“Did I invite you into my chamber?” Elena asked.

“Where’s Theodora?” Cassius queried in return.

She crossed her arms on her chest and tilted up her chin. “The palace is no longer safe. I sent her to the Nadirii camp. With my sisters. They have might and they have magic. They won’t allow anything to harm her.”

“This is a good decision,” he murmured.

“I don’t care you think it is, or it is not,” she retorted.

His princess was in a snit.

This was not news. She’d been in that state since the attack ended.

Or, precisely, some moments before.

It was simply that Cassius was tiring of it.

“Elena—” he started on a sigh.

“You may leave. I must get kitted for the procession,” she interrupted him, dropping her arms and turning away, dismissing him.

He didn’t know what “kitted” meant. She’d already changed into her Nadirii tunic. Something he would have thought was a boon, considering she’d fought in a miniscule nightgown with thin straps and a hem that barely covered her arse. A garment that forced Cassius to the understanding that her long, shapely legs were miraculous, considering he wanted them wrapped around his back even if they were coated in blood.

Though, he knew what she wore under that tunic. And his brain had been seared with images of her stretching in the garden wearing nothing but her body stocking.

So it wasn’t the boon he’d wish it to be.

“I think it’s more important we discuss your pique,” he replied.

That saw the return of her attention.

And she did this twisting her neck to look at him with narrowed eyes.

“My…pique?”

“Allow me to take us back to yesterday morning, at the fountain,” he began.

Her mouth got tight.

“To yesterday afternoon, our chat after the Go’Doan spoke to you,” he continued.

Her entire frame got tight.

“And last night, in my chamber,” he finished quietly.

All of these occasions had been promising.

With last night, prior to the attack, the most promising of all.

They had spent some time together in his chamber after dinner the night before.

Most of it, they had talked, Cassius sharing the many issues that had been discussed and decided around the diplomatic table, a great number of them affecting her as Princess of the Nadirii, but mostly as his betrothed, the soon-to-be Princess to the Regent of Airen—and eventually Airen’s queen.

He had been surprised her mother had not apprised her of these decisions.

However, in the end, he’d been gladdened, for he was able to share the fullness of them, further strengthening their burgeoning communication, establishing trust, and using both to draw her closer to him.

They had ended this interlude embracing for some time on a divan in his chambers.