“The preparation requires attention. Rushed execution compromises the compound’s efficacy.”
“You’ve been making this tea for weeks. You could do it blindfolded.”
The mortar scraped. His jaw twitched. “Eat your breakfast, Mira.”
“Everyone keeps telling me to eat my breakfast.”
She ate another berry. Her tongue caught the juice on her lower lip and Solomon’s hands stalled on the mortar for half a second. Just long enough for me to catch. His silver eyes tracked the movement of her mouth, lingered on the wet sheen left behind, before jerking back to the herbs with the discipline of a man fighting the memory of what that mouth had done to him last night.
I grinned. The enforcer was not as composed as he wanted everyone to believe.
Lucian appeared carrying boots. New ones from Voss’s shipment, relaced and adjusted. He set them beside Mira’s bare feet.
“What are those?” Mira asked.
“Boots.”
“I can see they’re boots. Where did mine go?”
“Your boots were a hazard. These are replacements.” He crouched and positioned the left one at her foot’s angle. “Try them.”
“You got me new shoes?”
“I addressed a tactical deficiency.”
“Lucian.” She looked up at him from her stone seat, and the softness in her mismatched eyes made his jaw clench in the way I’d learned meant he was holding back words. “Thank you.”
He held her gaze for two seconds too long. His fingers were still on the boot near her ankle, and the proximity to her bare skin made the bond channel pulse with a warmth that had nothing to do with footwear.
“Try them on,” he said. Quieter now. And stayed crouching while she slid her bandaged foot into the boot, his hand steadying her calf, thumb brushing the inside of her knee where the skin was softest, where his mouth had been eight hours ago.
The touch lasted one second longer than assistance required and his eyes darkened in a way that made the temperature around them shift.
Mira’s breath caught, barely. But the sound carried. Solomon caught it too. And Lucian definitely caught it because his thumb didn’t move.
The three of us were going to be useless today.
***
At the portal staging area, Her Highness Rheda supervised the prisoner transport while Mira walked over in her new boots. The three of us tracked her crossing the clearing with synchronized attention.
Annora and Giselle were loaded onto the formation. Bound, gagged, hollow-eyed. Mira watched them pass, hand on her stomach.
Rheda pulled Mira into a full embrace. “You come back. You come back with my grandchildren, okay?”
“I promise.”
She pointed at the three of us. “If anything happens to her, I won’t be as merciful as the Barrows.”
“We get it. Goodbye, Mother,” Lucian said. For the second time in two days.
Formation moved north. A crackle of energy, a pulse of light, and the clearing emptied.
Midmorning brought Wyatt’s follow-up radio check. Solomon handled it again, standing over the radio with his arms crossed while Wyatt confirmed the cover was holding.
“How much longer can you stretch it?”
“Maybe a couple more hours until evening if I fudge the overnight logs.”
