Relief flooded him, though a small lashing came from the voice in his mind that hated the times when he wasn’t as responsible as he felt he needed to be. But then her voice floated between them: “When we are free of this place, I am going to lock you in our bedroom.”
Reid grinned despite himself. “Going to break your little rule and let me take you in my bed?”
Vaasa bit her lip, a smile breaking the edges of her mouth. “It was a stupid rule.”
Reid chuckled softly. Vaasa dropped to the floor and tugged her fingers through her hair, adjusting her dress while Reid tried to hide the evidence on himself. He handed her a handkerchief, and she did her best to clean up any remnant.
“Sachia and Koen are waiting,” Reid whispered, though he hated that he had to say it.
A blush crept up Vaasa’s neck, and he stifled his chuckle. Certainly, they would understand. “I’ll go first,” Vaasa whispered.
She darted out of the hallway, but just as quickly as he watched her go, the sound of her footsteps halted.
“Regína,” Vaasa said, a name Reid didn’t recognize.
A feminine voice spoke in Asteryan, sounding deeply apologetic. Vaasa spoke back. From the distance, Reid assumed someone had just come down the hallway he’d first found Vaasa in. But then Vaasa’s tone sped up. Urgency coated her voice. Reid knew his wife’s anger when he heard it.
And then her footsteps turned hasty, and he realized she was sprinting down the stairs.
Reid stepped out of the stairwell, but it was empty. He followed to the third floor, poking his head around the corner to see Vaasa push a man he didn’t recognize away from her. He grabbed her wrist, and Reid almost stepped out on instinct, but then Vaasa twisted her arm to break the man’s grasp. She stormed past him, and like a wounded puppy dog, the man followed her down the stairs.
It was the same man Sachia had pointed out earlier. Medium build, brown hair.
Her lead sentinel.
Reid pressed his back to the wall, fighting the urge to follow them. It took all his strength to keep his feet planted where they were. If he gave himself away, he gave her away, too. He had to trust that she could defend herself.
After waiting a few moments, Reid descended to the second-floor mezzanine, which was flooded with onlookers, each of them peering over the railing to view the commotion below. The first floor was covered in Asteryan blue jackets. Sentinels and the city guard. Customers fled the brothel in droves, crowds pushing to get out. To his left, he spotted Sachia and Koen, the two of them looking like every other spectator in the massive crowd that had assembled. He raced to them, and their eyes went wide. Koen breathed in relief. His Icrurian was low and quick. “The fortress claimed the heiress was abducted; they’ve practically shut down the city. I’d thought they found you.”
Reid glanced down and scanned the crowd. There. Her red dress and mask gave her away, but only to him. Vaasa followed the same man Reid had seen through a set of doors that led to the entranceway, a crowd pushing all around her as if she were any other patron.
“Who is that?” Reid asked. “The man who took her.”
“Roman Katayev, I bet,” Sachia whispered. “Her lead sentinel. He’s only come back to Mekës recently.”
Reid racked his brain. Why did that name sound so familiar? A memory swirled in his mind, vivid and so prominent.
Years ago, there was a man. His name was Roman. I loved him, and Dominik had him killed.
That was what Vaasa had told him the night Dominik came to Mireh. The first night she had ever slept in Reid’s bed. Certainly it wasn’t the same man—that Roman was dead. Yet Koen and Sachia exchanged a glance, and it set Reid on edge. “What?” he demanded. “What don’t I know?”
Sachia shrugged noncommittally. “There are rumors that he and Vaasa are having an affair. But I’m sure that’s all they are. Rumors. The engagement will turn the tides.”
Reid’s mind raced. That had to be one of the hundreds of things Koen and Sachia had overheard in the city about Vaasa. There was so little else to talk about, and the circumstances of Vaasa’s return would obviously garner gossip. It had to be untrue. He clung to what he knew of her; fought the voice in his head that told him he wasn’t enough for her. That what he offered her wasn’t enough.
After what they had just done…
“There are more rumors than truths,” Koen assured him. “She is too close to power; people will repeat anything scandalous they hear.”
Reid nodded, trying to absorb those words. Trying to convince himself of their truth.
“We need to get out of here before they start questioning people,” Sachia said, gesturing with her head to the eastern stairs.
As they took the stairs and slipped out of the brothel with the rest of the swarming crowd, Reid glanced around, scanning the swaths of people, looking for one in particular.
But Lord Karev was nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER
