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 need more wine,” Mac muttered.
“Amen to that,” Otho agreed.
“Serena, go see to the sisters,” Ophelia ordered. “They camp in a garden not far from here that King Mars has offered for our use. I’d like to know they’re settling.”
Her daughter glared at her, turned her glare to Cass and his men, she shifted it to her sister, and then she turned on her foot and strode away.
Cassius felt his arm brushed.
He looked to his left and saw Hadrian there. His man widened his eyes at Cass then turned them to Elena with a jerk of his chin.
Cass looked to his intended.
She was bent to her mother.
“I’ll go check on Dora,” she said softly in her lyrical voice.
“I think, daughter—” Ophelia started.
Elena spoke over her. “I’ll see you in camp.”
“You’re sleeping at the palace, Elena,” Ophelia reminded her.
“I’ll join you there tomorrow,” Elena refuted.
Before Ophelia could say more, Elena turned to leave.
She took four steps away, winding through bodies, before Cassius shoved his glass at Ian, who took it, and he followed her.
“Elena,” he called.
She was not far away, so she was sure to have heard him, but she made no indication she did.
“Elena,” he repeated, closing in and reaching out a hand.
He caught hers and she stopped dead, turning to him and tipping her head back to look up at him with eyes now not violet.
They were brilliant amethyst.
It took him a moment to adjust to their luster, and as he did this, he was unaware his fingers squeezed hers.
The moment he’d accomplished that feat, he murmured, “We should talk.”
“I think, for now, the words of your father and your men are all I wish to hear,” she replied.
“I don’t agree,” he returned.
“That’s funny,” she stated, purposefully misinterpreting him. “Considering you moved to stand by your father’s side and didn’t make that clear when he and they were speaking. In fact, you were quite silent on all subjects.”
He was.
Though she could not be aware that he’d learned over the years it was most often not worth the energy expended to say much to his father.
Or the fact a few of his men seemed to wish to act like lads until their dying breath.
No, she was not aware of this.
And apparently, with the pressure she was using to pull her hand from his, she was also not going to give him the opportunity to explain.
“Elena—” he growled.
With a forceful wrench, she tugged her fingers from his grip, took a step back, but that was all before she dipped her chin deep into her neck in a sardonic bow, and raised her head.
“Until the morrow, my prince,” she whispered, turned, and pressed through the bodies surrounding her.
Cassius watched her go.
“That did not go very well, my friend,” he heard Mars remark at his side.
Cass turned to his Firenz brother. “I note you didn’t enter the fray.”
Mars’s lips were twitching as his head was shaking. “Since we were boys, you made it clear you preferred to fight your own battles.”
“Perhaps,” Cassius allowed. “When I was twelve and my father sent me to your father to train in Firenz tactics and every bully in the regiment wanted to take the Airenzian prince down a peg. And thus the Firenz prince coming to his aid would not have assisted in him making the point that needed made,” Cassius rejoined. “This, my brother, is another matter altogether.”
“Are you saying it’s one you cannot best?” Mars asked incredulously.
“We all were not allied with winsome waifs with silver eyes we could set about charming or voluptuous beauties with sorrowful souls we could engage in healing,” Cassius noted.
Mars sounded amused when he said, “Sadly for you, this is correct.”
Cassius turned his head and watched as Elena abruptly stopped several feet from the flaps at the other end of the tent.
And his gut burned when he saw what stopped her.
Prince True was standing close, his dark head tipped to Cassius’s betrothed, his face a mask of concern.
“Steady, friend,” Mars rumbled low, no humor in his tone now when True lifted a hand and curled it around the side of Elena’s neck.
Fortunately, his intended shook her head with agitation, raised her hand but briefly to squeeze True’s wrist, but also to remove it from her person, and then she was off, disappearing through the flaps of the tent.
True watched her go.
As did Cass.
“He’s growing to care much for Farah,” Mars said, his tone now conciliatory.
Cass turned to his friend.
“This is good,” he retorted. “In the meantime, either you tell him, or I will. If he puts his hand on my future wife again, he’ll still have that hand, but it’ll be cut from his wrist and shoved up his arse.”
He waited only long enough to watch a muscle jump along Mars’s bearded cheek as the Firenz king clenched his teeth to beat back laughter.