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“There are some accounts I wish to have your thoughts on.”
“But Nicolae was—”
“Nicolae can show—Bogdan, was it?—where the barracks are. Go now.”
“No! They will stay.”
Bogdan stood, impassive, his face betraying nothing. Nicolae’s eyes widened in warning. “Lada,” he mouthed.
She realized she was asking them to directly defy a command from Mehmed. Her Mehmed, yes, but their sultan, their “father.” If they obeyed her, they could be killed for treason. She knew Mehmed would do no such thing, but at the same time, she could not ask Nicolae and Bogdan to defy him for her sake.
“Go,” she said through gritted teeth. “I will meet you later.”
She watched them leave, then walked five steps in front of Mehmed the whole way to the treasury. She was seething.
“Lada,” he said.
She did not turn back or answer.
When they arrived at the treasury, Mehmed was detained by mounds of parchment: tallies and ledgers and contracts. She stood by the door, supposedly scanning for threats but instead spending all her energy glaring at Mehmed’s back.
Finally, the clerks left.
“What is this about?” Lada asked.
“What do you mean?” Mehmed did not look up.
“You dragged me here when you knew I did not want to come. I have not seen Bogdan in years—I thought him dead—and you decided my input on matters of the treasury mattered more?”
“Forgive me if I was taken aback to be introduced to your husband.”
Lada spluttered. “He is not— It was a game between children.” She looked down her nose at him. “Besides, you are certainly in no position to complain about that. How is Sitti Hatun these days?”
Mehmed burst from his chair, hands around her shoulders before she could move. She braced herself, but his face softened and his grip loosened, one hand coming up to cup her face. “I am sorry. I have not seen you that happy in…It surprised me, is all. I did not know how to react. I am glad you found your friend.”
Lada nodded, still wary.
“You should go, speak with him, catch up. Come to my rooms for supper tonight, afterward, and tell me about it.” He smiled, and she did not have time to see whether it was a genuine smile or a smile of the sultan before he leaned forward, pressing his lips to hers. The soft insistence of his mouth trapped her, and she answered back with her own.
They had not had time alone like this in all the days since they came to Edirne. Her hands and mouth informed her she was ravenous for him. He stepped back to the chair, pulling her with him as he sat down. Sitting on his lap, she wrapped her legs around him. She felt his neck’s racing pulse as he drew her closer and closer. His hands danced along her body, moving to a new place as soon as she registered where they had just touched. They left a trail of fire in their wake, writing him onto her skin.
Lada heard the knock at the door as if through water, and it took several more knocks before she understood what it meant.
She drew back, gasping.
Mehmed smiled wickedly, straightening her tunic for her. “You should go.”
“I should go,” she echoed.
“I will see you tonight.”
She floated on a red haze of lust, pondering what pleasure could be had if one’s partner was willing. It lasted a single corridor before she remembered Bogdan. With a dark suspicion that Mehmed had been trying to make certain she thought of only him, she ran for the wing of the palace that housed her men.
She raced from room to room. Their ranks had swelled thanks to Nicolae’s diligence, and she was greeted with barely familiar faces until finally she found the room she wanted.
Nicolae stood, talking easily as Bogdan put his things into a plain set of drawers.
Lada froze in the doorway. After the first shock of their meeting, she did not know how to greet him. They were no longer children with the ease of a lifetime spent together. What had the last years done to him?
