Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
“He’s fine,” Aleksei refuted.
Now look who was spoiling the children.
“Those straws probably cost twenty marks each.” Or more.
“He’s fine, darling.”
I heard more clinking.
Whatever.
Time for other things.
I reached out and ran my finger along the side seam of Aleksei’s trousers at his thigh.
He looked down at me.
“Bissi,” he groaned when he saw my face.
“I’m not a flower,” I whispered. “A bruise doesn’t scar me. A fierce wind doesn’t tear my petals off. The end of a season won’t make me wither to nothing. I’m a star, Aleksei. I’ll shine bright until the day, a long time from now, when I blink out, which will be the second before or after you do. You know it hasn’t always been good for me, but I didn’t survive. I just lived. That’s what I do. I get on with things. I don’t understand the power behind your drive to protect me, but I know it’s there. And I promise to be cognizant of it. However, I need you to understand that I’m in this with you. I count on you, and I need you to count on me too. Don’t shut me out again. Please.”
He kept hold of Nova (of course) even as he caught my hand and bent to it, pressing his lips hard against my engagement ring.
He kept hold of my hand (and Nova) when he promised, “I won’t do it again.”
I squeezed his fingers. “Okay.”
“Do you need me to run you a bath?” he asked.
I totally did.
That was some intense, awesome, crazy sex, and momma needed some soothing oil and a hot soak before she had to drag herself to dinner with a family torn asunder with all of us pretending they hadn’t been torn asunder.
“Will you get into it with me?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then yes.”
He smiled at me. “I love you, Laura.”
Gods.
Gods.
I let out a breath it felt like I’d been holding for two days.
“I love you too, honey.”
He bent and kissed my temple.
Then he got up and strolled to the hall (with Nova) and past the bathroom.
“You missed the bathroom!” I called.
“We’re bathing in our bathroom,” he returned.
Yes, we were back.
Aleksei wasn’t out of sight for a second before I heard a crash from the snack cabinet.
And there went the straws.
I heaved myself out of the daybed to find my robe, because I needed to quarantine the cats until someone could come up with a vac.
I couldn’t have them slicing their paws on broken glass and crystal.
But first, I had to take off my shoes.
Then, quarantine the cats.
Then, I had to take a bath.
Chapter 41
Drones
I was in our closet, strapping on my pink high-heeled sandals (maybe one day my feet would get used to the torture), the ones I’d worn the night I met Aleksei.
I was doing this because, while we were in the bath, we both got a comm that we would be having a semi-state dinner that night, considering Princes Tanyn, Cormac and Bainon were joining us.
So it was going to be fancy.
That was why I was wearing my silvery-pink dress in a material that looked like molten metal.
The other reason I was wearing it was because I had love bites all over my neck and shoulders, and it had long sleeves and a turtleneck.
I could attach a Medi-Aid to them, and they would fade, but no way I was doing that.
A part of me wanted to show Aleksei’s marks to the world.
But not at that night’s dinner.
The dress came to just below my knees. My hair was down. And I’d scanned in a photo and set the Ultra Paint to evening, semi-formal, sultry.
I did this because Aleksei and I were back, we’d had some more fun in the tub (just not the dragon sex kind), and even if everything was still a mess, I was feeling all kinds of sultry.
The dress also needed it since it was skintight.
While we were in the bath, staff came up to move me back to Aleksei’s room.
I refused to allow people knowing my private business to affect me.
Spikeback Castle would have a full contingent of breathing (not bot) staff, so this was my life.
Aleksei had explained this was for two purposes.
The first, it was important for the royals to employ actual beings.
The second, although the time was long gone when bots had glitches and bugs, and as such, could cause unexpected damage or do things in error, these two properties were too significant to take that chance.
The bottom line, as mentioned, this was my life now, it would be when we moved, it would be forever, so I had to get used to beings in my business.
Twenty realms of them.
I wandered to the sitting room where Aleksei (and Nova) was lounged on the sofa.
But only Aleksei was sipping whisky.
He took one look at me, his eyes darkened, I congratulated myself for the sultry idea, and he set his glass aside and rose to his feet.