Those jubilant behaviors made him very apprehensive. Without thinking, he reached for Lilliana to keep her close and make sure she was safe.
“Isn’t it amazing?”
Caleb wouldn’t call it that. “Sure. Drunken vomit always excites me.” He pulled her to the left, away from just such a nasty splash.
“Well, okay, that’s not the great part. And thank you for saving my shoes and dress.”
“Ever my pleasure to save you.” Especially given how beautiful she was in them. The light yellow made her blue eyes glow with warmth. She looked like a perfect confection that made his mouth water.
For that alone, he was willing to suffer through the vendors, acrobats and drunken revelers that surrounded them. And dodging the hands of strange women they passed who kept wanting to dance with him.
She scowled at one and set the woman back on her heels with an actual hiss. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
Arching his brow, he turned toward Lil. “Pardon?”
“I don’t like the way women are looking at you.”
“Makes two of us.” He gently grabbed her waist and held her right in front of him. “Save me, love. I need you to keep them away.”
“Oh trust me. If any one of them comes near you, she’ll walk away bald.”
Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her to a stop so that he could lay his cheek against the top of her head. “That’s my fierce little mouse.”
He gave her a light squeeze before he let go and she danced off toward the temple where the priest would be waiting for them. Caleb actually had to quicken his steps to catch up to her.
When they entered the temple, they were laughing and stumbling.
Until the priest gave them a stern glower. “Do you know where you are?”
Caleb snorted. “My father’s temple,” he whispered in her ear.
Lil laughed, then forced herself to stop. “Aye, Lord Priest. Please forgive us. We meant no disrespect.”
“Not true,” he whispered in her ear.
She elbowed him in the stomach. “Caleb!”
“Is there no other temple in this village? Must we really marry here?”
The priest stiffened visibly. “Have you a problem with Lord Verlyn?”
He had so, so many. Honestly, he didn’t even know where to begin to describe all the problems he had with his father. That could take decades, maybe even centuries to recount.
But that thought vanished as he caught sight of someone in the shadows of his father’s hideous statue.
Myone.
Stunned, he stepped back from Lil. A part of him wanted to run. No, it needed to run.Why did I agree to this?
To make Lil happy. She’d wanted it to be in his father’s temple, hoping to placate his father and reunite them.
Caleb had agreed only because he knew his father would never bother coming to such a place. Jaden honestly didn’t care.
But he had forgotten that his father had a penchant for sending acolytes out to gather his tributes and bring them home. After all, his ego was even larger than that statue towering over them, and his father wanted to see the offerings of those who worshipped him because they had no idea what an asshole Jaden actually was.
Of all the sycophants who’d latched on to his sperm donor, Myone was the last one he’d have expected to run into for such a petty mission. As the leader of the Sephirii army, she should have much more important things to attend.
And given the size of her belly, she should be in labor any moment now. How many months were they pregnant? Nineteen-hundred?
