Page 68 of Bearing Secrets
“High House Ursa, please welcome your new Captain. Captain, you may take your seat.”
He nodded, ascending the stone steps to the empty chair, while Natalia retreated back to the edges of the room, standing between two of the Queen’s guards. The reception to his confirmation wasn’t thunderous, but it was more positive than negative.
I think.
31
“So, we did it?”
Kirell pushed open his repaired door and showed her inside. Natalia was slightly hesitant to enter his quarters, but she didn’t let it show. She couldn’t, not now that she’d been shown to everyone as his mate.
“We did it,” he said. “Thank you. A few more days, then you can slip out of the House. I’ll handle everything on this end.”
She wondered just how he was going to do that, but decided it was better not to ask. Some things, she just didn’t want to know. As long as he got her the Green Card and the money, she would be happy. These were the only reasons she’d stuck around.
Or, so she tried to tell herself.
“Wine?” Kirell asked, pulling off his dress uniform top and tossing it over a table with a relieved sigh.
“Yes please.” She grabbed her bag and stole into the washroom before he could claim it, as eager to get out of the formal gown she was wearing as he was his uniform. “You know, there are some things you could bring into the modern day. Your formal wear for women being one of them.”
Slipping out of the ghastly uncomfortable and ill-fitting material, she let it fall to a pile on the ground. It was old and had been altered to fit her by someone in the House. Whoever had done the job, though, hadn’t been concerned about it looking good, only staying in place.
“Tell me about it. I suspect the Queen would love to make some changes, but now is not the time for that.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She slipped into a plain white long-sleeve with a low back and high-waisted jeans. “Ahhh. So much better.”
She exited the room to see Kirell clad only in a pair of shorts. “Really?”
He answered by handing her a glass of wine and holding out his own tocheersher. “To you.”
“To us,” she said, before realizing what she’d said. “To, uh, the success of our plan.”
Kirell grinned. “Whatever you say.”
She rolled her eyes and took a long drink, trying hard not to run her eyes over his taut upper body as it relaxed into the couch less than two feet away from her.
Stop it. You’ve done your job. That’s what this was. A job. Nothing more.
“Natalia? Everything okay?” Kirell was looking at her intently.
“Yeah?” she said automatically. “Why?”
“You’ve been staring at me for the past minute or so without saying anything. I was starting to wonder if you were having a stroke or something.”
Ah shit.
“No. Just…thinking.”
Don’t do it.
“Thinking about what?”
“Everything. What we’ve been through the past few days. How it’s changed me. How I…feel, about it.”
I saiddon’tdo it. That means stop increasing the tension and mood between you two.
Kirell was the one staring now, the azure of his eyes growing more intense. The attraction between them was undeniable. Natalia knew, sheknewthat she could cut it off now, nip it in the bud before she did what she’d vowed not to do, but it was so hard. There was just so much to like about Kirell. Why shouldn’t she let herself indulge a bit for the last few days that she was going to be around him?
