I nod in agreement, saying nothing as I head into my dressing room to change my shirt.
"IsLynnayour wife?" She asks, making my fingers pause over the dark green linen for just a second.
"You really think I have a wife?" I ask, walking back into my bedroom as I fasten the second-to-top button.
"Well...you have a son, so…,” she shrugs as I put gold cufflinks into my sleeves.
I choose to ignore the downright inappropriate look she is giving me as I adjust my collar. There’s probably a portrait of Renna under the word ‘brazen’ in the dictionary. “I have a son, yes. My wife died when I was about one hundred. I never remarried. That's common knowledge."
"Alright, sunshine. Do you think I sit around and learn facts about you in my free time?"
“Yes. What else are the women of Yterras meant to do?”
“You’re a nightmare, Rexxan, did you know that?”
“Yes. And I preferred you when you were sick," I hit back, even though it's absolutely not true. "Onyx got you some clean clothes."
"I need to go back and have a bath."
"I have one."
I point to two colossal double doors at the end of my room, each one ten feet tall and four feet wide. She tiptoes over, scepticism written over her delicate face. I’m struggling to come to terms with the fact that I like having the little tyrant in my space. I enjoy coming home from work to her in my room.
Lifting the leaf-shaped gold handle and twisting it, she pokes her head through the doorway, before shutting it again.
"Oh. My. Gods.” She states, opening it an inch again, peering in and shutting it once more, her face pale. "Is thatreal?"
I open the door fully for her, letting her step inside. My ‘bathroom’ is my prized possession; a huge rectangular pool of turquoise water, thirty feet long. Steam rises from the surface, the air warm and thick. There is no ceiling, but instead a forest canopy; a tropical paradise of trees and vines that shroud the pool in total privacy. It’s a door to a jungle from another world. She yelps with joy, sprinting across the marble floor towards the water’s edge.
I watch as she launches herself impressively high into the air, backflips twice, and plummets, fully clothed, into the pool. Lynna appears at my side, laughing as we watch Renna vanish below the waterline.
"I came to check how she was feeling, but I'm not sure I'm needed."
My finger runs over my lower lip. She just doesn’t seem human. I’m entranced by her. Enthralled by her.Bewitchedby her. I hate her, yet I want her to stay. It’s staining my black and white world grey. “I don't understand her at all."
"Do you want to?"
I do, and that's a problem. "I must get rid of her."
Lynna's eyes meet mine. "You’re beginning to like her?”
"I cannot like her."
"The heart wants what it wants."
"My heart was frozen long ago."
"I don't believe that Rex, but falling for a mortal ends in an eternal lifetime of heartbreak for you."
"I'll get rid of her. I'll free her friend Stellan if it means I'll get rid of her."
"I like her."
"Not a useful comment, Lynna. Go." Fuckingwomen. Why do they say these things?
She laughs and kisses my cheek, leaving the room in a blur of diamonds and expensive white satin. In the single greatest display of willpower in human history, I leave a soaking-wet Renna alone in my bath. I hope the gods are watching because I’m on my best behaviour.
Instead of indulging in my curiosity about her, I trudge back to my study and do what I should; instruct my spies to follow her and her brother around.
