“What for?”
“That you have to deal with this.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I still can’t help feeling guilty in some way.”
Standing and watching the sun as it set on the day, and in some way, set on the end of my normal life, seemed fitting. Elex’s body behind mine chased away the rest of the chill.
“Things are going to have to be different now,” Elex said. “I wanted to have a simple life with you, but now that’s not possible.”
“But you still want a life with me.”
He kissed the column of my neck. “Oh, yes. And more. It just won’t be simple.”
A woman’s laughter floated on the breeze. I wasn’t sure whose laugh it was, but the source of it was a silhouette running across the garden lawn in the light of the moon.
Elex stood behind me, just watching with me. He was a warm comfort, and I fought an urge to tell him all I had discussed with Jallina that afternoon.
She had happily helped me set up a spy network with her connections. Her information net was large and fruitful, and she knew the work well. The position she held at the stables was a cover, a disguise to be in the right place for the information to file into her.
To my delight, she’d even given me a code name. This way, no one would know whom the information was for that she and a few others were gathering.
I wasn’t happy I had to create the network, but I was grateful I had someone who knew what they were doing.
I would only tell Elex if I had no choice.
Hewasright. Things were going to change.
I had my first secret from the man I was falling in love with.
In the moonlight was another figure. A male. His throaty laugh drifted up after the woman’s laughter. We watched as the silhouettes chased each other in the dark, clearly playing a game.
Walled off from the outside world, the courtyard was locked to anyone who didn’t have a room overlooking the area. Those rooms were taken over by the temple masters.
The merry chase went on for a few minutes until the male ended it abruptly. He leapt out from behind a bush and wrapped his arms around the woman’s waist, pulling her in tight, and both of us could see the hot, passionate kiss they exchanged.
His hand, visible by the cresting moon, caught the neckline of the woman’s dress and pulled it down. His head dipped to the exposed breast, and the delighted moan that floated up told us he had pulled a ripe nipple into his mouth.
It was wrong to stay here. At the same time, I couldn’t move, enchanted by this play.
The woman’s hand gripped his hair and pulled him tighter. There was no mistaking the delighted little moans floating through the air—followed by her gasp as he had magically unbuttoned and unfastened the stays in her dress.
These were two of the masters in the temple, using their powerful magic for sex play.
The dress slipped from her body, puddling on the ground. Her pale white form had only the sleeveless shift left, which fell just to her waist and the short petticoats.
A hand crept into the petticoats.
“Gods and goddesses,” Elex breathed in my ear.
“Do you think they know we’re watching?”
His answer was soft. “I think they hope we’re watching.”
“Scandalous…”
“Is it? If that’s what they want, who are we to deny them?”
