Page 36 of Untouched Queen by Royal Command

She looked strangely shattered as she collected her cloak and fastened it around her neck. ‘As always, I am bound to your will and will abide by your command. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my leave.’

‘Sera.’ Her compliance should have pleased him. Instead, it left him strangely bereft. ‘You could stay and eat.’

Not that she ate in the same way he did, apparently. She’d already told him that.

‘And talk about what?’ she asked coolly. ‘Adding perfection to the list of things you require in a wife? No supporting those lost causes, right? No acknowledging the seething, need-ridden underbelly of humanity from that pedestal she’ll be standing on, right? Consider it done.’

‘I didn’t say that.’ She could get under his skin faster than any woman he’d ever known. Call up a temper he took a great deal of care to conceal. He still had her glass of wine in his hand. The temptation to drink it was strong. His fingers tightened on the stem. That tiny insignificant tell did not go unnoticed by his courtesan.

‘Go on.’ She drew closer and closer still until her breath fanned his ear and the scent of tea roses teased his nose. ‘Throw it.’

‘Why would I do that?’ He set the glass on the table gently, never mind that the temptation to hurl it at the nearest wall was strong. ‘I’m not a savage.’

‘I guess they carved that out of you as a child.’ She drew closer and closer still until her lips touched his ear. He shuddered and not with disgust. She didn’t miss that tell either. ‘Who needs passion? Who needs compassion? Not a king.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with cool calculation,’ he argued. It was what he’d been raised to believe. ‘Passion’s overrated.’

‘If you truly believe that, I pity you.’ Her hand snaked up to fist in his hair and he made no move to stop her. ‘You should have just thrown the glass.’

‘The world might have ended if I had.’

‘It wouldn’t have.’

The kiss, when she dragged his head down and lifted her lips to his, was searingly hot and decidedly angry. It brought him to full and throbbing hardness in the space of thirty seconds. If this was punishment for his refusal to accommodate her wishes, he’d take it. If it was a thirst she couldn’t control, he’d slake it. If this was her way of trying to make him change his mind, good luck with that.

She drew back all too soon as far as he was concerned, but he wasn’t the one running this little power play; she was. He’d figure out what that kiss meant soon enough.

‘You’re a good king, Augustus. No one can deny it.’ She let go of his hair, took a breath, stepped back. ‘I hope one day you get to be human too.’

He waited until she and her dragon and her rack full of courtesans’ clothing had left the room. He shut the door behind her and counted to ten, and then ten again, before striding across to the table and draining her wine glass.

He let anger, frustration for all the things he could not do, and aching desire for all the things he could not have fill him. He flung the wine glass at the fireplace, where it smashed into glittering pieces.

And the world did not end.

* * *

The following day didn’t begin well for Augustus of Arun. He’d slept poorly and risen with the sun. He’d gone to the kitchen to find his own breakfast, only to overhear two of his catering staff talking about how Sera’s guards had put on a fighting display with long sticks yesterday morning, apparently, and the hits had come thick and fast and left everyone who watched in awe. They fought in the covered stable area these days, not because he’d given his tacit approval but because of the sawdust on the ground and the space and relative privacy it afforded them. Augustus wondered if they fought there because any gathered crowd could melt away into the shadows fast if they were discovered.

He grabbed a bread roll straight from the oven, ripped it open and cut the end from a length of resting roast beef, and knew for a fact that he wouldn’t have got away with either action had he still been a child.

He cut through the back door and headed for the stables. He found the crowd easily enough and it looked like a regular martial arts lesson to him, with Ari leading and Tun and Sera helping the trainees with the movements. Sera still practised the forms with her guards on a daily basis, so he’d been informed, but she hadn’t sparred since that day he’d hauled her off the ground.

Two men standing in front of him sent him startled looks and shuffled to the side but he shook his head and gestured for them to stay where they were. He didn’t want to be noticed this morning. He just wanted to watch.

When Ari told the class they would be doing the form one last time from start to finish, Sera and Tun fell into step with him, making it look effortless. And when that was done and everyone had bowed and the class had been dismissed, Ari and Sera moved over to a canvas holdall and unzipped it and rolled it out along the ground—it was like no holdall he’d ever seen. More like a portable armoury.

Ari selected two wickedly curved short swords with black handle grips, while Sera selected similar, only her grips were red. They sat in her hands as if they’d been made for her. Maybe they had. The form they practised next had its origins in the one they’d practised in class, that much he could see, the lines of their bodies extended by glittering curved knives.

They made it look as if they’d been born holding knives and cutting patterns in the air.

And then Sera said something to Ari and he frowned, and she smiled back at him sharp and sure and broke from her pattern and moved to face him, not quite head-on, a little to one side. They bowed to each other, plenty of space between them. Tun came to stand between them as a referee would in a boxing ring. At his word he stepped back and they began to fight.

If anyone thought they’d hold back because of the lethal weapons in their hands, they thought wrong.

The fighting was fast and vicious, with Sera on the attack and Ari defending, and Augustus felt his breath lodge somewhere in his throat. Ari was bigger, stronger and his reach was longer and still Sera came at him, even when he began to strike back. The clash of swords rang in his ears, broken only by the occasional murmur from those watching.

He thought about stopping the fight. Demonstration. Whatever it was, he thought about stopping it, but there was no way he wanted to break their concentration. Absolute focus and unearthly skill was all that stood between them and a potentially fatal blow.

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