Once all business was handled now he was the one flirting. "Okay."
Damali almost laughed out loud as an occasional blue arc would creep across his armor, discharging static as they leisurely strolled down a palm-lined boulevard. Cain seemed like an excited teenager, and she could almost feel his energy quickening her pace as his anticipation built. She glimpsed his strong, proud profile from the corner of her eye. How in the world did she wind up in the company of a king, she wondered?
But as they passed a huge, glass pyramid structure that had blocked her view, she simply stopped walking and stared.
"Oh, my God . . ."
"You like it?" he asked, unable to stop beaming at her.
She shook her head and blew out a long whistle, then censured herself as the sound with vibration made him briefly close his eyes. "It's amazing," she said, recovering quickly. And it was.
A glistening white, monumental seven-columned structure sat on a slight rise with a three-block-long promenade of majestic palms before it. Above the main entrance was a carved relief of the disc of Heru, with the blade of Asuar. On one huge golden door a winged falcon was fused with a double sun, and the same symbols she'd seen on his sword inscribed into the metal. On the other was the feather of Ma'at with the forty-two laws written in the ancient language. Six white stone lions, three per side, guarded the doorway. She watched Cain snap, the lions come to life, purr and fawn at his passage as he guided her up what had to be three hundred steps, and then find their perches again to once more become stone.
With a gentle shove, the several-ton doors opened, perfectly weight-balanced. In the grand portico, they stood on a mosaic-strewn tile floor of opalescent white fused together with silver and gold mortar. She could look down what had to be a thousand steps to an azure-surfaced pool studded by indoor palms and benches that terminated with what seemed to be a parliamentary galley facing a marble podium and an ornately carved white marble judge's chair.
"Whew," she whispered. "You guys don't mess around on this side, do you? Talk about taking things to the max."
"The rest of it is behind the main court. Very similar to the smaller design that Solomon employed once he understood the architectural dynamics."
"Solomon based his temple on yours?"
"All the great architecture is based on ours," Cain said, seeming slightly offended. She swallowed another smile and briefly thought of Carlos. If he'd seen this, then her man was definitely not all right. "Are you sure that you don't have Carlos locked away in a dungeon somewhere?" she asked, half-joking. "I know how he can be, and he might not have taken any of this well."
Cain chuckled and sighed. "Put your hands out before you. Sense for him here. Do you pick up any physical distress?"
Damali cast Cain a sidelong look and began sensing. It wasn't physical distress that concerned her.
"No," she finally said. "But I just don't see him coming here under battle bulk conditions, getting tired, chilling, and then saying see ya later. I am worried about him." She sheathed her blade and placed her hands on her hips. "Wanna tell me what really happened when you guys hit the pavement on this side of the world?"
"I really do not," Cain said with a sly grin. "But I will relent. We will save the tour of the palace for your next visit, should you honor me again." He touched her hair and allowed his hand to fall away. "I should take you back to the cliff dwelling, before I forget why you came here."
On that note, she decided it was best to keep any further questions to herself for the moment. The air had charged around them again, and she had to stay on mission.
It was all in the way he turned slowly, rolled his neck as though he was talking to himself hard inside his head, took a deep breath, and began walking. The erotic charge he left in his wake stripped the air from her lungs for a few seconds, and only then did her feet heed the command of her brain to begin moving.
"I should take you back up," he said calmly once they'd reached the base of the mountain. "You have been here a while and your energy is starting to wane. I can feel it."