Perhaps Chu would have gotten into such if they had taken on this task together.

But she would never know.

She took no chances regardless she knew it was the gnomes outside and had pushed off the blankets to sit up on her arse, had her star in her throwing hand, her dagger in her other for a quick switch if it was needed, when the door opened.

A human came in.

She tensed, until Brix called out, “It is fine. It is us.”

Only when she saw Brix and Gal both walk in around the tall man’s boots did she set aside her star in order to strike a match to put to the candle on the floor by her pallet.

Once she did that, the door closed.

The candle did not do much to dispel the murk in the room, but fortunately Brix and Gal wasted no time lighting those at the mantle and on the table.

And thus, Serena saw King Noctorno of Hawkvale standing there, now with the hood of his long, tatty cloak pushed back.

She had only been around him a few times.

However, even if he was dressed much like her (though he was cleaner, then again, she had now not bathed in weeks), his raw magnetism, his big body, the fierce expression on his handsome face made the dingy room they were in seem small.

Cassius Laird had that magnetism, that frame, that fierceness.

And he was Elena’s.

Chu had all the same, except his demeanor was cool and haughty and tremendously attractive.

She would never have said she was a female who had use for a male outside his cock.

In fact, she would laugh in the face of anyone who would suggest it.

She had been wrong.

She had been wrong before she even met Chu and learned how it felt to sleep in the arms of a man you felt affection for. Learned how it was to go about your business with the skills ingrained in you and the intelligence granted to you by the goddess and have a man look upon you with respect.

Learned how it was to have a partner and not be alone.

She now knew in some part of her, although she denied it, even fought it, she had always desired this.

But a man like King Noctorno would not be for her.

A man like Cassius Laird.

A man like Chu.

She shoved up to her feet, wishing she did not have a mind to her state, her smell, but she did.

“You need to eat,” Tor’s deep voice came her way.

“I am in disguise.”

“You still need to eat.”

“I need to embody my disguise.”

“No longer, True wants that building taken.”

She looked to Gal standing on the mantel, then to Brix on the table.

Both nodded.

She then returned her attention to Tor.

“It’s my understanding True has only one man covert in The Rising, and he is but a newly recruited soldier,” she said.