“Unlike . . . ?” Those fingers still danced at the air. “Unlike me?”
“You know? I think I liked you better when you didn’t have the energy to speak.”
“So, you liked me?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I hissed. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
The Lord laughed— and the sound was deep and . . . and nice. Unexpected. He hadn’t laughed like that last night. “Did you know that na’laa has another use? For one who is . . . outspoken?”
Stubborn? Outspoken? “I think I prefer the ‘brave’ meaning.”
“There is a fourth meaning,” the Lord added.
“This word of yours has a lot of meanings,” I muttered.
“Many,” he murmured. “But the fourth is also used to describe someone who is ungrateful. That is also rather fitting, don’t you think? I saved your life, and yet, you find me impolite.”
I gaped at him.
“And I also sat here and waited until you woke up, just to make sure you were okay. Watching over you. Even let you use my body as a pillow.” There it was again— the hint of the teasing smile I couldn’t see but heard in his voice. “I think that was quite polite of me, especially since I didn’t get to use your body as one last night.”
“I clearly recall you asking for my help last night,” I shot back. “Meanwhile, I didn’t ask you to do any of those things.”
“You would’ve helped even if I hadn’t asked,” he said, and I pressed my lips together. “Just as I did without you asking, even though I do have far more important things to attend to.”
Anger hit my blood in a hot rush, loosening that mouth. “If you have far more important things to do, no one is stopping you. Your presence is not needed nor welcomed, my lord.”
Those fingers stilled in the space above his knee as he shifted a little bit farther into the stream of moonlight. His mouth, the curve of his jaw, and his nose became more visible. His smile was wolfish.
My stomach hollowed as I became very still. There was a good chance I’d overstepped myself.
“You’re right, na’laa. I don’t need to be here,” he said, almost as softly as when he had spoken to the Hyhborn in those mere seconds before he ended their existence. “I want to be here.”
I felt it then. His gaze. Even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I could feel his stare drifting over my features, then down. A tingling wave of warmth followed.
“After all,” he said, voice thicker, smoother. “The scenery is quite lovely.”
I glanced down, seeing that the midnight-blue robe had come unbelted at some point and the ivory nightgown was visible underneath. It was basically translucent in the moonlight, leaving much of my breasts clearly visible beneath the wispy gown.
“I’m staring. I know,” the Lord said. “And I’m also aware of how impolite I’m being now.”
Slowly, I lifted my gaze to him. It was known that the Hyhborn enjoyed only two things equally. Violence and . . . and sex. I shouldn’t be surprised, especially when I had seen how he was the night before, but he was a Hyhborn lord, and now, with him uninjured and in the gardens, I . . . I was just some lowborn—
Come to think of it, what were he and the other two doing in these gardens? Hyhborn tended to interact with lowborn more freely and . . . intimately during the Feasts, even Hyhborn lords, but the Feasts were quite a ways off from beginning.
“Muriel?” I said. “He was the one I heard Finn and Mickie speak of.”
“He was.”
I dragged my teeth over my lower lip. “And Finn? Mickie?” There was a beat of silence. “The fires? That’s where they ended up?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
I did. “How did you end up in the gardens?”
“I’d sent a message to Nathaniel to meet, knowing Muriel is never far from his brother,” he answered. “As luck would have it, this is where Nathaniel requested to meet.”
Then that had to mean the Hyhborn brothers were from Primvera.
“You said you liked those little balls of light?” he said, drawing me from my thoughts, and it took a moment for me to realize he was responding to what I’d said to him and Muriel. “I assume you were speaking of the sōls.”
“Souls?” I whispered, surprised enough to ask.
“Not souls of mortals.” That faint grin appeared again. “But sōls of all that is around you. The tree we sit beneath. The grass. The blooms of the wisteria currently in your hair.”