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)
“My father did not like that I liked…”
“Men?” Lorenz guessed.
Tedrey nodded.
“A peculiar Dellish trait,” Lorenz murmured.
“I was…I was very…” He cleared his throat. “I did not know how to be around people who did not take extreme issue with this.”
“The Go’Doan,” Lorenz stated.
Tedrey again nodded. “They…having that freedom to be who I was and be with who I wished, I was seduced by that religion.”
“Religion is not seductive,” Lorenz returned. “It’s faith. Faith, at its heart, is pure. It is man who led you down the wrong path. Beware of laying blame on the gods, no matter which gods they are, for the actions of men, or your own. Only you are responsible for what you do and the same for any man or woman.”
Tedrey stood still, struck so deeply by these words, he could not move.
“I ask one thing of this Rising,” Lorenz went on, but his question was vocalized as a statement. “It is not all of the Go’Doan, is it.”
Tedrey shook his head.
Lorenz nodded and continued speaking.
“Now I ask one thing of you, Tedrey. That you go speak to my wife and share some things with her I do not know for if she knows we have had this talk and she was not the one who reached you for you to offer what is in your heart, she will pout or fume and we cannot make a baby if she’s pouting or fuming.”
For a moment, Tedrey could do nothing but blink at him.
When he saw Lorenz’s mouth quirking, Tedrey then could do nothing but smile.
Lorenz smiled back.
Then Tedrey dipped his chin at his friend.
And went in search of Nyx.
55
The Patra
Princess Elena
One Hundred Miles from The Northwest Border of The Enchantments
WODELL
We sat around the campfire with me glaring at Cassius’s back, considering the fact that I’d seen a lot of it the last three days.
The man had a fine set of shoulders and an alluring arse, but I was sick of that view.
He was walking into the wood, something he did of an eve every eve since we left the others.
The first night he’d gone with Mac, but Mac had returned without him.
The second night, he’d gone with both his men, and together his men had returned without him.
Neither night had he come to my tent when he’d come back.
He had promised, from that first night he joined me in my chamber at Catrame Palace, we would never sleep apart.
I had not desired this.
We were now sleeping apart.
And I did not like it and not simply because, without Cassius beside me, sleep was difficult to find, and it was restless when I finally caught it.
Further, if we stopped for lunch, he would walk away from the rest of us to enjoy his repast on his own. Or, more accurately, brood over his meal by himself.
And at breakfast, he appeared last, wolfed down some bread slathered in butter and jam, packed his horse, mounted the great steed (for Caelus was beautiful, and he had to be eighteen hands tall!), set his heels into Caelus’s sides and we all had to race to catch up to him.
I could tell, at first, Mac and Ian were confused at his behavior.
After their return from their wander with their prince, this had melted into annoyance.
I’d started at annoyance.
Now I felt the beginnings of fear.
He was not being a cad or a lout. He was also not amusing or his brand of charming. He was further not attentive, not in the slightest.
He was not anything.
I wasn’t certain our trip to The Enchantments was a good idea in the beginning. But I’d come to realize I was looking forward to it.
It would be a time where it was just him and me, riding through the beauty of Dellish forests in autumn, getting to know one another. Then being in my home, having the opportunity to show him my home, not to mention meet his daughter, and finally introduce him to Dora.
All right, it was just him and me, and Hera, Jazz, Rosehana, Mac and Ian.
But getting to know his men, and Cassius getting to know my women, was another form of getting to know one another.
And when he wasn’t being annoying, I’d stopped denying to myself that I thought he was fascinating (and I’d found I liked his men—Mac was a scamp, wicked and mischievous, but almost always fun to be around, Ian was thoughtful and soft spoken—these traits oddly, but I found it very telling, mirroring Jasmine and Hera).
Further, Cassius was always attractive.
And I wanted more.
But now…he was nothing.
There but far away.
Distant from even his men.
But mostly, distant from me.
“So, what’s up his arse?” Jazz demanded to know, her attention directed at Mac and Ian.
“Jazz,” Hera said quietly.
Jasmine, being Jasmine, did not even glance at Hera.
Her gaze remained pinned on Cassius’s men.
“I mean…now. What’s up his arse now since it seems something is always up his arse?” Jazz amended.