Chapter 33: 033 - Alone

|||ZEIRIK|||

My little viper had become wary of me, especially since that little strip show I'd given her.

Good. She should be.

I'd seen the wheels turn in her head. Seen the curiosity burn hot in her eyes, that pink tongue dart past her lips, her fingers twitch at her sides like she was stopping herself from reaching out. She'd wanted to touch me.

Gods, I wished she had.

She kept her distance all morning. I caught myself watching her more than once, so intently she must have felt it if she'd looked up. She didn't look up.

We left for breakfast, exchanged a quiet good morning, and walked side by side with her eyes pointed carefully ahead. I walked beside her thinking about things I had no business thinking about before coffee.

Mira was in the dining room when we arrived. She turned, clocked Yasmin, and her whole face opened up — warm, bright, her eyebrows doing an entire wiggling performance in my direction as she smiled.

I stared at her.

I've seen this woman rip the limbs clean off wolves with just her teeth. Not shifted. Bare teeth. She did it without blinking, spat out whatever she'd gotten in her mouth, and asked me afterward if we had any water left.

Now she was asking Yasmin what she'd like for breakfast.

"Out," I said.

"What's gotten you so grumpy?" she asked Yasmin, still ignoring me.

Yasmin's mouth curved. "He's always grumpy."

"I'm not grumpy," I said. "I'm coldly composed. Know the difference." I grumbled with a glare in Mira's direction.

I wanted to spend more time with my wife. Alone.

Mira looked at me. Raised her middle finger. Rolled her eyes so hard it had to hurt, and walked out with a curse on her breath that had my name buried somewhere in the middle of it.

Yasmin's lips were pressed so hard together they'd gone white.

We settled at the table. The smile broke free the moment the door clicked shut — wide, unguarded, all that careful composure dropping away at once — and I looked down at my plate immediately because my cock had absolutely no respect for breakfast or the situation or the fact that we were supposed to be keeping this professional, and was making its opinions very firmly known against my trousers and I had to adjust my position so I wouldn't freak her out.

I reached for my coffee.

Reminded myself she would be horrified by the thoughts I had about that pretty little mouth of hers, that sinful curve.

"You've improved," she said watching intently as I ate and me in turn, doing everything I remembered from her lessons.

"Have I?" I looked up once I was sure my face wasn't giving me away.

"The dinner. The way you carried yourself," She spread preserve on her bread, not looking at me. "You've been applying what I taught you, even now."

"Been trying to impress my wife," I said. "Did it work?" I raised a brow in question.

She glanced up. Back down. "Ask me again in a month."

I grinned. "Do I get a reward for trying?"

She stood, leaned across the table, and patted my head. Twice. Firm and deliberate, the unbearable condescension of someone handling a large dog who'd learned to sit on command.

"That's all you're getting," she said, grinning. "Good boy."

Her fingers were in my hair.

Warm. Soft at the tips. And I sat there and thought about throwing every single thing off this table, sitting her down on it, and burying my cock so deep inside her she'd be feeling me for months. Thought about it clearly and in considerable detail while she stood there with that good natured grin and those cherry lips that were their own specific torment, and I held onto every ounce of self control I had and did not move a single muscle.

Gods, I must be going mad today.

She saw it anyway. Whatever crossed my eyes in that moment, she saw it, because her fingers lifted from my hair abruptly like the strands had singed her, quick and startled, and she sat back down and reached for her cup with both hands.

The warmth of her was addictive. I wanted more of it. I didn't push.

I cocked a brow. "That's really all I'm getting?"

She exhaled. "I'll think of a proper reward system."

I nodded, satisfied. Yasmin was the smartest woman I knew. Whatever she came up with I'd probably like.

"Once our 'honeymoon' week is over," she said, folding her hands on the table, "we have real work ahead of us. Villages, territories, the families worth knowing. We can't just win over the council in a room. We have to give people a reason to want you before they're ever asked to choose you."

Right. We had just three days left. Three days until I could return to my home and leave this bleeding palace.

"So we go to them."

"We go to them. We sit at their tables, we eat their food, we remember the names of their children and their wives and whatever dog is sleeping by the fire." She leaned forward. "What do you know about Lord Fenwick's territory?"

"It borders the northern ridge. Good farmland. He's had the same trade disputes with the eastern merchants for about six years."

Her eyes lit up. "Exactly. So when we visit, you already know what matters to him. You ask about the harvest, about the disputes, about his eldest son who just completed his first hunt." She spread her hands. "That's how you make someone feel seen. That's how you build something real."

"And you'd know all of this going in."

"I'd know all of it going in," she confirmed. "That's what I'm for."

I watched her talk. The way her hands moved when she was building something in her head, the animation that broke through that careful composure when the strategy clicked. I found myself agreeing before she'd finished asking, nodding along to things I'd have argued about an hour ago, and I wasn't entirely sure she knew she was doing it.

Then she paused.

"You'll need a tailor."

I looked at her and I think I masked the cringe well enough.

"Zeirik—"

Or maybe she noticed.

"I have clothes."

"You have two jackets. Good jackets," she allowed, "but two jacket. You need a wardrobe. Different weights, different occasions, something for the villages that doesn't look like you're going to war and something for formal dinners that actually fits you properly." She said it all with an even, patient voice that suggested she'd anticipated my exact face. "You're an aspiring king, you have to look like one, dress like one."

I shuddered. A full, involuntary, visible shudder.

She watched it happen. The amusement that moved across her face was bright and startled, like I'd given her something unexpected, and I looked at it and thought — I'd wear every ridiculous silk cravat on the continent. Every last one. If she kept looking at me like that.

Then the door opened and I bit back an annoyed groan.

Marcus walked in without knocking, the way he'd been doing his entire life. He pulled out a chair, reached across the table, selected a piece of bread from the basket, and began chewing with the slow, thorough satisfaction of a man who owned the place.

Yasmin watched him with a small smile already forming.

Traitor.

He chewed. Reached for a second piece.

"Marcus," I said.

"Mm."

He chewed.

I gritted my teeth "Is there a reason why you're here?"

"Ah, Cassien and Hana," he said finally, still working through the bread. "They've moved the wedding to tomorrow. Compulsory attendance. All nobility. No exceptions."

He took another bite.

I didn't look at Yasmin. I kept my eyes on Marcus and felt the shift beside me — the way she went still, the warmth of her pulling inward — and I said nothing. There was nothing yet worth saying.