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)
Silence blinked at Basil.
Mars looked to the ceiling.
“Dellish take arse, they just don’t talk about it,” Chu muttered, and Mars wrested his eyes from the ceiling and shot him a meaningful stare.
Chu grinned at him but spoke no more.
“Well, I, erm, hope you find the but one, um…male you like and adopt many orphans,” Silence bid gamely, and Mars was forced to swallow laughter.
Though he did not stop himself from feeling the beginnings of pride.
The Dellish were known prudes.
This had been a concern before he met her, and then after he did with her attire, her stated inexperience, in times her manner.
Mars was glad to feel this concern fading.
“He’s already found many he likes, many,” Guard murmured.
Silence ignored this, and without hesitation offered a bow and her hand, and Basil took it, pressing it to heart and gut.
Mars led her to the next. “And Kyril, husband to no one, father also probably to many, my other rear flank.”
“My future queen,” Kyril said, sweeping her hand up to his lips while doing a deep bow before rising and pressing it to his heart and gut.
When he released her, Mars asked casually, “You’d like your head still attached to your neck tomorrow, no?”
Kyril grinned at him.
Mars ignored it and turned his bride to the fullness of line.
“These are the Trusted Ones,” he told her. “Is this something you understand?”
She tilted her silver eyes from the line of his men up to him.
“I think so,” she replied.
She did not.
“They are the Trusted Ones, Silence,” he stated again. “Each Firenz king has them. They are trusted by me, and now you, in all things.” He pressed his hand into the soft, warm skin of her back (for he had found, the ribbons of red led down to a waistband, exposing a strip of flesh that fell lower than her front, and the gold dangled all the way down her spine). “In all things, piccolina,” he stressed. “Once you are my wife, they would lay down their lives for you.”
There was a slight widening of her eyes, a brief nod, and she turned her attention again to his men, putting her hand to her chest.
“It is good to know you,” she declared.
Simple words stated in a way she made clear she meant them.
That was when she received deep bows from the Trusted.
It was now done.
Therefore, it was time for the procession.
As he was moving to lead her out the door, he noted she slid her hand over the material at her chest, seeming to be trying to adjust it to more fully cover the curve of her breast before she noted his eyes on her movements and her hand fell away.
He took her other one, lifted it to the side of his chest and moved her out into the night.
They were to walk by Cassius on Caelus, his black steed as they made their way to the front of the large procession of men and women all of whom were already seated on horseback.
“Are you ready for tonight, my friend?” he asked Cassius as they passed.
“No,” Cassius grunted, and he regularly looked ready for most anything, but now he looked ready for only one thing.
To kill something.
“Perhaps it won’t be as bad as you think,” Mars suggested.
Cassius’s gaze slid to Silence before it moved back to Mars, but he made no answer.
Mars smiled at him and strode to the front of the group, finding he had to slow his gait and adjust his long strides for his little one’s shorter legs.
This he did.
He made it to the Firenz bay he’d selected personally for her and was pleased to see she did not hide her delight in the fineness of the horse he presented to her.
Then she started to emit a surprised cry, something she quickly swallowed, when he lifted her into her side saddle.
That done, he swung up on Hephaestus, his own steed, as his men took their saddles.
Once mounted, the Trusted Ones assumed their positions: Lorenz at front, Chu at his left, Guard at Silence’s right, Basil and Kyril behind him.
And the procession began.
They’d barely cleared the curve around the fountain in front of the palace when he noted his bride fidgeting.
He looked her way to see her hand was again at the material at her chest.
“It covers you,” he told her, then decided to add, “And it’s becoming.”
“Mm,” she murmured, quickly dropping her hand.
He studied her fully and remarked, “You sit a horse well.”
“I’m not an out-of-doors woman,” she replied.
This he did not like because he was an out-of-doors man. And an inside-doors man. And an in-his-bedchambers-with-a-woman man.
And he’d wish his wife as rounded in her pursuits as he.
“Though I like to ride,” she carried on.
At least there was that.
“And garden,” she said.
And that, though he did not do this, it was good she did.