Though, it would be more accurate to say his eyes opened and traveled the length of me.

“This was the perfect choice, my queen,” he declared. “You look beautiful.”

Everything about me warmed.

“You look, erm, beautiful too,” I told him.

A smile flirted with his lips before he ordered, “Come to your husband.”

My husband.

That man was my husband.

I moved to him slowly.

He curled up to sitting, and my feet were on the furs that carpeted the podium on which the bed sat before he reached with his long arms, caught my hips and pulled me down on him.

He lay back against the headboard again.

I lay on him.

Oh faith.

“I like the sound of your laughter with your woman,” he murmured, his gaze now trailing over my face.

“We do it often,” I told him.

“I do not know if I’ve ever heard you laugh like that, Silence,” he remarked.

Was this true?

“I-I’m sorry,” I replied.

His brows drew together before he asked, “Why are you sorry?” But he did not expect an answer for he kept talking. “It is me who should feel remorse for I have not made you laugh like this.”

Yes, this was the Mars I could fall in love with.

“We’ve not had much time together, Mars,” I reminded him.

“You’ve made me laugh.”

I had. Not purposefully, but it could not be denied I found a thrill in doing so.

“Well—” I began.

His arms curled tighter around me, and he dragged me slightly up his frame so my face was closer to his.

And when he got me in position, he declared, “It will be my reason for being, after we leave Sofia to her rest, to make you laugh often, my wife.”

I slid my hand that was lying on his warm chest up to his neck, whispering, “Mars.”

“I do not wish to do so in this moment, but it’s important so I’m sorry to say I must remonstrate you again,” he shared.

I blinked into his face at his swift change in topic.

“I set Kyril on you,” he continued. “Before I found you earlier and you came up to our chamber, he’d found me and reported that you’d disappeared in the garden.”

Oh no.

Had Kyril seen my drawing over my shadow?

“You set Kyril on me?”

“Silence, you were attacked last night. But regardless, you are queen. You’ll now have a guard everywhere you go for the rest of your life.”

Well then.

That made sense.

It was unnerving.

But it made sense.

And further, all this proved that Mars could see through my shadow because Kyril, apparently, could not.

I wondered if this had anything to do with the prophecy.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to discuss this with him. Not right then.

Instead, I had a thornier topic to discuss.

I did not get to broach it.