Page 26 of Dark Shaman: Love Found
"And you take a full security detail. Non-negotiable."
"The guards who served in the harem would be enough," she offered.
"There aren't enough of them given the many new men working on the site."
"Then supplement them with perimeter guards. The harem guards can provide close protection while others secure the wider area."
"That's reasonable. I'll make the arrangements. You can start tomorrow if you wish."
That had been much easier than she'd expected, and frankly, a little suspicious. She hadn't expected to be allowed on the harem grounds as soon as tomorrow. The ladies would be thrilled to hear that.
"Thank you," she said.
He smiled. "You know I can't refuse you anything."
If only that were true.
"Can we leave right after I enact my jealous wife routine at breakfast?"
He nodded. "I'm looking forward to your performance."
"You seem overly eager for me to do that."
"I will enjoy you staking your claim on me publicly." He leaned closer to her, and his mouth found her throat. "Showing everyone that I belong to you as much as you belong to me."
"You belong to no one," she said, but her breath hitched as he found that sensitive spot.
"No?" His hands moved with familiar expertise. "Then why do I keep a goddess caged? Why do I risk everything to have you near?"
"Because you can't bear to let anything go once you've claimed it."
"True." He lifted her easily, carrying her toward his bed chamber. "But also because you're the only thing in five millennia I've wanted to keep."
She let him carry her, let passion override the calculated dance that governed their interactions, the careful balance between love and power, between what they felt and what they could never fully trust.
Tomorrow, she would play the jealous wife, reinforcing the fiction that Navuh insisted on. But after that was done, she would return to the harem, ostensibly to fuss over books saved from the library, and hopefully, she would get to reestablish contact with Annani.
Tonight, though, belonged to the complex, contradictory man who held her caged but cherished, who loved and pampered her but had taken away her sons as babies.
As Navuh's hands moved over her with reverent familiarity, Areana let herself forget everything but this—the one pure thing in their twisted reality.
"I love you," he whispered against her skin.
"And I love you," she replied, meaning it despite everything. "Always."
9
HILDEGARD
The warrior pose had always been Hildegard's favorite, though performing it in a hospital room next to an unconscious patient probably wasn't what the yoga influencers she was following had envisioned. She held the position, arms stretched wide, front knee bent at a perfect ninety-degree angle, breathing steadily through her nose.
The monitors beeped their familiar rhythm.
Tim's heartbeat was steady at sixty-two beats per minute, and his oxygen saturation was holding at ninety-eight percent.
For sixteen days, she'd been practically living in this room, watching Tim's body remake itself. The transformation was nothing short of miraculous, even by the standards set by all the transitioning Dormants before him. He'd grown four inches, and every ounce of excess fat had been used to fuel the change. His face had emerged from its former softnesslike a sculpture revealed by chipping away superfluous stone.
He was too thin, skeletal almost, and what hair he'd had before had fallen out in clumps. He would be so pissed when he woke up and realized that instead of gaining a new head of hair, he'd lost the little he'd had.
