“Faith? Seriously?”
He nodded once. “Yeah.”
I snorted. “You’re full of shit, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I am.”
Laughing, I poked his side. “You asshole.”
He twisted aside and tickled my ribs.
“Hey, no! No tickling.”
He gave me a lazy grin. “You started it.”
I struggled against him, trying to catch my breath. I even dug my fingers into his stomach, but naturally, he was impervious to tickling. Soon, we were both locked in a mock battle to see who would give up first.
Finally, when we were both out of breath and crying with laughter, he recovered and sat up. His smile faded, and a look of deep concern settled on his face as he looked out over the horizon.
“I am worried,” he admitted. “But there’s nothing you can do with worry and fear. All you can do is keep fighting and keep living. That’s what life is. Regardless of whether you’re at war or peace, grieving or celebrating, laughing or crying, you have to keep fighting and living. That’s what I’m going to do. I’ll figure out a way to end this. Ihave to.”
Yup.
Head over heels. Fuck me.
Aurelius packed everything back in the basket, and we headed back down the stairs. Keeping the blanket around my shoulders, I took his free hand, letting him guide me back through the corridors and hallways of the castle and manor.
“I should probably go find Titus and the advisors,” he said. “I haven’t seen any of them yet today. They’ll all want to talk my ear off. Are you going back to your room?”
“I guess I should check on Delphine,” I admitted.
“You don’t think she’d already be out and about?”
I snorted a laugh. “Absolutely not. For her, eight hours of sleep is nothing. If I had to guess, I’ll probably need to wake her up in time for dinner.”
“Wow,” he said with a chuckle. “And I thought Rasp liked to sleep late.”
“She has very few vices, but sleeping in would be her biggest. And after being up so late the other day, she’ll probably be trying to catch up for a week.”
When we reached my room, we stood awkwardly outside it, neither of us wanting the moment to be over even though we had other obligations to attend to. From the way he was looking at me, I got the feeling that he wanted to kiss me. Despite everything we’d done with-and to
-each other, I still had a moment of girlish embarrassment that made it hard to make the first move.
“So, I guess I’ll see you later?” he asked, moving closer.
My breath caught in my throat as I took in his scent, all masculine and intense.
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Right as he leaned forward to kiss me, the door swung open. Delphine yawned and squinted against the light, rubbing one hand over her disheveled hair.
“Oh,” she moaned through another yawn. “I thought I heard people out here.”
“Delphine! I thought you were still asleep. You scared me.”
She shrugged and wiped the sleep from her eyes. “You two were the ones who surprised me. I was sleeping really well. Then there was all this chatter outside.”
Aurelius smiled and backed away down the hall.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
“See you,” I said, waving at him like a moron.
He winked, then vanished around the corner a moment later.
AURELIUS
I
‘d been right about Titus wanting to talk. Except, instead of more panicked discussions about death and destruction, he’d pulled me into a strategy and finance meeting. It was a welcome change of pace and kept my mind off other, more unpleasant things.
“Lord Septimius,” Titus addressed one of the nobles. “Our military movements would benefit from simply flying our forces to and fro, the issue is the humans. As the Lady Brielle pointed out, we cannot have entire flocks of dragons coursing through the sky. You own several manufacturing facilities that specialize in vehicle construction. How soon could you provide us with transport?”
I sighed inwardly as Septimus’s eyes widened. He obviously hadn’t thought this would be asked of him.
Septimius leaned forward, interlacing his fingers. “Well, my facilities are typically used to manufacture heavy-duty equipment. Bulldozers, backhoes, tractors. Things of that nature. It’s one of the few non-magical revenue streams my family has. I’m not sure we could actually transition to building vans or trucks fast enough.”
Titus gave a noncommittal grunt. “This is what I was afraid of. None of the industries we have our hands in can easily be shifted to military function.”
“You’re right,” I said. “We’ve spent the last hundred-and-fifty years leveraging the magic we have toward health and wellness and other pointless things-anti-aging creams, joint-rejuvenating supplements, attraction perfumes and colognes. Even saying it now, it’s hard not to realize how trite and silly it all is.”
“But extremely financially lucrative,” one of the other nobles noted.
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