was her idea?”
“Of course,” I tell her. “I would never…”
She nods briskly. “What does she want?”
“She is a lowly maid. She wants a bump in status to be one of your ladies-in-waiting.” I lean on the pole, trying not to go to her. She isn’t ready yet.
“I see,” she murmurs. “Does she have a name?”
I shake my head. “I’m not giving that to you,” I say. “She doesn’t deserve to have you know her name.”
“Why didn’t you just come to me about this?” she asks the inevitable question. “If you’d explained it, I’d have understood. I do understand.”
“Because I didn’t want you to feel disgusted with me. I didn’t want to see the look on your face when you looked at me a few moments ago. It devastates me.”
“Oh, Jerrick,” she says with a sigh and comes to me.
Now I wrap my arms around her, she needs it and I need it more than anything. “I love you, Princess.”
“You must think I’m so naïve,” she whispers.
“No,” I say firmly, shaking my head and taking her face in my hands. “You are perfect. I am an animal who doesn’t deserve you.”
“I suppose this hasn’t been either of our finest hours, but we have come through this,” she says. “No more secrets. Is there anything else I need to know?”
I don’t want to, but I have to. Rook saw it. If I don’t tell her and she finds out, that conversation won’t go as well as this one has.
“When Rook saw us earlier, she’d caught me by surprise. She had her hand in my pants,” I say in a rush and watch as Savvie’s cheeks go red with anger.
“She touched you?” she hisses.
“Only for a second and if Rook hadn’t come upon us, I would have removed her hand in the next millisecond. I can assure you, Savannah. It was nothing but her trying to get to me.”
“She touched your cock?” she thunders at me.
Quite literally.
I look up to see a storm of epic proportion gathering rapidly. The thunder claps right above us, lighting strikes, narrowly missing me and frying the training pole. The rain lashes down, soaking us, before it turns to ice and beats our skin mercilessly.
“Give. Me. Her. Name,” she spits out.
I chuckle and relax. She isn’t pissed at me at all, but at Letisha. I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes right now.
“No, Princess,” I say soothingly, taking her hands and lacing our fingers together. “It was nothing but a desperate attempt by a desperate woman.”
I see her grit her teeth, but then her temper gets directed at me. “You are protecting her from me?” she snarls.
“What?” I ask incredulously. “Are you kidding, Princess? I would like nothing else but to see you kick her ass all over this Kingdom, but I don’t want you associating with her and taking her on.”
She gives me a small smile and regains control of her temper. “I suppose now that you’ve told me this and I will not be promoting her, she will come to me with these tales. I can wait.”
She gives me a triumphant look and pulls away from me, stalking off, expecting me to chase her down.
I do.
I fucking do and grab her, taking her in my arms and kissing her.
“I love you,” I murmur.
“I love you, my fearsome warrior,” she whispers, stroking my face. “But if another woman ever gets her hands on your cock again, no matter what the circumstances, I will flay her until she can’t stand up and then sentence her to death by my own hand.”
I gulp as I think she is being deadly serious. The intensity that is coming off her, scares me and I make a joke to break the tension, “Good thing that isn’t going to happen then.”
She gives me a slow smile, letting me know without a doubt that she meant every word of it. I allow myself to probe into her feelings further, telling myself it is for her own good.
I rear back as if struck in the chest by a bolt of lightning.
She shoved me out.
She knew what I was doing, and she shoved me out. She shouldn’t know, how could she possibly know? The empathic abilities are non-invasive and subtle.
“If you want to know something, ask,” she says sternly, but taking my hand in hers gently in contrast.
I push my worry for her aside for just a moment as I smile. “My apologies, my Queen,” I murmur.
“Think no more of it,” she says, but I