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“No, that will be all,” I said absently, staring at the door of the bedchamber I’d been ushered into over two hours ago.
Mat would come, I knew he would. Even if he was meant to be confined to his room as I was, his stubborn ass would manage to beg or trick his way in here.
It was then I realised the servant had given me an obvious opening for flirtation with her offer, and I hadn’t eventhoughtabout taking it. The Mazekhstani was pretty, perhaps unconventionally so, but beauty had always been a secondary consideration to enthusiasm when inviting someone to my bed.
Yet when I opened my mouth it was to thank her for her assistance instead of making myself feel better with a lewd comment, as gratitude was whathealways gave those who helped him, regardless of their status. The servant blinked, the frosty, professional demeanour she’d shown me up until now melting into a genuine smile.
“You’re welcome, Your Highness,” she said warmly. “Please have me called for if you require anything else.”
I craned my neck hopefully as she left, but saw nothing through the doorway but the grey, monotonous stone of the corridor and the guard who approached wordlessly to relock the door as though I was a prisoner here.
I blew out a shaky breath. Iwasa prisoner here. Panarina held all of the power, and whether she justified it as for our safety or hers, I wasn’t going anywhere without her permission. If she decided that it was better for her newly crowned ass to hand me over to Welzes and Navar, there was nothing I could do to stop it.
All that stood between me and that fate was the worth she assigned to hers and Mathias’ friendship, and the distaste I could only assume she held for the misogynistic beasts currently in control of my country. But hey, she might consider me the same as them: as I’d seen with Alta, my own fucking best friend, my politically cautious approach towards the rights of women in my country had made me no better than those who actively enforced such laws. I could swear all I liked that it was going to change, but words were just words, and what reason did the queen of Mazekhstam have to believe me?
I continued to stare at the door, hearing something rustle behind me but assuming it to be nothing more than the crackle of the fire in the grate. Mathias would open that door any moment and I couldn’t look away, didn’t want to miss even a second of his wry grin and those blue-grey eyes that-
And then a hand slid around my throat from behind, fingers resting below my jaw and gently squeezing.
Pleasure shot through me, but for once, the arousal was less potent than the feeling of sheerrelief.
He was here.
Mat let go of my neck and climbed over the back of the chair into my lap, clearly too impatient to spare the extra second to walk around. Sharing the sentiment, I gathered him close, relishing his warmth and making little exclamations of happiness in his ear.
“How did you get in here?” I asked after I got him settled in my arms.
“The connecting door between our rooms,” he said, snuggling in against my chest.
I twisted around in the chair to look at the door in question – made more difficult by the Temarian prince curled up on my lap, not that I was complaining – and frowned as I found it thrown wide open.
“But...Panarina said it would be locked,” I protested, rather upset with myself that I hadn’t even thought to try it.
“Ah,” Mat murmured, tracing my shaven jaw with a finger and evidently pleased that I’d lost the beard I’d earned in our travels, for he began to kiss and nibble at the freshly exposed skin with contented noises of approval. “She had herlisten to my eyes not my wordsvoice on when she said that.”
I stroked his own beard, enjoying the scratch of it against my fingertips. While I also preferred him clean-shaven, what I loved even more was knowing that he’d eschewed his own bath in favour of coming to see me first. Coming from Mathias, that was one hell of a compliment.
“So she wants us to fuck?” I asked dubiously.
Mat snorted. “I doubt shewantsthat. More…that she doesn’t care if we do. Tolerance rather than approval is the sense I got, although it’s now making me wonder what Astrid knew about Kolya’s preferences.”
He hummed against my skin, sending delicious tremors through me. “You were waiting for my return?”
“You know I was, asshole,” I said, feeling grumpy and sulky and overwhelmingly jealous that the queen had had his attentions all night. “Mathias, you were gone for hours!”
He pressed an apology to my lips in the form of a soft kiss. “We needed to talk. About everything that happened since I...”
“Gave your life for hers and ended up imprisoned in my cells?”
Mathias pulled a face and wriggled on my lap. My hands fell to his waist to keep him still.
“Not…Kolya. I couldn’t leave her with that memory of him.” The dead Mazekhstani prince didn’t deserve Mat’s protection, but I understood. He’d done it for the sister, not the brother. “But everything else,sí.”
“You told the queen of Mazekhstam all the sordid details of our sex life?” I asked smugly, unable to maintain such a draining, negative emotion asgrumpinessfor long.
He rolled his eyes. “There were no sordid details shared. No details atall, Ren.”
“Well, then I can’t imagine why it took you so many hours to relay everything,” I said.
