So, for that purpose only, necessarily, it is a man.”
“You intend to…make a sexual slave of my sister?”
“Yes.”
“My sister? The one who shared her brand of sociability with us the other night. Princess Serena of the Nadirii.”
His lips quirked before he repeated, “Yes.”
“You do know this is impossible,” I shared.
“I don’t know this, as he’s had her once, the night before last, and since, she’s approached him five times, and sent two notes demanding he attend her.”
“By the goddess,” I whispered, my vision going vague in shock.
“Yes,” he agreed, his voice richer with amusement in a way it made me focus on him to see he was smiling.
“Seven requests in but a day?” I queried.
“There is a good possibility he will wake this morn, if he hasn’t already, to her pounding on his door.”
I stared into the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen, not just the color, which was transcendent, but the shape as well as the thickness and length of his dark lashes.
And then I clutched his shirt tighter as my head fell back and I burst with laughter.
Still doing it, I righted my head, let go of his shirt and grabbed his muscled neck momentarily for balance in order that I didn’t topple over with hilarity. Once I managed that, I released it to press my hand into his chest over his heart, all the while talking.
Or stammering.
But actually, babbling.
“I shouldn’t…it’s unkind…she’s my sister…my loyalty should lie with…but I can’t help myself.” I drew in a big breath and let it out, still laughing. “She can be very irksome. And I was most angry with her when she engaged in these very loud hedonistic activities at the camp when Dora could hear. And Dora was upset by them. And then, before the parade…”
I trailed off.
Focused again on his eyes.
And gulped.
I was taught to fear nothing but my own missteps, which, if I used my mind prior to making them, I could circumvent or at the very least learn never to make them again.
But I feared what I saw right then.
Even as I was drawn to it.
Inescapably.
His eyes were no longer sky-blue.
They were midnight.
And at their epicenter, instead of a black pupil, they glittered like stars.
And when he spoke, his voice was…
Animal.
“She engaged…in these activities…close to Theodora?”
“Y-yes,” I whispered.
“And Theodora heard.”
I felt his heart thumping a strong tattoo under my hand and I pressed there, what I hoped was soothingly.
“I had words with her,” I promised. “With both of them. And Dora is fine now. She has me, but she also has much support. My mother is overtly fond of her. Melisse dotes on her. Hera and Jasmine are like adoring aunties.”
When his eyes did not change, I leaned closer and kept speaking.
“Cassius, she’s a strong girl. She’s smart. So very bright. And she knows she’s loved. She’s all right.”
“She knows she’s loved.”
“Very much so.”
“Not of your blood.”
At his words, I ceased speaking.
Cassius’s midnight-starred eyes dropped to my mouth.
I would reflect on it, at length, after it was over.
But even when I did, I knew I would never be able to ascertain if it was he who took my mouth.
Or me who took his.
For it seemed in one moment, our mouths were several inches from the other’s, with me cross-legged and him crouching at my side.
And the next, our mouths were locked, his tongue was inside mine, demanding, so demanding as to be commanding, and I was pushing up toward him, my hand at his heart sliding up to the back of his neck, my other hand cupping the back of his head to hold him to me.
The next I was on my back with his weight heavy on me, his hands spreading heat all over my body.
With a need that was undeniable, a need to discover his heat, I tore his leather shirt free of his trousers and shoved my hands inside, feeling the fiery, taut silk of his back, digging my nails in.
He growled down my throat.
Taking it, I moaned down his.
His hand closed on my breast over my tunic, his thumb dragging hard against my stiffened nipple, forcing me to tear my mouth free and gasp at the pleasure, my neck arching.
I then felt the enchanting prickle of his beard, his firm lips at my throat, along my neck, as he dragged his thumb back.
I dipped my chin and said like a plea, “Cassius.”
He heeded my plea, lifting his head and taking my mouth again.
I dragged my nails up his back.
His hand left my breast and