Facing the doors that lead back to the bedroom, I tiptoe to them. I nudge the lever, opening the door a crack. Peering out, I don’t see Kyon anywhere. He’s not on the bed where I left him. Squaring my shoulders, I open one door wider, taking a tentative step outside the dressing room. My skin prickles, and I sense Kyon before I feel his hand come to rest firmly on the back of my neck. Every cell in my body reacts when I look up to see him beside me. He must’ve been leaning against the wall, waiting for me to open the door. He traded the white sheet around his hips for midnight blue swim shorts that show the obscene V-shape of his abdomen. His bare chest is disgustingly perfect and covered only by his black tattoo.
Hiding my fear of him within an annoyed expression, I continue to walk in the direction I was going. I try to outpace him so that his hand will drop from the nape of my neck, but he slows me with a warning squeeze.
“Breakfast is ready on the terrace,” he says in a satisfied murmur near my ear. I wonder at his tone for a moment until he says, “Number three thirty-three looks even better on you than I imagined.”
I don’t reply. Passing through the room out onto the terrace, I approach the round stone table. A kitelike awning extends over the table, shielding us from the glare of the tropical sun. Kyon pulls out a cushioned chair for me. It’s so big and tall that my feet barely reach the stone patio.
A levitating service cart is waiting near us. Kyon retrieves pewter-covered dishes from its surface. He places a platter in front of me. The lid lifts from it on its own, resting on a hinge. The aroma of pancakes rises. I inhale, my mouth watering. My eyes shift to Kyon’s plate as he sits next to me. He has something that looks like boiled squid on his plate. I shudder and make a face at it. Then, I stab a pancake from the towering stack on my plate, thrusting one onto the side of his plate.
“Eat that,” I say in challenge.
Blue eyes the color of the sky cast down upon me. “Why?” he asks.
“Because I don’t eat my pancakes until you do,” I reply with a lift of my chin.
He tries to hide his smile behind a sigh. “I have no need to drug you, Kricket. I can overpower you whenever I desire.”
“That’s nice—you already drugged me, so your point is moot. Here, have some syrup too.” I lift the heavy pewter dispenser in front of me and pour a generous amount of syrup over his pancake.
He looks at me like I’m being dumb, but he doesn’t balk. Instead he lifts his cutlery and slices into the pancake. He mops up the syrup with the pancake on his fork. With more elegance than anyone should have, he takes a bite and chews it demonstratively. With a smug smile, he reaches over and lifts my glass of water. Saluting me with it, he takes a large sip. He puts it down along with his cutlery and holds his hands palm up in an are you satisfied gesture.
I sniff and lift my cutlery, beginning to eat. As soon as the morsel crosses my lips, I have to stifle the urge to groan with pleasure. It’s divine. “So,” I ask between bites. “What are we doing here?”
“We’re having breakfast,” Kyon replies. The ocean breeze stirs his hair. The sunshine makes his skin look golden.
“Okay. What are we doing after breakfast?” I ask.
“I thought I’d show you around your new home.”
“You actually live here?”
“We live here.”
“Alone?”
“I don’t like people.”
“You don’t like them or they don’t like you?” I ask.
“Does it matter?”
“Not really,” I say with a shrug. His presence dominates my entire being. He invades my senses with his nearness. I can’t ignore him and the silence is suddenly heavy. “Have you lived here long?”
“Long enough.”
“Long enough to fall in love with it?”
“You could say that,” he agrees. I try to hide a smile, but he sees it. “What’s funny?”
“You. The idea that you’d be in love with anything.”
“Why would that surprise you?”
“You strike me as someone who’s accustomed to extreme wealth—something like this must be like camping for you,” I reply. The house is amazing, but it’s obviously meant to function with no staff. When Kyon was at the palace, he was constantly with an entourage of Alameeda underlings, all waiting on his every whim.
He lifts his glass, takes a small sip. Replacing it on the table, he casts me a quick glance. “How do you know to what I’m accustomed?”
“You think that I simply ignored you while I was the Regent’s ward? I had to sort through and find the truth among the lies that your people kept feeding me, but I managed to learn a few things about you.”
His eyes narrow dangerously. “Such as?”
“Such as your position within the Brotherhood. You have the most coveted seat in Alameeda. The prestige of controlling the Loch of Cerulean is unequaled—as are the trappings that it brings. An ambassador of Wurthem suggested that you were not originally in line for it.”
“Did he?”
“Mmm. He implied that you gained it through other means.”
“What other means?”
“Intimidation. Assassination.”
“Do you always listen to gossip?” he asks.
“Always,” I say between bites of pancake.
“What else do you think you know?”
“You’re a shrewd investor. A source said you own some highly lucrative ventures in Wurthem—a fact that annoyed my source, since he believes that only the social elite in House Wurthem should be able to hold its wealth. He said your connections in Alameeda make you untouchable, but he refused to say which connections. Which made me think that he feared your connections more than he feared you.”
Kyon frowns. “I make me untouchable,” he says with more force than I expect. I’ve touched on something here. His loner-ish persona has roots that run deep.
I decide to push on despite the icy reception my words are garnering. “My source indicated that your business prowess was underestimated at first. He didn’t initially believe that a soldier such as yourself would understand the intricacies related to high finance.”
“What do you think?”
I shrug. “Strategy is strategy. Learn the game and play it. From what I know of you, I would think that you’d be better than most at that.”
“Why is that?”
“Because when someone like you gets outmaneuvered, he can usually push through it by using force.”
“Is there a point to this?” Kyon asks as he leans back in his chair.
I lean back in mine as well. I wipe my mouth with my napkin before resting it by my plate. “No. No point. Just making conversation.”
Kyon rises from his seat and extends his hand to me. “You want to talk? I’ll show you around and you can talk.”
I eye his hand for a moment. I don’t take it, but stand on my own and push my chair away from the table. “Oscil,” he says in an even tone. “Clear the table.” He indicates that I should follow him back into the house.
On the way, I look over my shoulder. A large hole opens in the center of the table. The dirty plates are magnetically pulled into it and swallowed up, then the hole disappears and the table resumes its solid form. A floating tray passes over the top of the table, spraying it with a cleaner and using a robotic arm to clean the surface. I watch it all with fascination before I feel Kyon’s hand on the small of my back guiding me away.