If only she’d known; he had melted the moment he saw her. He’d melted the night before, when he woke flushed and panting, the image of her face emblazoned on his mind. He’d melted on the beach, watching her courage, her grace under pressure.
“Never,” he countered huskily, accepting her tug at his shirt with a sheepish smile. “Your hours cannot be stranger than the ones you have been keeping in my head.” His hands drifted down to the small of her back, supporting her as she balanced on the balls of her feet and pressed her lips against his. Longing and astonishment twisted at his heart. The princess was kissing him kissing him – and Mace knew, suddenly, that in this moment she was his. He could carry her off, if he wanted, and she wouldn’t object. He could lead her to his chambers and shut the door. Keep dreaming, forever.
Mace released her reluctantly, when she pulled away – his free hand presenting the barest hint of resistance at her back. The expression on her face was so distracting, he barely heard what she said. Show her something? There was only one thing that came to mind, and the Captain was possessed of too much restraint to put that idea into words. Maybe another day, if he was lucky. If he could keep her interest.
If he could avoid waking up.
Wordlessly, he lifted Morgana’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, lingering there a moment before turning to lead her down a nearby corridor, and then another. The hallways were narrower where they were going, and much less frequented; oil lamps illuminated them infrequently, casting their cool marble into twilit shade. The last, short hallway was not lit at all, which made the slender doorway at the end glow brightly, as if by magic.
The room beyond was its own sort of magical. Mace did not know who had designed it – the sleek lines suggested Tsi, but he already had a room of this sort in another part of the Pantheon. It was a perfectly square chamber, with a checkerboard of deep pools arrayed in the center, illuminated by a single, star-shaped skylight in the ceiling. Sunlight poured and spread through the pools, its rays frozen in the stillness of the room. The scent of the lotuses glowing like moonlight suffused the room with a faint, fresh perfume.
Mace stood in the doorway behind her, waiting for her reaction. He had no words to describe this place; words had never been his strength.
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