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Cherished. Honored. Protected and…
Loved.
Involuntarily, she rubbed at a sudden sharp ache beneath her breastbone.
She didn’t know anything of love. Shied away from the word even in her own mind.
She loved her Papa and her darling boy. She couldn’t say whether she loved her mother; respected was more apt.
She loved Sitre In, and she liked Shai’s parents very much. She was fond of Senenmut, and she trusted Pa-nahsy.
And she supposed they were all affectionate towards her in their own way. But none of them, including her beloved Papa, ever made her feel the way Shai did.
She supposed the sex had something to do with it. And yet, even without their physical intimacy, she’d always felt something…different…with regards to her Shadow. He’d always made her feel different.
Special. Beautiful.
As if she was made just for him. And he was made just for her.
But dwelling on these thoughts worried and frightened her. Made her both elated and desperate. Terrified of losing herself to these intense, unknowable emotions.
She was a practical woman. She had to be. These feelings had no place in her fated path.
And yet…
She reveled in them too. As confused as they made her feel, the emotions Shai evoked in her also lifted her up and made her stronger. More confident in herself as a woman first and foremost. Because she was secure in the admiration of the one man she trusted, desired and respected above all others.
With the same efficiency as she prepared for bed the night before, she got dressed, rolled the thin mattress and secured the ties, leaning it against a corner wall. Hastily, she washed, brushed her teeth and took care of bodily needs.
Her hair still wet at the temples and nape, she blew out of the chamber into the noonday sun onto deck like a small sandstorm.
Immediately, her eager eyes sought out Shai.
He was looking at a lengthy unrolled map with two sailors as they presumably conferred on their progress and the plan for the day.
As if he felt her gaze upon him, he looked up and their eyes met.
She tried to force her face into a neutral mask, but her eyes and mouth betrayed her. She could feel an effervescent, irrepressible joy brightening her skin, stretching her mouth into a wide smile, so broad, her cheeks hurt. And squeezing her eyes into star-struck half-moons.
She simply couldn’t contain it.
He made her sohappy.
Just seeing him and holding his gaze made her ridiculously, indescribably happy!
For an interminable moment his expression was blank, reminiscent of the formal mask he wore afterthat nightso many years ago.
Her own smile faltered, wobbling uncertainly on her lips.
But then, slowly, hesitantly, a small curve tilted the corners of his generous mouth. And though the smile didn’t fully reach his eyes, his gaze contained a deep, abiding affection and an intense, forcibly banked desire.
And Heba’s loopy smile involuntarily stretched her face again until all of her teeth were on indecent display.
Verily, she’d never grinned so hard in her life! It was such a strange thing, stretching her face in uncharted ways.
Shai disengaged from the men with a rumble of parting words and a nod. His eyes never leaving hers, he strode toward her purposefully, as if she’d called to him out loud.
Perhaps she did. Her entire body was calling out to him, practically vibrating with eagerness to be close to him.
