Page 14 of The Duke and the Disciple

Nik crossed his arms and fluttered his eyes.

Aesylt’s breath caught, her focus divided between Maia and her friends. She knew why he’d stayed away, but it didn’t explain his change of heart. “He’s here now?”

Maia nodded. “Just there in the hall.” She thumbed behind her.

“Come on.” Val groaned as he peeled away from the bed. He smacked Nik in the arm when he didn’t move. “Comeon.” Over his shoulder he said, “Don’t fuck him, Aessy, or I’ll feel slighted.”

“Ancestors keep us,” Aesylt hissed. The moment they were both gone, she squirmed out of bed and hastily shrugged a robe over her sleeping gown. Her arm caught in the dense fabric, bending unnaturally, and she practically screamed her frustration.

“Everything well?” Maia asked from the door.

“Tak.” All she had time for was a quick mirror glance, but what she saw was an exhausted woman staring back at her. Nothing would fix her except rest. She had no reason to be so fussed about her appearance around the scholar anyway. He was her mentor. More than likely, he was there out of a sense of duty. “All right, Maia. Send him in.”

Maia stepped aside and Rahn swept in. He wore the same dark-green dressing cape he’d been wearing when she’d met him a year ago, and the effect it had on his matching eyes was no less startling. His dark hair was combed, as always, but there was a harried look to the style, as though he’d done it in the dark.

His cheeks flexed, dimpling. “Aesylt. How are you?”

“Perfectly fine,” she said, with a shrug so ungraceful, she couldn’t even discern how it had happened. “Drazhan is overreacting, but the Howling Sea remains blue and choppy, so what else can we expect?”

His mouth hitched at the corner. “He’s very protective.”

“Is that what you’d call it?” Aesylt’s nostrils flared with her sharp inhale. “Thank you for checking on me, just the same. It wasn’t necessary.”

Rahn glanced briefly at the ground. He took a step into the room and turned back, as though readying to close the door, but stopped. “Itisnecessary. I should have come yesterday. I could...” His mouth twisted. He looked not quite at her but past her. “I could ply you with the falsehood I was irrecoverably detained by work, but the very honest truth is...” One of his hands twitched at his side. “I feel a sense of shame for my part in what happened to you.”

Aesylt withheld her frown. He was acting peculiar, and she was no longer so sure it was awkwardness from her mortifying transgression in the tree. “You weren’t the one who made up some ridiculous story about a wulf.”

“Yes, but I wasyourwulf.”

Something in the way he said it—I was your wulf—had her mouth watering. “You didn’t know that until you found me stuck up a tree.”

“No.” He nodded. “But I intended to ensure my damsel, whoever she was, would enjoy a night without miscreance from some oversexed young man. I offered too much distance, and the result was...” He gestured around.

Both of Aesylt’s brows lifted at the wordoversexed, but it was no difficult task to recover herself when she remembered the first thing he’d said.Whoever she was. She was interchangeable, apparently.“Consider your conscience suitably cleared.” She dusted her hands with a tight smile. “I sincerely appreciate what you did. I’ll not forget it. Nor... Nor will I hesitate to return the favor, should the opportunity arise.”

His smile was a warm current, melting the ice keeping her heart safe. “You were my first researcher, Aesylt. The first of our cohort to truly embrace our vision of an educated realm. There’s nothing I could do for you that would ever be monumental enough to require anything further.”

“Ah.” She crossed her arms tighter, pinning the openings of her robe so far to the sides, she was nearly swaddled. “I should be able to return on the morrow.”

Rahn shook his head with a light frown. “We’ll resume after the season. You have enough to occupy you, and I’d never take Valerian away from his family in these final days before he leaves for the forest.” He scratched the back of his neck with an odd look. “Besides, I need a few days to compose my thoughts on our next subject.”

“We still have months left on astronomy.”

“We’ve been asked to pause until the observatory is ready. There’s... another subject requiring our attention in the interim. It’s nothing.” He cleared his throat and half turned. “Will I see you at supper?”

“What? What other subject?” He was keeping something from her.Have I ever lied to you?

No, he hadn’t. It was time to put his claim to the test.

“I should let you rest?—”

“I told you, I’m fine.” She released her robe with a groan, shrugging it down off her shoulders. “This thing is as hot as the fires of the demon realm. What subject, Scholar?”

His hands opened at his sides. With a drawn sigh, he said, “Coitus.”

Aesylt choked on her spit, bowing forward. “What did you say?”

Rahn wore a stern, flustered look. “I believe you heard me just fine.”

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