Not that I needed to think about that at the moment. I shifted my stance, widening my legs as I frowned. For fuck’s sake, her talking about kissing, and me thinking about what had honestly been very tame activities, shouldn’t be getting me hard.
“Oh, my gods, Poppy,” Tawny said after a few moments. “I so wish you’d stayed.”
“Tawny,” she said with a sigh.
“What? You can’t say you don’t wish you’d stayed. Not just a little bit.”
I tilted my head again, waiting…and waiting.
“I bet you wouldn’t be a maiden any longer if you had,” Tawny remarked.
No, she would still be one. I wouldn’t have crossed that line in a godsdamn brothel. I wouldn’t have crossed that line with her anywhere.
“Tawny!” I heard her shock and my lips twitched.
“What?” Tawny laughed. “I’m kidding, but I bet you’d barely be a maiden,” she added, and yeah, she would’ve barely been that. “Tell me, did you…enjoy it? The kissing?”
“Yes,” came the almost-too-quiet-to-hear reply. “I did.”
I knew that, but I still smiled.
“Then why are you so upset that he’s your guard?” Tawny asked.
“Why?” Disbelief dimmed the Maiden’s voice. “Your hormones must be clouding your rational thought.”
“My hormones are always clouding my rational thought, thank you very much.”
I chuckled under my breath.
“He’s going to recognize me,” the Maiden said. “He has to once he hears me speak, right?”
Too late for those concerns.
“I imagine,” her friend replied.
“What if he goes to the Duke and tells him that I was at the Red Pearl?” the Maiden wondered, clearly worried, but she didn’t need to be. “That I…allowed him to kiss me? He has to be one of the youngest Royal Guards, if not the youngest. It’s clear he’s interested in advancement, and what better way to secure that than to gain the Duke’s favor? You know how his favorite guards or staff are treated! They’re practically treated better than those on the Court.”
That was the utter last thing she had to worry about when it came to me.
“I don’t think he has an interest in gaining His Grace’s favor,” Tawny argued. “He said you were beautiful.”
“I’m sure he was just being kind.”
My eyes narrowed. I was not. It was one of the rare times I’d been telling the truth since I returned to this shithole kingdom. She was stunning.
“First off,” Tawny began, “you are beautiful. You know that—”
“I’m not saying that to fish for compliments.”
“I know, but I felt the overwhelming need to remind you of such,” Tawny countered, and I was glad she did. “He didn’t have to say anything in response to the Duke being a general ass.”
Tawny was definitely back in my favorite-person spot.
“He could’ve just ignored it,” she continued. “And proceeded on to the Royal Guard oath, which, by the way, he made sound like…sex.”
I smiled.
“Yes,” the Maiden agreed. “Yes, he did.”
The curve of my lips spread wider, revealing a hint of my fangs to the empty hall.
“I almost needed to fan myself, just so you know,” Tawny said. “But back to the more important part of this development. Do you think he’s already recognized you?”
“I don’t know. I wore a mask that night, and he didn’t remove it, but I think I would recognize someone in or out of a mask.”
“I would like to think that I would, and I would definitely hope that a Royal Guard would,” Tawny retorted.
“Then that means he chose not to say anything,” the Maiden mused. “Although, he might not have recognized me. It was dimly lit in that room.”
I would recognize her anywhere.
“If he didn’t, then I imagine he will when you speak, as you said. It’s not like you can be completely silent every time you’re around him,” Tawny stated. “That would be suspicious.”
“Obviously.”
“And odd.”
“Agreed,” the Maiden said. “I don’t know. Either he didn’t, or he did and chose not to say anything. Maybe he’s planning to lord it over my head or something.”
“You’re an incredibly suspicious person.”
Damn straight, she was.
“He probably just didn’t recognize me.” The Maiden was silent and then said, “You know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed that he didn’t recognize me. Or if I’m excited that he might have.” There was a soft laugh. “I just don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. What…what happened between us was one time only. It was just this…thing. It can’t happen again. Not that I’m even thinking he’d want to do any of that again, especially now that he knows it was me. If he does.”
“Uh-huh,” Tawny said.
“But what I’m trying to say is that it’s not a thing to even consider,” the Maiden forged on. “What he does with the knowledge is the only thing that matters.”
“You know what I think?” Tawny said.
“I’m half-afraid to hear it.”
I wasn’t.
“Things are about to get so much more exciting around here.”
Tipping my head back, I smiled as I stared at the bare rafters of the ceiling. Yes, things were definitely about to become more exciting.
ARROGANT AND COCKY
Vikter returned not long after Tawny had entered her room through a connecting door within the Maiden’s chambers. He strode down the hall with a white cloth clenched in his grip, which he all but shoved into my hands.
Glancing down at the crisp white with its gleam of gold, I could barely contain my disgust as I realized it was the mantle of the Royal Guard. “Thanks,” I muttered.
“Try not to look too thrilled,” Vikter replied.
I lifted my gaze to him. “The same could be said about you.”
He stood across from me, the faint light catching the nicks and grooves in the black armor covering his chest. “Would you prefer that I pretend I approve of this decision?”
“No.” I tossed the mantle over one shoulder, wondering if he called the Maiden Poppy. “As long as you understand that no matter how many times you complain to the Commander, it won’t undo his decision.”
Vikter huffed out a short laugh. “You think I’m not aware of that?”
“You think I believe you went to see the Commander just to graciously retrieve the mantle for me?”
“I don’t give two shits what you think,” Vikter retorted.
“Well,” I drawled, my head tilting, “won’t that make working together a bit difficult?”
“Nah.” He shook his head, his blue eyes as cold as the ice that capped the High Hills of Thronos near Evaemon. “I don’t need to know what you think for either of us to carry out our duties. I already know enough.”
“And what is it that you know?” I asked.