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“I say laugh and you laugh?”
She laughed.
“I say smile and you smile?”
She smiled.
“I say swoon and you—”
She fell into his arms in a faint. He wasn’t expecting it and almost didn’t catch her in time. But he did and he held her, laughing so loudly they must have heard him in the streets.
“What will they think of us? These are not the sorts of sounds that should be echoing from a bridal chamber. They’ll think we’ve both gone mad.”
“We have,” she said. “Haven’t we? I think I have.”
She put her hand to her forehead and sobbed through a smile.
Perseus held her close and caressed her hair.
“Cry if you have need of it. I will wait.”
“You deserve reward for your heroics,” she said. “Not a bride who can’t stop weeping.”
“I am a stranger to you.”
“What husband isn’t to his wife on their wedding night?”
“Oh, I can name a few,” he said. “But not us. Though I would not like to stay a stranger to you. Perhaps we could be...friends?”
“You saved my life. And the kingdom. I will withhold nothing from you. Certainly not my friendship.”
He lifted her hair off the back of her neck, stroked her cheek with careful fingers, careful not to hurt her, careful not to startle his skittish bride.
“Shall we be close friends?” he asked. “The best of friends? Intimate friends?”
“No foe has ever risked his life to save me as you did.”
“Then we’ll be friends,” he said. “As only soldiers who fought side by side in the same battle can be friends. Friends who would die for each other. Friends who would ask anything of each other.”
“Ask anything of me,” she said.
“Would you lie with me? Now?”
She nodded, no hesitation, though the fear was in her heart again.
The bed was high on its marble pedestals and he had to lift her to put her on it. She sat on the edge and watched as Perseus, her husband and her friend, took off his clothes. It was done quickly and simply. She turned away, blushing.
“No.” He took her chin in hand. “We are friends, remember? We have battled together and defeated the Cetus. We cannot be shy with each other.”
“Ah,” she said. “But it was only my first battle.”
“Not mine,” he said. “So I will teach you how to fight. As friends do?”
She looked at his face. That she could do without blushing.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
She held out her hand and he caught it and kissed it.
