Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
As he had on earlier occasions, he shared his wisdom.
Wisdom learned from his time with his dead wife.
The problem with this was that I was not his dead wife and what he’d learned in his time with her didn’t necessarily hold true with me.
“Between a man and woman, both need to take responsibility when things are not going well.”
“Yes, and when one does just that, even if she’s uncertain she actually should, the other should listen and not drive her into the night to commune alone with pixies.”
Cassius had no reply to that.
And it could be argued I ruined my clever statement by going on to mutter, “Though I wasn’t alone, I had Jasmine. Still. I think you understand my point.”
“I do indeed, Elena.”
“Good,” I replied. “Now will you slide off?”
He did not slide off.
“Cassius,” I prompted, lifting my hips a little to further communicate my request.
His response was to cup my jaw in his hand and murmur, “Cease doing that, lamb, it’s stirring.”
I grew very still to the point I wasn’t breathing.
I forced myself to breathe.
But that was it.
That said, the breath came uneasy, especially when his thumb started to stroke the edge of my bottom lip.
He was right.
Stirring.
I took it, liking it too much, confused by how much I liked it considering the state of play between us, and just when I was about to say something to stop it because I couldn’t bear it any longer without doing something about it that I might regret, he spoke.
“I’ll send a bird to Queen Ophelia tomorrow, informing her of our visit.”
I stared up at him through the dark.
He continued to stroke my lip, though it was no longer stirring.
Had he been present at all that night for either of our conversations?
Most precisely the parts about him making decisions without my consent?
“I’ll tell Mars and True in the morning,” he carried on making decisions. “Hera and Jasmine will ride with us, as will Mac and Ian. I’ll have to leave the rest of my men behind to make certain my father doesn’t do anything foolish while I’m away. But three Nadirii warriors and three Airen soldiers won’t have any trouble. Not in Wodell.”
Now I was not only breathing, I was deep breathing to control my anger.
“Bonus, you and I will have time to get to know one another much better without so many distractions. And you’ll have opportunities to have some time to yourself, which I sense is important to you. Last, by the time we arrive, Aelia very likely might be there and I’m eager to see her as I miss her.”
That first, I wasn’t sure I hoped for any longer.
The second might be considerate.
And the last was sweet.
But…
In order to perhaps not shout the tent down around us, something he didn’t like, but mostly something I didn’t have the energy to do at that time, I focused on something else.
“You’re thinking Mother will allow three Airenzian men into The Enchantments?”
“Yes.”
“Cassius—”
I ceased speaking and his thumb ceased stroking, both as he pressed his lips hard to mine.
I pressed my head hard to the pillow.
He didn’t seem to notice and ended the kiss with a wet, delicious swipe of his tongue along the crease of my mouth that made me wonder why I was pushing my head into the pillow.
Only then did he slide off, turn me to my side and press into me along my back, cocking my knees with his own.
I lay still in his arm and the curve of his body and stared into the dark.
Cassius settled in closer and settled me in closer by nestling me deeper into his frame using his arm about my belly.
One thing in that moment I knew for certain.
This, he and I, were not working.
“I should have gone to see the pixies with you,” he whispered into my hair and burrowed even further into my back at the same time nuzzling my hair with his face. “I regret I did not.”
Oh goddess.
And wasn’t that just the crux of it?
For I would make up my mind that it wasn’t working between us.
Then Cassius would say something like that, and say it holding me like that, snuggling me like that.
And then I’d think that it could.
47
The Plan
Farah
Fifty Miles Inside the Southern Border
WODELL
True woke me with his movements.
I lay, staring into the dark, as he turned from me, and in his sleep—as he had done four times before (not including this time, this made five, and I was most assuredly counting)—he moved agitatedly.
Very agitatedly
But unconsciously.
As he had promised, we went to bed together every night since the night after my mother had been killed.
And as he had promised, in the days, he was the strong one, allowing me to be weak.
This included, after my mother’s funeral…
After her body had been treated, she had been shrouded and I had laid her favorite things about her slab.