Chapter 10
ten
Kas walks through a hedge maze.
Kas pinned Nesrina with a focused stare while he parsed through his racing thoughts.
He’d demanded to speak, and she’d unexpectedly listened.
She stood atop his chaise lounge, a volcano waiting to explode, and he had no idea where to begin.
The moment he heard her angry footsteps approaching his office, he knew she’d learned about the guard.
But she didn’t understand his reasons and was full of misplaced rage.
“Miss Kiappa,” he began, forcing some explanation forth; anger at that lecherous guard, envy that it hadn’t been him she preferred flowed through his system, fueling his ire.
“I’m well aware I’m not your employer. But you’re a guest in my home.
You’re under the employ of my sister, who, I don’t think I need to remind you, is the Queen of Selwas. ”
She scowled, affixing her hands to her hips. It was a wonder steam wasn’t escaping the top of her curly head.
Three times, she knocked on his office door.
He couldn’t have ignored her longer? Kas had stood like a ninny on the far side of the room, frozen behind his desk, the breath sitting stale in his lungs while she knocked and knocked, then stomped into the library and climbed on the chaise.
When she shouted his name through the vent—his full name—in that delicious accent of hers, he’d dashed around the desk and came running like one of his hounds. He wished he hadn’t.
He had to listen to her say she was happy with that cad of a soldier. He had to hear her reasonable, though harshly delivered, explanation on why he had no right to involve himself in her life.
Frankly, he disagreed with both sentiments, but that didn’t stop him from bungling things again when he could have stayed safe in his study.
She wasn’t understanding his motives. He tried again, “You’re partially responsible for the well-being of my niece and nephew.
I recognize I’m not your bloody father, thank the gods, but I am responsible for—”
“What of my bloody father?” she spat.
Shit.
“How dare you speak of my late papa in such a way?” Her eyes burned fiercely, and he knew he’d done it again.
Tossing his hands up in defeat, Kas inadvertently blasted her with a wave of cold air that whipped her hair back and pressed the fabric of her dress against her shapely thighs. “That’s not what I meant.”
He’d grown tired of the way the guard followed her into the gardens each afternoon, and he’d grown repulsed when he saw the man spending time with another woman.
Kas even assigned Sarma to odd locations on the property, putting him with the twins now and again to make good on his promise to Ehmet.
But he never once put him on guard whilst Nesrina was with the children.
And still, they managed to find one another daily.
He had swallowed his envy day in and day out, fighting off apoplexy each time they came out from beneath that blasted willow tree, until that idiotic man gave him a reason to act.
When the guard had the gall to press Miss Kiappa against the rough stone wall of his house, directly outside his study, Kas nearly ground his molars right out of his mouth.
Then Sarma began pawing at her, and that was the last straw.
Kas knew predatory behavior when he saw it, and that man could not stay on his property.
“Oh, and how did you mean it? I’m not some object to be passed around from father to king to duke,” she spat his title out and stomped on the cushion.
“I am not a child. I’m a free woman bound to no man, at the moment.
And now—” her voice faltered, and she swallowed, setting her sights on something past his shoulder.
Does she love that poor excuse for a soldier? The man had no honor, no empathy. Rage and envy roiled Kas’s gut.
“Now what?” he taunted, distantly aware that his foot was launching toward his mouth.
“I sent away your little plaything, your little distraction, and you no longer want to remain a Guest of the King, tutor to the prince and princess?” His wind continued to whip around, despite his efforts to pull it away.
He was too riled up. It tugged loose every last strand of Nesrina’s already-failing braid, and childishly, he hoped that would irk her further.
How could she possibly be choosing that baby-faced weasel over—
“How dare you imply Rihan was a plaything to me!” Her hand lifted like she was about to jab him in the chest before she smashed it back to her hip.
“What right do you have to pass judgment on me? Do you think I flit around from man to man taking what I want? How dare you imply I’d choose to leave my job for a relationship! ”
Her ire was rather fear-inducing, and Kas found himself stepping back. It was the wrong move, sending her nostrils flaring and tension skittering up his back.
He’d sent Sarma away before nightfall, lying about a summons from King Hethtar.
While the guard hadn’t openly balked at the thinly veiled dismissal, Kas was fairly certain he knew there’d been no such missive from the capital.
When the soldier was gone from his estate, he hastily penned a note to Hevva—sent by bird to ensure a swift delivery.
In it, he informed her she needed to cover for him and tell the guard he’d been recalled for duties related to hosting the Domossan delegation.
He begged her to get Ehmet on board too.
Kas was protecting Miss Kiappa. By getting the rake away, he was saving her from finding the guard smooching another member of staff, from inevitable heartbreak. As an added bonus, he was saving himself the same.
Nesrina’s gaze dropped from Kas’s lips to his chest and back up again.
His heart cowered as her exasperation battered him.
He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to court her.
He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and give her a shake for wasting a moment’s breath on that dolt of a guard.
He wanted to have a conversation about the importance of not distracting him from his work, not until he had time to spare.
She huffed, and he knew he’d done something wrong again. Then she climbed down to the floor, propped her hands on her hips, and glared at him through long lashes, her cheeks red.
He had to buffet his back with his magic to stop from stepping away again. She was scary when furious. Her gentle scent of citrus and gardenias assaulted him, calling heat up to his cheeks and bullying him to take her in his arms, a terrible idea given her rage.
“Cat got your tongue, Lord Kahoth? Do you believe I’m some infantile woman incapable of balancing my instruction of the twins with my own free time?
Hmm?” She began speaking with her hands, flailing them around in an attempt to either fill the empty space between them or to push away the temperamental gusts of wind he kept flinging her way.
“I was getting to know Rihan. He was the first person to help me when I arrived at Kirce. He believed me when I said I had a letter from the king. He didn’t treat me like dirt because I was a potential member of the staff.
” She batted away another burst of his cool breeze, her hands shouting, “How dare you?!” with each rapid movement.
Kas swallowed, a mix of terror and unadulterated envy vying for first place in his heart’s race. “How dare he” was right. He hadn’t been kind to her at the palace, he’d acted like an arse, and Kas was afraid he might have gone and done it again.
“He didn’t pretend not to know who I was after we met. In fact, he said he missed me.” She cocked her head to the side, glaring cynically, and he lost it.
Kas’s gale force winds, this time hot, whipped about her, threatening to knock Nesrina off her feet as they billowed her skirts, which she smacked down with angry hands. Some of what she was saying held truth. In fact, most of what she said was spot on.
Unfortunately, Kas was in quite a tizzy.
Not used to being shouted at by the object of his affections, or anyone, he gaped like a fish out of water.
He wasn’t even brave enough to speak with her like a normal human being.
How was he supposed to contend with this force of nature?
A strange energy seemed to fizzle in the air, growing thicker and thicker with each passing moment.
He couldn’t say if it was his own anxiety and out of control magic, or something more serious.
“He doesn’t look down at me from the lened skies like I’m an obnoxious waif who’s always under foot, unable to care for herself!”
Kas tightened his mouth, and Miss Kiappa stiffened.
“He doesn’t stare at me with his lips perpetually pursed as if I am the most offensive thing the gods ever created! He likes me.” With one final dramatic flail of her hands, an enormous shrubbery, taller than Kas, popped into the space between them.
Shock and delight tugged at the corners of his lips as his wind bashed into the leaves, rustling and quaking them until, with a final forced breath, he managed to withdraw his barrage of airflow from the branches.
In the ensuing stillness, nothing moved: not a leaf shivered, his heart stalled its beating.
It was like the candles themselves stopped flickering.
Kas could hear her on the other side, panting in short, frustrated gasps.
Here he was feeling foolish for tossing wind her way throughout their argument, only for her to block him from view with a gigantic bush—in his own damned library!
Miss Kiappa was furious, to be sure, but he didn’t think she’d done that on purpose.
The absurdity of the situation had a low chuckle curling free from his chest to slink around the room.
It only took a moment, and the addition of a full-on hedge maze around him, for Kas to realize he probably shouldn’t have laughed at her mishap. Turning in a tight circle, he found she’d added shrubbery behind him and to his left. A narrow path led off to the right.
“Just go,” she grumbled from her side of the bushes. “This conversation is over.”
“Back to work, kalalitani,” Kas chirped, setting off through the tunnel of green that looped around the room willy-nilly before it eventually deposited him at the exit.
He couldn’t help himself; the moment the door clicked shut and he heard the telltale pop of her magical creations vanishing, he slipped an errant breeze back through the keyhole to wrap around her shoulders in a balmy embrace.
It was a double-edged decision: The fact that it would annoy her further enticed him, and that he wanted to hug her, in case his arms never got the chance, pushed him over the edge.
She shook it off with a huff of frustration he could practically hear, and when her footsteps came toward the library door, panic got the best of Kas and he took off running.