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“But first, I have a present for you, consort,” Ren added excitedly. “It’s the type of thing you can wear, if you get my drift?”
“I really hope I don’t,” I retorted, my mind spinning at the filthy possibilities.
“Put it this way, Nat.” Ren shot me a grin full of dark promise. “You’regoingto wear it.”
He pried my fingers free from his shirt, kissed them, and carried on talking as he sauntered across the bedchamber. “And when you’re all worked up and ready to explode at the end of the day, you’ll thank me for being such a considerate husband.”
Both me and my future self laughed at him. We had a fair way to go until I wasthatfucked up. Surely nothing could make me...
Then I remembered the gold chain and clips he’d sprung on me the day after I’d outed myself at the tournament, and sobered.
“What is it?” I asked carefully as Ren returned to bed with a large, flat box in his arms. He placed it on the blanket before swinging his leg around to sit close behind me and press himself to my back.
“No idea.”
I peered around at him with suspicion. He just snickered.
“Seriously. This is mine,mi amor.” My lover pulled a smaller package from his pocket and waved it in front of us tauntingly before jerking his chin at the larger box. “Thatone is from Dima.”
I lifted the lid and pulled back the cloth wrapping to find a painting nestled in a simple wooden frame. The type I favoured over Ren’s ostentatious bigger-is-better decorating preferences.
It was clear Dima was far more talented than he’d let me believe up in the tower room. The brushstrokes were subtle, the colours defined but not garish, and he’d captured the subject –us– in such exquisite, realistic detail it was hard to believe we weren’t looking in a mirror.
I felt myself blush as I took in the image more closely. Ren and I were pressed together in a loving embrace, his visible hand cupping the back of my head and mine disappearing down to his hip. Thankfully that was where the drawing faded into the background of the canvas, but the pose and the lack of clothes weighed heavily with implication.
But it was the expression on our faces that really drew the eye. He’d somehow caught our raw emotion with his brush; the pure love and affection I felt for my husband and what I saw reflected in Ren’s eyes in turn. Had Dima painted this purely from what he’d pulled from our minds?
It was beautiful. It was incredibly private.
“I don’t even know where to put it,” I said helplessly.
“Clearly, the throne room,” Ren teased. A sharp chin rested on my shoulder as he admired the gift. “Or should we just hang it on the palace gates?”
-
I drew myself away with reluctance, knowing there was nothing to gain from living in a fantasy. That was future Nat’s Ren; I neededmine.
Closer,I ordered myself.Less future, more now.Where is henow?
-
Colour flashed before my eyes, pinprick images cycling past too quickly to grasp. And then…there.
Far from the composed, immaculately dressed king of this morning, the partially untied laces of Ren’s black and burgundy corset trailed in the dust, his hair loose of his ties and his eyebrows furrowed in irritation. He let out a soft curse and carelessly tossed aside the book he was holding, immediately grabbing another.
Haphazard piles of old books and scrolls surrounded the king where he sat cross-legged on a filthy floor. I couldn’t see much beyond the small circle of light cast by the sole lantern flickering near his boot: wherever it was, it was dark and windowless. Underground, perhaps?
The musty, damp smell confirmed my suspicions. But there was also…the strong scent of horseradish and garlic? Khrenovina sauce, if I was not mistaken. A Mazekhstani cuisine, not a Quarehian one, and something I happened to know the palace cooks would be preparing for mine and the king’s dinner tonight.
I opened my eyes.
“Got you,” I said with relief.
*
Chapter Twenty
“Do you need any help?” I offered, grimacing as my headache settled itself more firmly at the front of my skull. Fuck me, if this was evenhalfof what Dima experienced when he used his own magic, it was really no surprise that he eschewed all our attempts to visit him.
