Like most light elves, he was lean and sinewy, his body powerful without holding the obvious muscular strength of the dark elves. His hair and skin were golden, his face so beautifully perfect it would make angels weep, and his eyes the color of summer skies.

I wasn’t an angel, and I didn’t weep, but my body nevertheless reacted to the sight of him. I’d been with the man for nigh on ten years and was very familiar with just what all that perfection was capable of. I might not want us to be anything more than friends, but habit and proximity were sometimes difficult to ignore.

His gaze scanned me, then rose to meet mine; some of the frost had definitely retreated. “You’re looking well this afternoon.”

I stopped a few feet from him and shoved my hands into my coat pockets so he couldn’t grab one and tug me closer. “Thanks. I take it there’s no lingering problems from the knock on the head?”

He pushed away from the door, then turned and opened it. “No more than usual, at any rate.”

I laughed and climbed into the car. He closed the door, then ran around to the driver side and got in. “I’m told you saved my life. Again.”

“Hardly again. The men who kidnapped you that first time weren’t intending to kill you.”

He pulled out of the parking spot, then raised his eyebrows at me. “It sure felt the opposite at the time.”

“They roughed you up to make a point. The people who ran us off the road were holding you hostage against my good behavior.”

“And did they get what they wanted?”

I quickly updated him on everything that had happened in the twenty-four hours since I’d last seen him. “We currently have no idea who has the crown, because the people who ran us off the road were killed, and not by me.” I glanced at him. “Your father didn’t mention any of this?”

“I haven’t talked to my father.”

I frowned. “That’s a little unusual, isn’t it, even for your dad? Your injuries were pretty serious, and you are his only son and all.”

He smiled, though it was a ghostly echo of its usual self. “He did, of course, enquire about my status. He was assured I would be perfectly fine, so why would he visit?”

“Because...” I stopped. Light elves really didn’t do emotions. Or, at least, the highborn ones didn’t. They could be warm and funny once you knew them, but love wasn’t a concept they believed in, not in the same way the rest of us did. Marriage was nothing more than a contract benefitting both parties, and children a means of continuing the line. “Never mind.”

His smile was a fraction warmer. “He’s a very busy man.”

No doubt, but it still seemed a little odd to me.

After Mathi navigated the traffic and we were once again on the motorway heading toward Elsmoot, he added, “The fact the historian was killed before you arrived suggests someone is still watching your every move.”