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He shut his eyes to soak up the feeling of her in his arms. “I know.”
She gave a pained laugh. “Do you know what I kept thinking while I was the Rezayal’s prisoner in Btana Ayal? How much I hated to die filthy. I wanted a bath so desperately. It was a foolish regret to harbor in what I thought might be my final hours, but there you have it. I agonized over not getting to enjoy our bathing pool one more time.”
He said her name, gripping her against him. He hated that Dakkoul still walked free. The night would come when Lio would find him and enact justice for Cassia. But tonight, Lio could do this. “Can we set this matter of the labors aside long enough to take a bath together?”
“I cannot promise that. But I am not against negotiating in the bath.”
He swept her up in his arms. As he carried her past their bed, she reached out to caress the juvenile roses growing in the latticed alcove. The green vines gave a gentle shiver, as if in greeting. Along the back wall of their room, stone panels slid open before his magic, and moonlight shone through their lacy openwork to play across the carpets.
“Orthros never grows less wondrous to me,” Cassia said.
He carried her out to the courtyard, where their private bathing pool was hidden by high walls. Through the bespelled glass roof, the Blood Moon and the Light Moon shone down, Hespera’s Eyes looking on their homecoming in welcome.
“Oh!” Cassia took in the pots of seedlings that left hardly any room to walk around the bathing pool. “All the plants I ordered at the Moon Market have been delivered! Komnena placed them here in the warmth and humidity, just as I asked.”
Lio spun Cassia in a circle so she could see the tropical bounty. The damp warmth rising off the bath made her silk robes cling to her. She gave a happy laugh and kicked off her shoes, enticing him with a glimpse of her bare, freckled toes. His worry for her eased under the certainty that they had made good memories in the Empire, too.
He set her on her feet by the rim of the pool. “Wait right here.”
He levitated over the plants to a nearby cabinet where they kept bathing necessities. A bar of the rose-scented soap she had taken to crafting would be just right for tonight. When he turned back to her, he found her kneeling among her new plants.
“I can’t wait to start properly potting them.” She stuck a finger in the soil of one small coconut-fiber container. “The bath will be a good place for them until the greenhouse is finished. They’ll keep us in suspense for their first blooms, but they’ll be worth the wait.”
“How long do you think that one will take to flower?” he asked.
“A month or so.” She glanced up, as if realizing he was standing there with soap and towels in his arms, just watching her. She blushed.
He stalked toward her. “Do you have any idea how adorable you are when you’re doting on your plants? Your happiness is one of my favorite delicacies.”
The way her gaze fixed on him told him her plants were forgotten. He dropped the towels and pulled her to her feet. The roof grew foggier as they stripped each other with demanding, reassuring touches.
They had finally made it back to their Sanctuary, where her mortality had no sting.
Holding her slick, bare body against his, he levitated the soap into his hand. He trailed a corner of the bar softly down her spine. “Let me bathe you, My Queen.”
Her back stiffened at his words. “I am your Ambassador, Sir Diplomat.”
“Of course. And most of all, my Grace.” He placed a kiss upon her hand that was too intimate to be courtly. “But you are also the queen of my heart.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but a smile tugged at her lips. “Only you could get away with saying such a thing, Glasstongue.”
Lifting her hand as if in a dance, he turned her to face the bath. “Does the kingdom you have chosen please you, Your Majesty?”
She wasn’t looking at the promising seedlings or the comforts of the bath. She gave him a long, slow look over her shoulder, and his body tightened everywhere her gaze touched him.
He handed his petite, naked Grace down into the crimson marble bath as if she wore a festival gown. Her ankle, ringed by his braid, slid into the red-tinted mineral water of Haima’s hot springs. She settled onto the bench carved into the side of the bath, while he sat on the edge of the pool behind her. Sliding his feet into the water on either side of her, he folded a soft towel behind her head.
She looked up at him through her lashes. “Your queen insists you join her immediately.”
“Always so impatient to destroy kingdoms.” If she intended to soften him toward her argument, it would not work. He began teasing the braids out of her long hair, savoring the intimacy of running her promises through his fingers.
“Mmm. You did mention you enjoy my kingdom-destroying tendencies. Come closer, and I shall be as destructive as you like.”
He grinned, showing her his fangs. “As an immortal, I tend to respond to commands in my own good time.”
“Such a heretic!”
“I do my best.”
