Page 93 of The Duke and the Disciple

“Surprise?” The confusion in his face was adorable. “What sort of surprise?”

“Do you not know how surprises work?”

One of his hands traveled to his chin. “You want to experiment inourworld but not in a way that compromises the work or the promise we made when we started?”

Aesylt nodded, exhaustion creeping in. “That makes more sense than the way I said it.”

Rahn placed a hand on her back and guided her into the small garden. “I have been casually making a list of activities we might add to our list. Thinking, of course, that if we submit additional work, it would be well received and lead to other opportunities for us. The cohort, that is. Some of these ideas might fit what you’re... proposing.”

“Uh-huh.” Aesylt narrowed her eyes impishly. “So you’ve been looking for more ways for us to play, in the name of science?”

“Tostudy.” Rahn shook his head, but his lips hid a smile. “You seem better today.”

I’ve gotten very good at convincing others of this very thing.“So, a distraction?”

“And you want to be surprised?”

“Yes.”

“But how will that work? I’d never do anything without your consent.”

“I’m giving it to you now.” Aesylt shrugged. “Whatever you come up with, I’m fine with it. I trust you.”

Rahn shook his head emphatically. “No. Your permission is not an open-ended arrangement, Aesylt, not now, not ever.” He leaned his head back to look up at the tower, his eyes moving in thought. “I might have an idea of something that could be done here, in our world, and I could wait until the last minute to share the plan, to leave you insomesort of suspense...”

Aesylt brightened with hope. “Sounds promising.”

“I’d dismissed it as outside the scope of our work, but it would fall within the rules—mostly. The important ones anyway.”

A yawn bubbled up from her throat, but she swallowed it down. Shewastired, but sleeping meant dreaming, and she couldn’t trust her dreams anymore. Closing her eyes for a spell, however... “I’ll take a brief nap while you figure this out. And then I still want that astronomy night, Scholar.”

She could see the ideas churning behind his eyes. His deliberations came to a halt when he lifted his gaze to hers. “Aesylt,areyou all right?”

“Sorry?”

“I know you left things out that, for whatever reason, you didn’t want Lord Dereham and his son to know. If it were me, I’d keep my truths close as well.”

Aesylt stiffened but made no denials. Weeks ago, she might have, but before her stood a man who knew her as she wanted to be known. Wounding the bond with a lie would have been unconscionable.

“I’mhereis all I wanted to say.” He traced his palms down her fur-covered shoulders. “Not just to ply you with distractions to steer your mind away from the dark places either.”

Oh, the ache this sent to her chest. He was offering friendship, but her heart was stubbornly confusing it for the deeper companionship she’d craved her whole life. She forged a smile. “Thank you, Scholar. I know.”

Rahn nodded, reading her with a light squint. “And this surprise, it’s what will clear the clouds for you?”

Aesylt sucked in her bottom lip and nodded.

“Then you need a nap and I need to plan, so let’s get climbing.”

Rahnnever actually intended to tell Aesylt about his discovery. He’d found the idea on a dog-eared page of the erotic plant manifesto Pieter had left for them, and on a walk through the Wintergarden the prior week, Rahn had tested it.

On his hand first. He’d experienced the exact sensations described in the book: an intermittent but intense tingling to the applied area.

His conscience wouldn’t allow him to test anything on Aesylt that he hadn’t first tried on himself, so he’d smeared some of the concoction—mint leaves and nettle made up most of the paste, but there were three indigenous plants, with names he could barely pronounce, responsible for the effect—on the tip of his cock just before bed the night before the hunt. The suggested science behind the inconsistency of the effect had to do with the way their minds managed information and signals to the body. As the sensation was foreign, the body sought to identify and subdue it. The writer of the book seemed to believe the time between reactions was the time it took for the body to return to normal. Over time, the author believed, the reactions would come more frequently, until the mind eventually came to recognize them not as a foreign invader but as a welcome and pleasurable experience.

Apprehension rarely had a place in his research, but he’d been a bundle of nerves waiting for the balm to activate before his test. He hadn’t waited long. Every minute, roughly, a delicious bolt of pleasure surged through him. It would pass just as quickly, but each subsequent wave, each arriving faster and faster, drove him further out of his skin, and before long, he’d come without even touching himself.

All this he explained to a blank-faced Aesylt as he sat on the edge of her bed, holding a bowl.

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