He’d finally met Angelina’s parents when Cate had returned to Zakhar, and he’d understood almost immediately why Angelina hadn’t been eager to introduce them to him—their moral outrage over the “shame” Cate had brought to their family told him all he needed to know about them. He shook his head, still unable to fathom how parents like Angelina’s had managed to produce an extraordinary woman like her.
A slight movement behind him alerted him to Angelina’s presence even before she spoke. “Is everything okay?” she asked him in the deep, rich contralto that had enthralled him when he’d first heard it. It always would. “What did the news say?”
He turned around to face her. “Nothing new. I just wanted to hear it again.”
The glimmer of a smile touched her lips. “Soon,” she said with satisfaction. “Soon they will begin to pay.”
“Not as soon as they would if the trials were being held here,” he reminded her. “But it will happen—we’ll make sure of it.” He stepped toward her, and she walked into his embrace. “‘I am one,’” he reminded her in a low voice.
“As am I.” They held each other close, both of them giving the encouragement and support the other needed. When they finally drew apart, Alec kept his hands on her shoulders and asked, “So how was your day, Captain Mateja?”
She flushed. The promotion was recent enough that he knew she still found immense satisfaction in hearing her new rank, which was why he made a point of mentioning it as often as he could. “Busy,” she said. “I had not realized all the administrative work involved in managing the queen’s security detail. Just coordinating all the schedules takes far too much time. And then, of course, I had to stop and see Caterina—Cate.”
She shook her head ruefully. “I cannot always remember to call her Cate, even though she prefers that name now. And even if I do, she will be Caterina to me, I think, no matter what.” Her expression turned wistful. “Caterina means pure. When she first told me she wished to be called Cate, I wondered if...”
“If she didn’t want to be reminded of what she thinks she no longer is?” he finished for her.
She nodded reluctantly. “We have told her many times there is no shame in what happened to her.”
“But she doesn’t believe us.” Alec smiled sadly. “Yeah, I know.” He pulled Angelina back into his arms and held her tight. “We just have to keep telling her. And showing her. Someday she’ll believe. I have to believe that. Maybe when she testifies. Maybe when she faces Vishenko in court and tells her story to the jury—maybe then she’ll finally realize the shame is his, not hers.”
“You are such a good man,” she told him softly, laying her head on his shoulder for just a moment. Then she chuckled to herself, surprising him. Their eyes met, and hers were brimming over with humor and a little glint of teasing. “That is what Cate says. I think, perhaps, she has a little crush on you.”
“What?” Alec was too startled at first to say anything else. Then he protested, “But I’ve never done anything to... You know I haven’t... She knows that I—”
“Yes, she knows you love me.” The humor faded from her face and the wistfulness returned. “I think that is why she feels it is safe to let herself care about you a little—because she knows you will never ask more of her than she can give...that way.”
She caressed his cheek with one hand. Her left hand. The one wearing his engagement ring, soon to be joined by a wedding ring. One more month, he promised himself. He caught her hand in his and pressed a kiss into her palm. A tender kiss that soon turned into more. He reluctantly let her go. “Did you eat with Cate?” he asked. “You were so late I went ahead and fixed myself something, but if you’re hungry I could—”
She smiled the smile she kept for him alone. A private smile that promised unbearable delight. “I am hungry, yes,” she told him. But as she said the words, she was taking his hand and walking backward into the bedroom, drawing him with her. “I am always hungry for you.” She fell onto the bed, pulled him down on top of her and squirmed a little until his erection was nestled between her thighs. Telling him without words exactly what she was hungry for.
The scent of her soap teased his nostrils, and he breathed deeply, enjoying her nearness. He smiled down at her—a wolfish smile he didn’t bother to hide. A smile that conveyed exactly what he was hungry for, too. But he did nothing else, perfectly willing to wait, because his Angel would make the first move if he didn’t. She’d take the lead the first time. Then it would be his turn.