“I don’t honestly know,” Elli said, frowning. “A lot will depend on how willing the Crown Prince and Demon are to listen to me. But not too long, I hope, she added. “I need to get a piece of that Healing Lattice back to the old Priestess Superior as soon as possible.”
“Let’s just hope His Majesty is as willing to be trained by you as Demon is, then,” Roke growled.
Elli could only agree.
“At least we don’t have to go to Supper tonight,” she pointed out. “The Crown Prince said that he understands how ‘taxing’ my day has been and has excused us from dining with the Court.”
“That is good news, I suppose,” Roke remarked. “Although I must confess, I wouldn’t mind doing some more ‘Mirroring’ with you, little priestess.”
Elli felt her cheeks get hot.
“Roke, don’t talk like that!” she chided him. “You know we were only doing what we had to. It’s not like we were doing what…what we did because we enjoyed it.”
“Well, I certainly enjoyed touching your sweet, curvy body,” he growled softly, his eyes going half-lidded as he looked at her. “Almost as much as I enjoyed watching you find your own pleasure last night. The way you moaned and gasped…”
“Roke!” she protested, her cheeks getting hotter. But she couldn’t help remembering the feel of his long fingers tugging at her tight nipples as she circled her secret spot with her fingers…
Just the memory made her feel a rush of shameful desires, which Elli tried in vain to shut out. Why couldn’t she just forget what they’d done together and concentrate on the real reason she was here—training Demon so she could earn a piece of the Healing Lattice? Why—?
At that moment, a knock sounded at their door.
“I’ll get it.” Grateful for the distraction, Elli rushed to the door and flung it open to see the Duke and Duchess standing there, both of them draped in long, plush bathrobes and wearing stylized bathing slippers with plasti-rubber soles.
“Oh hello, my dear!” The Duchess gave Elli an affectionate kiss on the cheek. “There you are! But why aren’t you dressed for the Bathing?”
“The Bathing?” Elli looked at her blankly.
“Why yes—didn’t you know? Tonight is a Bathing night,” the Duke said. He smiled at Roke, who had come to stand by Elli in the doorway. “Hello, old chap—got your suit all ready to go?”
“Er…not exactly.” Roke frowned. “Ellilah and I had just planned a quiet night in this evening. She’s been working hard with Demon all day and the Crown Prince excused us from Supper.”
“You might be excused from Supper but nobody is excused from a Bathing Day!” the Duchess exclaimed. “I’m afraid it would be a dreadful insult to His Highness and the entire rest of the Court if you don’t appear at the Bathing Grotto!”
“It would?” Elli felt her heart sink. She’d been looking forward to a night in without any weird Tenebrian customs to contend with.
Then again, being alone with Roke might get her into trouble, she thought, looking up at the big warrior. Maybe putting on the bathing costume the Tenebrian seamstress had made for her and going out to splash around for a while would cool off the tension between them.
“I don’t really think—” Roke began.
“That we can afford to offend everyone by not going,” Elli answered for him quickly. “Just give us a moment to change into our bathing costumes,” she said to the Duke and Duchess.
“We really can’t wait, but we’ll save you a pool,” the Duke told her. “Just follow the main hallway down to the tunnel entrance and it will lead you straight to the Bathing Grotto below the palace.”
“We’ll see you there! Hurry up though—you don’t want to be late.” The Duchess gave them a little wave and then the two of them walked, arm-in-arm, down the hallway.
“Well, I hope you’re happy,” Roke growled, as they waved goodbye and shut the door of their room. “Now we’re stuck trying to honor more weird Tenebrian customs tonight, presumably while wearing fewer clothes.”
“I doubt that,” Elli said airily. After all, she couldn’t imagine an outfit that covered less than the white lace dress she’d worn to Supper the night before…
Thirty
“This is indecent! I can’t wear this!” Elli looked down at herself in dismay.
The “bathing costume” that the seamstress had left her consisted of two strips of fabric with long feathery fronds hanging from them. The smaller one went around her top, just under her arms, and tied between her shoulder blades while the larger one went around her hips and tied at the small of her back.
Neither one of them did very much at all to cover her naked body.
“I think you look fucking beautiful,” Roke growled. His suit wasn’t much better than Elli’s. It consisted of a kind of loincloth that barely covered the bulge of his shaft—which seemed to be growing alarmingly larger as he looked at her.