Chapter 26
twenty-six
Kas learns how to focus.
Days passed back home at Stormhill, and routine returned to Kas’s life.
He came back from the symposium inspired, in many ways, but there was a bit of a problem: The new normal was all too similar to their old normal.
Life felt the way it had before he and Nes developed a tenuous friendship.
There was no semblance of the rapport they’d built in Rohilavol, though Kas had to admit, he could, possibly, be partially to blame.
He was writing again.
It took until the third day back for him to admit he was entirely to blame for the change in circumstance. How in the gods’ names was Nes supposed to become comfortable with her feelings for him if all he did was stay cooped up in his office?
He needed to change—likely in more ways than one—but making himself present, doing a better job managing his working hours, that would be a start.
Kas would like to say the idea was his own, but it was prompted by a note from Hevva, reminding him of their upcoming holiday to Summer Cottage, to relax, and to stop planning every second of his life.
He rolled his eyes, but time was running short. Nes and the twins might not return to Stormhill after their holiday. He needed to act. It was high time to resume scheduled dinners.
The twins tumbled into the dining room and ricocheted off the walls, before pinging into their seats. “Boys on one side, girls on the other,” Ataht liked to say.
Nesrina, his muse, arrived almost late and stole the breath from his lungs when she slipped in wearing her godsdamned golden gown—the one he’d last seen pooled on the floor around her ankles.
He groaned, earning a confused glance from the twins.
She had to know what she was doing to him. She had to.
Patience, Kas.
Over supper, the adults learned all about how to host a foreign delegation .
. . from the children, so the information was of questionable providence.
Apparently, they’d spent their holiday questioning their history tutor about the Domossan visit to the capital.
Their tutor didn’t know much, and Kas suspected he’d invented customs, like a ball.
“We have to have one.” Della’s eyes were round and pleading.
“It’ll be educational,” Ataht added.
Across the table, Nes gushed, “I think it’s a splendid idea.”
What a hassle. He wasn’t sold, and the twins could see it on his face. His inability to school his expression earned Kas an extensive series of shrieked pleas from the duo.
He had started his next article early, so he’d have time to spare, but not for things like balls.
They’d almost convinced him. Della rattled off reasons why it would be prudent to allow the young royals to practice their future diplomatic duties. Ataht chimed in with color commentary. Then Kas found Nes eyeing him.
She inclined her head at the twins, lifted her brows, and stuck out her pillowy bottom lip.
He acquiesced straight away.
It was quite enjoyable being friends with her.
The twins launched into a planning session, and by the time the last of their blackberry tarts had been polished off, it was decided that their nannies and other tutors would be invited as well.
Della was also quite vocal about her desire to match Miss Kiappa at the event of the summer, which Nes thought was sweet but impossible, brushing the idea off with tact.
When they all departed the dining chamber, he beelined straight to his study. Balance was something to strive for, he didn’t expect to master it immediately.
Aweek after their return from Rohilavol, Kas’s luck changed. His plan to strike balance was failing on all fronts. Most importantly: he’d lost his muse.
Too focused on how he couldn’t write, he’d become snappish and distant during the rare times he got to see Nesrina. Conversely, too focused on Nes, he’d been unable to get more than doodles of her face and form onto the page for two days.
He missed her. He saw her daily, yes, but it wasn’t the same as when they’d been at the symposium.
He needed to check in but didn’t want to bother her or draw attention to the fact he was stopping by her room at—he checked his pocket watch—midnight.
So, he did what any logical man would do and took the hidden stairway that connected their bedrooms.
What the hell am I doing?
Be patient, Kas.
Little late for that.
He stood frozen behind the panel that opened into her hallway, his childhood room.
Softly, so as not to terrify her, he pressed his forehead against the smooth oak and suppressed a groan.
She was probably sleeping. He couldn’t knock and he absolutely couldn’t waltz in.
Gods knew she’d weave a hatchet and lop his head off.
Tendrils of magic slipped from his fingers out into the chamber. To make sure she’s safe, he told himself.
What an idiotic excuse, Kas. Why wouldn’t she be safe? The rational part of his mind argued back, but he ignored the starched fool.
His magic hovered near her. He couldn’t see to say if she was asleep or awake for certain.
So, with a trick he’d taught himself as a child, he shifted the pressure and temperature of the room, whorling a cloud of cool, dense air together like a weather front to fill the space. It made it much easier to hear.
Her soft, even breathing reached his ears.
That meant nothing. She often stayed up reading, her own admission, so he swept his breeze toward the side table to check for a lit candle.
“Kas?” she murmured.
He froze, then a burning desire to get rid of his writer’s block had him sending a whisper of wind to brush hair back from her eyes. Nes’s hands came up to bat away—no, to brush through his magic, tracing it with her fingers as she dragged her hands through the air.
“Touch me,” she whispered, and that was his undoing.
He was on her in an instant, trailing warmth over her bosom, her nipples hardening beneath her thin gown. He didn’t need to see her face to know how she looked, lying there beneath the covers, sprawled out on her back, arms and legs splayed wide, as he’d found her each night at the symposium.
And she wanted him.
She arched into the magic, murmuring pleas for him to touch her. His erection strained against his trousers, and he rocked his hips, almost coming without any help.
Kas worked his magic down her body, to where her thin chemise was bunched high around her thighs, as he suspected it would be. She bucked into his power.
“Please,” she cried out, voice muffled by the panel. “More.”
Nes hadn’t invited him in, and he’d never knowingly force his way into her chamber. But she had certainly invited him to touch her. So, he stayed in the stairwell, damp forehead pressed against the panel as he worked his cock with one hand and brought her to ecstasy with his tendrils of magic.
Later, he returned to his study and wrote until dawn.