It was just marvelous.
I melted into him, wrapping my arms around him as our tongues danced and Mars held my head at the back, and with an arm about me, pulled me deeper into his frame.
He broke our kiss all too soon, lifted away and kissed my nose.
“Until dinner, my Silence, and after,” he murmured.
After.
More kissing.
Again, marvelous.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His gaze went soft, he tucked my hand in his elbow and led me out of the room.
He handed me to Kyril with the order, “Escort her to the garden bath.”
Kyril took my hand as Mars offered it and then I was tucked at his elbow.
I looked back to see Lorenz approach Mars before he went into the meeting room.
“You meet Farah?” Kyril asked, and I turned to face where we were heading.
“Yes. And Ha-Lah. And perhaps later, Elena, Hera and Jasmine.”
“Ah, to be at the baths with the loveliest females in the palace instead of loitering in the halls, doing nothing,” Kyril murmured teasingly.
I took a chance, what with my newfound friends, being in a place where it seemed everyone liked me.
And the chance I took was to tease him in return.
“Just to say, if you were to wish to offer Jasmine a private session, I do not know her well, but what I know, she would not be averse to this.”
“And which is she?”
“Elena’s lieutenant with the brown hair.”
“An introduction is in order at dinner,” he proclaimed instantly, and I giggled.
“I’ll see to that.”
“Much obliged, my future queen,” he replied, grinning down at me.
He then led me to the pool with the same kind of teasing, sweet banter the whole way.
It was lovely.
He was lovely.
And if anyone harmed me, my future husband would burn down an entire country.
I should find this frightening.
I did not.
I found it utterly marvelous.
King Mars Laches
First Floor, West Corridor, State Wing, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
“Have you heard of this happening before, Mars?” Lorenz asked him.
“Never,” Mars murmured, staring at a space over his general’s shoulder.
“I’ve not either.”
Mars looked to his man. “This is not a ruse? Something to earn your pity? Lower your defenses?”
“The state of his wounds, I cannot believe it to be,” Lorenz replied. “I’ve seen the results of a lash. I’ve wielded a lash. I’ve never seen anything the like. He had to be in agony.”
This made no sense.
“The Go’Doan do not punish their priests as such. It is usually counseling, and if the transgressions carry on and are insurmountable or untenable, expulsion. Corporal punishment is abhorred by that religion.”
“This is also my understanding,” Lorenz agreed. “Though he said it was as such for the worst of transgressions. But in all he said, that was the only time I knew he was lying.”
“Then you cannot trust him,” Mars remarked. “You play him, even if this is extreme, he may have understood your intent and be playing you.”
“I won’t trust him, for the now, but you must know, Nyx does. She wants to keep him.”
Mars lifted a brow.
Nyx was less trusting than Lorenz. She suffered no fools. And the burning walls around Fire City would blink out before she was taken in by a deception.
“She felt his arrogance at the Tebes was immaturity and bravado,” Lorenz explained. “She’s had a soft spot for him since. She is the one who sensed he would enjoy the play we introduced. And he does. But today…” He shook his head. “Mars, I cannot stand here and tell you the man with those injuries, the manner in which he responded to a kindness that anyone would pay him in his state, is playing at anything.”
“Do not let your guard down,” Mars warned.
“Agreed,” Lorenz stated. “But my king, one thing seemed clear. Someone in the Go’Doan did this to him. Therefore, something is afoot. Or someone is going rogue.”
“And he might be a part of it,” Mars noted.
“My beloved will not wish to deceive him. She’s taken him under her wing.”
Mars sighed.
And if Nyx gave you her loyalty, she’d die to it.
“And you?” Mars asked and watched his warrior’s face get hard.
“You did not see what I saw. You did not feel his fear when Nyx demanded an investigation. He is in my home, sleeping off a draught after a session with Saturn and Faunus. And this is where Nyx intends him to stay, and I as well for I cannot imagine anyone with a good heart sending him back to face a repeat. Or worse. And this has naught to do with my wife and I enjoying his arse. At what I saw today, something calls to me about the man. I think there’s something to him and I think, if he’s given what he appears never to have had, it would be he who returns our kindness. I just don’t know how that would come to be.”