Kylar made it to his rooms and collapsed onto the bed like a man surrendering to gravity.

  The mattress took him in with a soft hiss of linens and feather-down, and for a long moment he didn’t move. He stared at the ceiling, at the faint gold of lamplight trembling along carved beams, at shadows that danced across the ceiling.

  He was exhausted. Not the clean kind of tired that came after training. Not the satisfying ache of a long march.

  This was the tired that lived behind the eyes, that came from being watched and measured and spoken about like another item on the list.

  And then he’d seen her.

  Just standing there in the corridor, and something in him had gone quiet. He wasn’t used to that kind of calm, that made him realize how loud he’d been inside his own head until she appeared and made the noise stop.

  She was fine. There wasn’t anything wrong.

  Was the grief he felt only sadness? Her concern for Jayce maybe? Or was it the Lion? Or was it the Phoenix reacting to something she felt today?

  Kylar’s hand drifted to his chest, fingers pressing lightly where the crest curled down beneath fabric. He didn’t know if it was the god-beasts brushing against him again, or if it was the bond itself stretching into something new and uninvited. He didn’t know if tonight had been a warning, or if it had simply been… life. Someone else’s pain echoing in a room he thought he would always be alone in.

  Brief shared feelings, he thought. That might be all it is. A flicker. A pulse.

  He’d have to learn the difference.

  What to be concerned about. What was nothing.

  His eyelids felt heavy, weighted.

  He exhaled slowly and realized, belatedly, that he still had his boots on.

  “Right,” he muttered to the empty room, voice rough with fatigue.

  He started kicking them off one at a time, heel scraping the bedframe with a dull thud. One boot hit the floor. The other followed. He didn’t bother aiming. He just wanted his feet free.

  He lay back again, fully intending to be responsible.

  Clothing. He should take it off. He should at least loosen the shirt. He should set the cloak properly instead of leaving it where it fell like a discarded thought.

  But the bed had decided he belonged to it now.

  Kylar rolled onto his side and fumbled lazily at his jacket, fingers clumsy with exhaustion. The buttons resisted like they were part of some final test.

  He won anyway, in the most pathetic manner possible: by pulling until the fabric gave up.

  The jacket slid off his shoulder and toppled over the edge of the bed, landing somewhere on the floor with a soft, defeated sound.

  He blinked once, slow.

  He could sleep in the rest.

  He could. He was a prince. He could do whatever he wanted.

  That thought amused him for half a heartbeat, then the amusement dissolved into warmth.

  Kairi’s voice lingered behind his ribs.

  Go sleep, my beloved.

  His mouth curved faintly, the smallest smile.

  And then his body finally stopped arguing.

  The last of the tension bled out of him in a slow, reluctant surrender. The palace became distant. The world softened at the edges.

  Kylar let his eyes close.

  When they opened again, he woke in the meadow the way a man surfaced from deep water, lungs burning, mind lagging behind his body.

  Grass pressed cool against his palms. The willow’s shadow cut the moonlight into soft bands across the hill. The air smelled like clover and damp earth and that impossible sweetness the dreamscape always carried, as if it had never learned how to rot.

  He blinked hard, trying to make his eyes focus.

  Kairi was there. She always was.

  She sat close enough that he could feel her warmth without touching, knees drawn up, hair loose over one shoulder. Her hands were busy with something small, absent-minded, braiding a thin strand of grass between her fingers like her mind needed a task to stay anchored.

  Kylar tried to push up on one elbow and immediately regretted it.

  His bones felt heavy. Like someone had poured sand into his blood.

  Kairi leaned in at once, a quiet shift of attention that made his chest tighten.

  “Hey,” she murmured, voice soft. Not teasing or bright, the voice she used when she could see the edge of him fraying.

  “I’m here,” he tried to say. It came out rough, half-muffled by his own exhaustion.

  Kairi smiled anyway, small and warm, as if the words didn’t matter as much as the fact that he’d made a sound.

  Kylar dragged in a breath and forced himself upright another inch, stubborn as always. “We need to… talk,” he managed, like the sentence weighed as much as armor.

  Kairi’s brows lifted with immediate concern. “About what?”

  Kylar’s hand drifted to his chest out of habit, fingers pressing lightly where the crest lived in the waking world. The dreamscape didn’t give him the mark, but his body remembered it anyway. His mind remembered too much: ink on paper, council lines that weren’t supposed to feel like chains, the casual way men discussed heirs like it was a scheduling matter.

  “The… feeling,” he said, and the word tasted wrong, too small for what he meant. “Earlier. I—”

  His tongue tripped. The thought unraveled.

  Kairi’s hand rose and settled against his cheek, steadying him with the simplest touch. Her thumb brushed once along his cheekbone, slow and grounding.

  “Shh,” she whispered. “You’re exhausted”

  “I’m not,” he lied automatically.

  Kairi didn’t argue. She never wasted energy on the lies he told when he was tired. She only shifted closer, tugged him gently, and guided him into her lap like it was the most natural place in the world for him to land.

  Kylar tried to protest on principle.

  His body betrayed him and sagged against her instead. He adjusted a little and loosely wrapped his arms around her.

  Kairi’s arms wrapped around him with quiet certainty.

  There it was again. That calm. That steady presence, like she reached into him and lowered the volume of everything.

  Kylar exhaled, the sound coming out like surrender.

  “Tell me,” he insisted, voice muffled against her. “Before I… forget.”

  Kairi pressed a kiss to his temple, a soft, careful thing. “Okay,” she murmured. “One thing at a time.”

  Kylar forced his eyes open. The meadow blurred at the edges. He blinked hard, trying to keep the world from swimming.

  “I felt… anger,” he admitted, and it embarrassed him how quickly the word came. “Not at you. Never at you, it was the council. The docket. They wrote it down like a… plan.”

  Kairi went still for half a heartbeat.

  Not fear. Not shock. Just attention sharpening.

  “Joint suite,” he mumbled, bitterness and exhaustion tangling together. “And heirs.”

  The words sat between them like something ugly and heavy.

  Kairi’s arms tightened around him, not possessive. Protective. “Oh,” she breathed. And there it was in her voice, the shape of understanding. “Kylar…”

  He blinked, his eyes burned, not with tears, with frustration.

  “I know it’s… politics,” he said, voice rough. “I know it’s the story they want.” He exhaled through his nose like it hurt. “But it made my skin crawl. Like—” He paused, searching for the right cruelty. “Like they’d already decided what we are allowed to want.”

  Kairi’s fingers threaded through his hair, combing gently at the roots the way she did when she wanted to soothe him without making it obvious. “While I was with Rush and Niveus,” she murmured, low and honest, “they were talking the same way. Alliances. Terms. Traditions. Like love is a clause you can negotiate.”

  Kylar’s grip tightened on her sleeve.

  “And then,” he whispered, the next part harder, “I felt a jolt of pain. Quick. Gone.” He frowned, confused even now. “And I thought… Lion. Or Phoenix. Or—”

  “Or me.” Kairi finished softly.

  Kylar didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself to.

  “We need rules,” he mumbled. “If this is going to bleed through, I don’t want—” He swallowed. “I don’t want to drown you in my panic.”

  Kairi’s arms tightened around him, firm. “You don’t drown me,” she said, immediate. “Kylar… you’ve been holding me up for six years. You don’t get to decide you’re too heavy now.”

  He tried to argue, to insist he could carry it, like he always had. His body didn’t cooperate. The meadow tilted gently, like a cradle. His eyes slid shut on their own.

  “No,” he breathed, weakly offended by his own fatigue. “I’m talking.”

  Kairi huffed a quiet laugh, more fond than amused. “You’re mumbling.”

  “I’m… strategizing,” he corrected, voice already fading.

  “Mmm,” Kairi hummed. “Very fierce.”

  Kylar’s hand twitched, finding her wrist like it knew where safety lived. His fingers curled around her with a faint, stubborn squeeze.

  She kissed his knuckles. “Sleep,” she murmured.

  Hemade a sound of protest. It might have been a word. It might have been a growl.

  Kairi only smoothed her palm over his hair again. “I’m here,” she whispered into the top of his head. “And you’re allowed to rest.”

  His mouth moved against her skin, trying to form one last coherent sentence.

  “Stay,” he managed.

  Her laugh turned soft, almost tender. “Always,” she promised. Then, quieter, like a secret for only the meadow to hear: “You don’t have to earn it.”

  His breathing slowed as he floated on the edge of waking and sleep, the dreamscape’s sounds blurring: the distant chirp of insects from the edges of the field.

  Her arms were around him, and her fingers kept tracing the same soothing line down his hair, and each time she did, the world got quieter.

  He drifted under, then came up once, briefly, like a man remembering he was supposed to be vigilant.

  “Kairi,” he mumbled.

  “Yes?” she answered instantly.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  He forced his eyes open a crack. Her face hovered above him, soft with concern, like she’d been watching for the moment he resurfaced.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, not even sure what he was apologizing for anymore. The bond. The politics. The weight of him.

  Kairi’s expression softened into something fierce and gentle at once.

  “Don’t,” she said simply.

  Then she pressed her forehead to his.

  “Just sleep, my beloved.”

  Kylar exhaled, the last of his stubbornness slipping loose.

  Kylar opened his eyes to pale winter light and the immediate, offending fact of morning.

  For a heartbeat, he waited for the lingering hush of the meadow. For warm grass under his back. For the distant roll of hills. For the familiar weight of Kairi’s presence like sunlight you could touch.

  Instead, there was only his ceiling. The same familiar cracks in the plaster he had stared at night after night for years.

  He blinked once. Then again.

  And memory brushed him, not as a clear scene, but as fragments.

  Clover-sweet air. Her hands in his hair. Her voice close to his ear. The feeling of being held while his body tried to argue with sleep and lost.

  He had been there.

  He knew he had been there.

  He hated that he couldn’t remember it properly.

  The dreamscape wasn’t something he forgot. It was something he lived in like a second heartbeat. And last night it had slipped through his fingers like water because he’d been too tired to hold on.

  He sat up slowly. His spine popped in protest, and he realized with dull disbelief that he’d slept on top of the covers. Fully dressed. Like a man who had fallen into bed and simply… stopped.

  “So tired you forgot to exist,” he muttered to himself.

  He swung his legs off the bed and stood. His jacket was still on the floor where it had surrendered last night. He nudged it with his foot, then left it there out of spite.

  Routine saved him when his thoughts didn’t.

  Cold water, clean up, the fine comb through his hair, shave halfheartedly, and then dress properly, because a prince didn’t get to look like he’d been flattened by exhaustion, even if he had.

  He fastened his collar, smoothed the front of his coat, and stepped into the hall.

  Tessa was waiting. She stood near the doorway with her hands folded behind her back, dressed in her uniform. Her gaze swept over him in one clean assessment.

  And then she fell into step behind him.

  They walked through the waking palace. Servants moved like careful currents around them, heads bowed, eyes flicking up and away too quickly. The palace was already chewing on yesterday’s chaos, swallowing it into gossip.

  Kylar kept his face neutral and his attention sharp.

  Breakfast smelled like warm bread and spiced tea. It was rather quiet in the dining room for once. He sat and ate and tried to keep his mind from racing off a cliff’s edge with worry.

  Halfway through his plate, a flicker of memory brushed him.

  Just sleep, Ky.

  Kylar’s hand paused over his fork.

  He didn’t like that he couldn’t remember the meadow as clearly as he would have liked. They all needed more sleep.

  The room shifted as Ryder entered, already mid-conversation with someone trailing him. Jayce came in with him, posture crisp, expression composed. They were talking back and forth about ledgers and schedules, about how the palace would hold itself together for the day without cracking.

  Kylar watched Jayce the way you watched a man walking on ice.

  Jayce looked… fine.

  Better than he had any right to be, if yesterday’s strain had been real. His movements were steady. His tone sounded normal. He even wore the faintest hint of humor around his mouth when Ryder said something under his breath.

  So, Darius wasn’t wrong. Sleep helped. Another memory, Kairi told him that Darius said that. He mildly thought, at least I can remember parts.

  Kylar kept his gaze on his plate, anyway, listening to the conversation drift past.

  “…the masquerade,” Ryder was saying, quiet but firm. “…still tonight, unless Father changes his mind again.”

  Masquerade. Tonight.

  Kylar’s fork stopped again.

  Right. Tonight.

  He lifted his eyes without meaning to and caught Jayce looking at him.

  It wasn’t a hard stare, it was quick, reflexive, like Jayce had checked his position in the room the way he checked exits.

  The moment Kylar’s gaze met his, Jayce looked away too fast.

  Not casual. Not neutral. Avoidant.

  Kylar held still, letting the observation settle like a coin dropping into water.

  Interesting.

  Tessa shifted behind him, the smallest movement of fabric, as if she’d noticed it too.

  Kylar lowered his eyes back to his plate and kept eating, expression calm, mind suddenly very awake.

  The chair beside him was pulled out and then was occupied. Kylar took a couple more bites before he looked at Damon.

  Damon was filling his plate with that irritating smile he usually had. He took his time placing each piece of fruit on his plate and then sat back in the chair. Finally, he tilted his head with a slow flourish.

  “Third alcove past the stairwell by the hedge maze courtyard.” He said once and then turned to his food and started eating.

  Kylar swallowed what he was eating and glanced at the fruit and then the croissants. He grabbed one of the buttery rolls and rose from the table, pushing the chair in and left, Tessa following suit.

  He had to remind himself a handful of times to walk. He took two steps at a time up the stairwell that Damon indicated.

  Tessa kept up with him.

  He reached the alcove pausing for just half a heartbeat before he slipped behind the decorative jars and greenery. He sat on the shaded bench, breath controlled, pulse less so.

  Darius leaned against the far side of the alcove with his eyes closed, posture alert even while pretending not to be.

  Kylar’s attention then was drawn to her.

  Kairi was already watching him with a slight amused tilt to her lips. Her eyes dipped to the croissant in his hand. One brow lifted.

  Kylar couldn’t help it. He grinned and held it out. He shrugged lightly looking her over and wondered if she had eaten.

  Kairi took it, leaned over, and kissed his cheek.

  Before she could pull away, Kylar caught her with a hand at the back of her head and kissed her properly. He pulled back only enough to rest their foreheads together; the contact helped his worries wash away.

  Her fingers caressed his cheek. Her smile was soft.

  “I see Damon passed along my request,” she whispered.

  Kylar hummed and leaned into her touch. “Are you hiding from responsibilities this early in the day?”

  Kairi bit into the croissant and shook her head. “No. I just wanted a moment to talk.” Her eyes stayed on his. “You slept most of last night and I don’t think you were awake enough to talk.”

  Kylar looked away guilty. Because it was true.

  Kairi’s expression turned more serious. “You mentioned you thought you might be feeling my feelings.” She hesitated, then continued anyway, voice low. “I want to test that. Because… I think I’m feeling yours.”

  Kylar leaned back against the bench and let his head rest against the wall, exhaling through his nose.

  “This bond should have come with training,” he muttered. “Or our gods could have been so kind to explain this.”

  His gaze flicked briefly to Darius, who hadn’t moved. Tessa had shifted to the outer edge to keep them shielded from passing eyes.

  Kylar looked back to Kairi. “How do you want to test it?”

  Kairi took his hand and stared at their fingers for a moment like she was deciding how much courage to spend. “I’m going to think of something,” she said quietly. “And you tell me what you feel.”

  Kylar nodded once. “Alright.”

  Kairi drew a breath and let her gaze go distant, the way it sometimes did in the meadow when she was deep in thought.

  The emotion hit him like a tide.

  Not his. Heavy. Salted. Old.

  Kylar’s voice dropped without thinking. “Sorrow,” he whispered.

  Kairi’s head snapped up, startled. “Okay.” Her eyes widened, then narrowed with focus. “Let me think of something else.”

  Kylar looked away, the confirmation settling in his bones like a weight he hadn’t asked for.

  This was happening.

  He swallowed, then lifted his free hand, subtle, the smallest gesture toward Darius’s silhouette beyond the jars.

  Should we…?

  Kairi followed the motion, saw what he meant, and rolled her eyes so hard it was nearly a prayer.

  “Kylar,” she murmured, half scolding, half amused.

  His brows drew together. He leaned closer, hands signed quick. [We shouldn’t talk about this in front of him.]

  Kairi blinked at him like he’d said something wildly foolish. Then her mouth twitched. “You trust him to sleep in my rooms.”

  Kylar felt the color climbing his neck in betrayal.

  Kairi’s eyes glittered with that wicked warmth she kept tucked behind her poise. “You trust him to be there if storms come.” She shrugged, like it was obvious. “But feelings are where you draw the line?”

  Kylar frowned and his brows furrowed. “That’s different.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Kairi leaned back, still holding his hand, her expression far too pleased. “We do talk. Darius is part of this whether you like it or not.”

  Kylar’s gaze flicked toward Darius again.

  Darius had opened his eyes at some point. He wasn’t pretending to nap anymore. He was watching them now with the patient, blunt attention of a man who knew when something important was happening.

  Kylar frowned at him, irritation and embarrassment braided together.

  Darius lifted one shoulder in a small shrug that said: If you want me gone, say it. If you want me here, I’m here.

  Kylar resigned that he did trust Darius and he did place him close. He was her Ash guard. He just needed to remind himself of that now. Darius wouldn’t see this as a weakness.

  Kairi squeezed Kylar’s hand once, a quiet anchor. “He won’t gossip,” she said softly.

  Kylar’s voice came out rougher than he meant. “That isn’t what I’m afraid of.”

  Kairi’s smile faded, just enough for her seriousness to show. “Then what are you afraid of?”

  Kylar stared at the plant leaves in front of them like they were safer than her eyes.

  He felt it again, the faint edge of his own panic tightening, like his mind had found a new thing to spiral around and was already coiling at the chance.

  “If this keeps happening,” he said quietly, “if it gets stronger…” He forced his throat to swallow. “You’ll feel everything.”

  Kairi didn’t interrupt.

  Kylar forced the next words out anyway, the confession burning on the way up. “I don’t want to drown you in my fear.”

  The sentence landed, simple and terrible. And the worst part was what followed: he felt her reaction to it immediately. The soft ache in her chest. The warmth that wasn’t pity. The steady, stubborn love that always made him feel both held and exposed. It warmed his soul now and that was more than he deserved.

  Kairi’s thumb rubbed over his knuckles, slow. “Kylar,” she said, voice gentler now, “you’re not going to drown me.”

  He was surprised at how sure she sounded.

  “You don’t get to decide I’m too fragile,” she continued, calm but firm. “Not after all these years.”

  Kylar’s jaw clenched. “That’s not—”

  “I know,” she cut in, and her eyes softened. “You’re trying to protect me. But you’re also trying to carry it alone. Again.”

  Kylar went very still, caught.

  The fear in him sharpened, then wavered, because the truth was too accurate to deny.

  Kairi took a breath. “Let’s test more,” she said, practical now. “Not to scare you. To understand it. So it doesn’t control us.”

  Kylar’s stomach dipped. Understanding meant proof. Proof meant this was real. And it meant it could get worse. But he nodded once anyway, because she was right and because he was always weakest when she was brave.

  “Alright,” he said.

  Kairi’s gaze drifted again, that faraway look she got when she reached inward. A deliberate choice this time.

  The next emotion came like a spark: lighter, warmer, almost embarrassing.

  Kylar’s breath caught.

  Kairi’s eyes snapped back to his. “Well?”

  Kylar hesitated, then he had a small smile. “Affection,” he admitted.

  Kairi’s mouth curved. “Glad it made you smile.”

  Kylar’s lips twitched faintly, then the smile faltered as his fear surged again. Because even that proved it.

  Everything proved it.

  Kairi’s expression softened at once, like she’d felt the spike before she’d even looked at his face. “Hey,” she murmured.

  Kylar’s fingers tightened around hers. “I don’t want you to feel the parts of me I can’t control.”

  Kairi leaned in until her forehead brushed his temple, intimate and steady. “Then we learn,” she whispered. “And we build rules. And we use Darius like the sensible, long-suffering shield he is.”

  A low, unimpressed sound came from Darius’s corner.

  Kairi smiled without looking at him. “See? He agrees.”

  Kylar huffed a quiet breath that might’ve been laughter if fear wasn’t still sitting in his throat.

  Darius finally spoke, voice low. “If you two are going to test, I need to know what ‘looks wrong’ so I can intervene.”

  Kylar’s brows pulled together. “Intervene how.”

  Darius’s shrug was pure practicality. “Get you water. Get you separated. Get you somewhere private. Hit you if it helps.”

  Kairi snorted. Kylar glared.

  Darius’s mouth twitched. “Kidding,” he said, not kidding at all.

  Kylar exhaled, slow. The fear didn’t vanish, but it stopped climbing for a heartbeat.

  Kairi squeezed his hand once more. “See?” she murmured. “We’re not alone in this.”

  His eyes were burning with the urge to argue and the need to believe her.

  “…Fine,” he muttered. “But if I start spiraling, you tell me if it’s too much.”

  Kairi’s smile softened. “Always.”

  Kylar stared at their joined hands for a moment, like he could brute-force sense into the bond if he glared hard enough.

  Then he lifted his gaze to Kairi’s face.

  “If this is how it will be,” he said quietly, “then I want to know if I can… steer it.”

  Kairi blinked. “Steer it how?”

  Kylar’s mouth flattened, then he looked away for half a second, then back, determination settling.

  “On purpose,” he said. “Not by accident.”

  Kairi’s brows rose. “Okay,” she whispered, suddenly very attentive. “Try.”

  Kylar drew a slow breath in. He pictured the council docket. The joint suite line. The word heirs sitting there like a demand. He felt the old anger stir, the panic that followed it, and he didn’t shove it down.

  He set it aside. Deliberately.

  Then he looked at her and chose something else instead.

  Not heat, his fear or jealousy. Not the restless biting edges of his anxiety when he thought of the future. Not the way his lust sometimes broke through and he had to be strangled back in line.

  Just her. What she had always been for him. Home.

  The way she had crossed a palace threshold without shrinking. The way she had pulled him up with a smile when he felt hollow. The way she said always like it was a law of nature and not a promise.

  Devotion, he thought, and let it fill him from the inside out, quiet and undeniable.

  A steady warmth. A vow without words.

  He held it there. Focused on it like a blade-point.

  Kairi’s breath caught.

  Color rose fast in her cheeks. Her eyes widened, then softened, then went abruptly flustered in a way that made Kylar’s stomach flip with a very unhelpful spark of pride.

  Kairi stared at him like she’d just been struck by sunlight.

  He couldn’t help the faint amusement in his voice. “Too much?” He was a little smug with the reaction she gave.

  Kairi swallowed. “Kylar…”

  From the corner, Darius sighed like a man watching two people walk into a trap with matching smiles.

  “Was that something dirty?” he asked, deadpan, only seeing the way Kairi’s face had betrayed her.

  Kylar and Kairi both snapped their heads toward him at the exact same time.

  “NO,” they said, together, too loud.

  Darius’s brows lifted.

  Kylar cleared his throat, abruptly aware of how guilty he sounded for something he hadn’t even done. “Nothing like that.”

  Kairi nodded fast, still pink. “No. Just—”

  She looked at the floor like it might save her. Then she forced herself to meet Darius’s eyes and said, a little too firmly, “His love for me.”

  Kylar blinked.

  Darius stared at them for a long moment, expression carefully blank. Then he exhaled through his nose like a man trying very hard not to laugh and failing internally.

  “That’s… better,” Darius managed.

  Kylar looked back at Kairi, something warm and startled in his chest.

  “My devotion,” he said quietly, almost stubborn. Then, after a beat, he admitted, because he wasn’t going to lie to himself in the meadow or in an alcove. “But I suppose it’s the same.”

  Kairi’s eyes flicked up to his, still flushed, and her mouth softened like she agreed more than she wanted to show.

  Darius watched them both with a new kind of attention, the practical guard in him cataloging the change. If Kylar could send devotion on purpose…

  Then every shift in Kairi’s face from now on might mean something. And that meant Darius would have to learn a whole new language.

  Wonderful.

  He glanced at the corridor beyond the jars. “We have a little time before we need to prepare for Serenity’s tea party.”

  Kylar nodded and then looked at Darius. “Sounds exciting. Thank you for keeping her safe.”

  Darius sighed, long-suffering. “My life gets more interesting the longer I know you, Ky.”

  Kylar gave a dry, tired laugh, then looked back at Kairi as she squeezed his hand.

  “I’ll see you at the masquerade,” he murmured. “Keep track of what you feel. We’ll compare later.”

  He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, lingering just long enough to make her flush a little again. He was beginning to enjoy feeling her little bursts of happiness.

  “You’re only allowed to dance with me tonight,” he said quietly. “We can talk the night away.”

  Kairi’s smile turned teasing. “Very romantic. And perhaps a bit possessive.”

  Kylar rose, held her hand a beat longer, then let it go with visible reluctance.

  “I’m fine with being called possessive,” he said simply, “for you.”

  He didn’t hide the satisfaction when she flushed again.

  Kylar stepped out of the alcove and forced himself to walk away like a prince instead of a man dragging his heart behind him.

  Behind him, Kairi watched him go, then looked at Darius with a small, wicked curve of her mouth.

  “Ready for warfare with tea?”

  Darius offered his arm with a resigned huff. “I’ll take notes.”