Croe was mortified.
It was a little bit like having an out-of-body experience. She could not remember – in her life on Shaman or on Earth – ever feeling so embarrassed, and so she experienced it almost in the third person, clinically. She noticed the heat that spread from her cheeks to her breasts, like an unpleasant cousin of arousal that was, thankfully, largely disguised by her tan. She felt awkward and exposed. A trickle of sweat made its way down her spine. Croe was not a sweater.
But her expression, as she beheld the interaction between her former flame and her current one, was faraway. She could have been a mannequin, for how much emotion she showed. Her grip tightened minutely on Mallos’ arm. His reaction, meanwhile, was difficult to decipher. He had that cool look on his face that told her he was furious, had transcended anger and reached a place of dangerous, bone-deep fury. Croe wondered if he’d kill the man; it didn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility. She also wondered why he was so upset. Was it because they had been interrupted, in the middle of this rare, romantic getaway? Because Sandro reminded him of someone he detested? Because he saw, as she did, that in some ways she and Sandro would have made a better match, equally yoked by shared experience and insignificance and mortality? Mallos glanced at her, and she met his eyes, feeling the intensity of her own stare like twin pinpricks of light.
Was it…because he was jealous?
No. Impossible.
Sandro seemed oblivious, but Croe suspected that was just his diplomatic bearing. If he was anything like the man she’d known in university, he was enjoying this drama a little too much, on the inside. She tried not to look at him directly, because she knew any kind of eye contact would be an invitation to him, and she knew exactly how he could look at a woman. That was a look Mallos did not need to see.
And then she was spared any further interaction, because Mallos had teleported them.
They stood a moment, and Croe stared down at their interlaced fingers, heart stuttering oddly in her chest. Mallos had never held her hand before. It felt oddly intimate, in a way that was different than every other intimacy they had explored. Possessive. It also felt right, and Croe was struck by the delirious ecstasy it caused her, as if she’d been suddenly transformed into a teenager experiencing her first crush. It was so surreal she could not breathe.
Then he released her, so casually it stung, and began striding toward the house she’d only just noticed. Correction: not a house. A palace. Croe followed him, feeling chastised and out of place and much, much younger than she was.
“All of the above?” she supplied, shrugging her shoulders with what she hoped was a convincingly nonchalant smirk. My everything, a small voice whispered, which she pointedly ignored. She wanted to get him alone. Wherever these “papers” were, there was probably a desk they should break in. That would make them both feel better – it always did. They’d always been better at expressing themselves physically, than in words.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the butler. “No, thank you,” she answered gently, dipping her head. It was odd to be called Señora, odder still to be treated with so much immediate hospitality and respect. They stepped into the foyer, and Croe’s gaze travelled over the beautifully appointed room, understated but still too grand for comfort. She hooked her thumbs into her pockets and cocked her hip, looking everywhere but at him, feeling completely unlike herself, as if her skin no longer fit. “I assume this is where you keep your harem?”
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