Page 37 of Untouched Queen by Royal Command

And then, between one moment and the next, Ari was on his back on the ground and Sera was on top of him, the curve of one blade at his neck and the other poised to take his upraised hand off at the wrist.

The man in front of Augustus swore silently beneath his breath, and Augustus knew that by lunchtime the palace would be buzzing with the news that the courtesan of the High Reaches was some kind of mystical warrior in addition to being the Devil’s temptress.

Surely she’d been sitting on the fallen sword master for far too long.

He watched her roll off and to her feet as if she’d heard him. Tun clapped once and she and Ari moved close for quick smiles and quiet conversation as they released their fighting grips on the blades and began to examine the edges of them. All in a day’s work. Nothing unusual about what they’d just demonstrated.

Who were these people?

She saw him out of the corner of her eye and started to walk towards him. People melted away as if sensing conflict. All except for her guards, who stayed right where they were, neither courting conflict nor avoiding it.

‘Is that your way of blowing off steam?’ he asked.

‘It works.’

He’d been thinking about her words from last night. Her scorn for his cool calculation and his need to control what he could. ‘You want to know what I see when you’re out there passionately blowing off steam?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Absolute control.’ His gaze skipped towards Ari. ‘And lives utterly dedicated to the quest for it.’

‘Why are you here?’ she asked next.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said last night and all the things I didn’t say. The personal things that might have helped you understand my reluctance to have you reach out to a bunch of brothels.’

She waited for him to speak, and he didn’t want to, he really didn’t, but she’d shown him her heart last night and her passion and maybe they would understand each other a little better if she knew his.

‘When I was fifteen I had my first kiss. She was a stable girl, several years older than me, and she’d been lobbying for that kiss for at least three years. It was pretty chaste, as far as kisses went, but she sold her story to the papers that afternoon and we all read about it at breakfast the following morning.’

The lecture his father had given him still had the power to make him wince.

‘The woman I finally lost my virginity to was an older woman as well—a woman with enough money and power and sheer front to withstand the hounding of the press for months. Just long enough for me to feel safe in her arms. And then she turned around and finally granted that press interview and laid me bare.

‘She called me an accomplished lover—and I was by then—and then added that I could also be a little too passionately intense for some tastes. She told them she envied me my brilliant mind and in the same breath warned of sweeping social and economic reforms once I took the throne. I’d made the mistake of talking to her about the causes I was passionate about, you see. I’d talked big bold plans that didn’t have a hope of seeing the light of day—not then. Not without years of careful planning. The press called me an ignorant, idealistic fool and I was—I was a fool to think I could confide in her or trust her. She praised my protective nature, especially when it came to those I consider family, and then casually mentioned how rigidly impenetrable I could be when it came to letting other people in.’

None of it true. All of it true.

‘Which was quite the complaint because, as far as I was concerned, I had let her in. Like a fool.’

Sera opened her mouth to speak but he put his hand up to stop her.

‘And now you, a courtesan sent here specifically to serve me, wants to go into the brothels and talk job descriptions, and they’re going to have questions art curators and librarians would never dare ask you. Questions about me and what I want and need and think and who’s to say you won’t expose me?’

‘I would never do that.’ She drew herself up and still didn’t manage to reach his shoulder. Bare feet. A face flushed with exercise. ‘I am a courtesan of the High Reaches. Confidentiality is the key to our existence, and beyond that…’ She shook her head. ‘Augustus, I will never betray your confidences. Not sexual, emotional or intellectual. You have my word. My oath. That’s what you get when you get me. A safe space in which to simply be human.’

‘I want to believe you.’ He looked away from those earnest grey eyes. Experience suggested he shouldn’t.

‘I can’t make that decision for you,’ she offered quietly.

He nodded. He’d think on it. ‘There was another reason I came out here this morning,’ he said, while in the distance a stablehand worked on a horse’s hoof with a file.

‘What is it?’

He couldn’t even bring himself to look at her while he was saying it. ‘I love the way you move.’ It was as simple and as complicated as that. ‘I envy the fierce blend of passion and control you bring to everything you do and it’s never more evident than when you’re out there, facing an opponent. It’s beautiful.’

It was the first thought he’d shared in years without analysing the pros and cons of doing so.

And it was met with complete and utter silence.

He glanced back, just in time to see a softly startled smile cross her face.

‘I…thank you,’ she said.

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