“This sound fine, but I would wish to watch,” she murmured.

“The piercing?” he asked.

“The celebrations,” she said on a tug of his shaft that earned her a grunt and a stroke through her hand, this bringing him nearly inside her, but his body stilled when a heavy knock sounded at the door.

“Not now!” he bellowed.

“My king! Urgent news from Wodell and the Nadirii.”

Gods dammit.

When Mars did not move, his wife’s hand left his shaft to alight on his cheek.

“You must go,” she said.

“We must go,” he returned. “I’ll put on your chain, you shall link mine, and then you don something accessible. After I hear this news, I’ll finish fucking you on my desk.”

Her eyes went molten and her cheeks turned pink.

Thus, he kept his eyes open as he kissed her so he could enjoy both.

When he was done, he dragged her up the bed onto his lap, reached for his wedding chain on his night table and handed it to her.

She threaded it through his hoops and linked it, kissing the hoop by his lip when her task was complete. She then reached for hers and he did the same.

After his kiss, which was full on her lips, they left the bed.

They met again outside their dressing rooms.

And holding her hand, he led his queen to his study.

Mars sat behind his desk, Silence sat on his side atop it, but at an angle and twisted at the waist, so she could regard Chu as he sat in the chair opposite them, his face perfectly composed.

Nyx sat in the chair next to him.

Her face was not perfectly composed.

Lorenz, agitated as he had been for some days now, was pacing beside his desk.

“This is your choice,” Mars said to Chu. “Basil oversees the removal of the Go’Doan. Those priests having been arrested can be interrogated by Lorenz, Guard, Kyril and I. You do not have to be present when they’re executed. Thus, you are free to ride.”

“And the recovery of this asset that the priest G’Fenn took direct from one of our own homes?” Chu asked, an edge to his deep voice that belied the utter unconcern on his face.

“He is not an asset, he is my friend,” Lorenz bit out.

Chu turned coolly to his captain. “I refer to him as such in order not to make rise emotion that is already skating the surface, my brother.”

“There is no chance of that,” Nyx spat. “For this emotion is not buried in the slightest. In either of us.”

“We will get to you both in a moment,” Mars murmured.

Nyx sat back and drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair, shooting daggers from her gaze wherever it landed, indicating she was not angry at any of them, just angry in general.

She had a right, with what had befallen her, and what was now lost that they all hoped would be found.