Later in her room she was in a night gown applying perfume to her neck. She’d decided that because she’d died so young unable to experience so much that she was going to experience everything she could. She’d explored her interests. So the idea of going to bed wasn’t nerve racking for her.

  What was, was how much she liked Guardian Showl the more she was around him. He had a quiet edge to his flirting, he was proper but she flustered him. He was choosing to trust her despite her instinct to shatter that trust before it got to deep and she was swept way when it broke.

  She liked the image of being united to him, for his son’s that gave her hope to be hers. To be able to give the love she learned back. It meant so much to her.

  The knock at her door had her heart jolting. Was it even right to be here when she’d done so much to influence the world around him. When she couldn’t say how all the things she neutralized would affect the growth of his family. She hoped it was good. She’d told herself that preventing their tragedy was enough. But the more she altered in truth the less she knew.

  The knock came again, and she slowly opened the door.

  He was dressed in a night robe and his hair that wasn’t nearly as long as Dru’s was clipped back into a knot on the back of his head. She was struck by how attractive she really did find him. The words she’d read and head in her life were striking and dark and that wasn’t wrong but he had a softness that reminded her of a flower. Pretty. Beautiful. Leaving her breathless.

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  He was the type of beauty that her mother would have siphoned for cosmetic potions. Or maybe she would have kept in her harem. The type of beauty her Mama would have cultivated in her garden.

  The thoughts were too emotional for different reasons. She felt like a rabbit in a cage wanting to run but having nowhere to go. Then the door clicked shut and he stood right near her. He didn’t look any more confident then her and for some reason that eased her.

  She stepped forward and ventured silent affection pressing her face to his chest wrapping her arms around him. Nerezza tilted her head up and looked into his eyes. He bent down and caught her mouth. She released him and threaded her fingers through his hair and deepened things.

  In fear, worry, doubt at least she kept finding things she liked about him.

  Nerezza woke to the disconcerting feeling every time she woke somewhere new. She lifted herself she finished fastening some of the buttons she’d missed redressing. Nerezza leaned over brushing her lips near his ear. Before watching him sleep.

  He turned awake and looked into her eyes. Showl stared into her eyes and then she watched his get flustered. To her surprise he sat up sharply. He paused and kissed her. Then vacated her room leaving her there confused.