Page 79 of Dark Destiny: The Fates' Bargain

"It looks like a crowded race already," he called back.

"It is," Areana agreed, and rose from the carpet in one smooth motion. "I think two adults are more than enough to entertain one little boy." She smiled. "Sullha my dear, why don't you go down and see where Yaaf lives? I'm sure you will realize that it's not as bad as it sounds. It might have been a dungeon a long time ago, but now it is just an underground hotel. Very safe, I might add. It's like living in a fortified bunker." She chuckled, and the sound had a musical quality to it. "I should know because that was what living in the harem felt like."

Yaaf barely managed to keep his jaw from dropping.

The goddess had just, deliberately and in front of everyone, handed him what he had wanted most. Time alone with Sullha. And then Areana winked at him, and he lost the fight with his jaw.

"I want to see the dungeon too," Zohara said, half rising from her couch.

"Sit down, Zohara." Mirumah did not raise her voice, but Zohara sat down as if her knees had been unplugged. "Sullha can take pictures with her phone and show you later." Mirumah pickedup her cup, and over its rim her eyes met Yaaf's for the briefest moment, and her lips curved into a crooked smile.

Did the crusty one just...Ravsoh started.

She did,Camdor confirmed.

First the goddess, now Dumuz's mother. Number Five sounded perplexed.Is that some sort of a conspiracy?

Yaaf did not want to examine the gift he'd been handed too closely.

The goddess had opened a door, and Mirumah was holding it open, and Sullha was looking up at him with color in her cheeks and excitement in her eyes.

"Bowen." Areana turned to the Guardian. "Would you be so kind as to escort Sullha and Yaaf down to the underground quarters?"

"I can't leave the others unsupervised here, but I'll ask Alfie to take them down."

Escort.

The word registered like a blow.

Of course.

They were not going to have a private moment because they would be supervised. A Guardian would ride down with them. A Guardian would walk the corridor with them. A Guardian would stand at a polite professional distance while Yaaf showed Sullha his room that used to be a cell, with a thick door that had a window on the bottom for meal delivery to prisoners, and then the Guardian would escort them back up, and the day's single opening would close having been nothing more than an elevator ride.

28

SULLHA

The elevator doors opened onto a concrete corridor, and Alfie stepped out first, holding the door with one arm while Sullha and Yaaf exited.

"Okay, here's how this works." The Guardian let the doors slide closed behind them. "When you're ready to go back up, call me, and I'll come to get you. The penthouse dedicated elevator won't respond to you because access to that level is restricted, and that elevator is the only way to get up there." A ghost of a smile ticked one side of his mouth up. "Take your time. If they want you back, they'll call me, and I'll come to get you. Until then, I will be in the security office."

He gave them a two-fingered salute and strode down the corridor.

"The Guardians' security office is the last on this level," Yaaf said. "My room is the fourth door." He pointed.

The sound of Alfie's footsteps was quickly fading into the distance, and then there was silence.

They were alone.

Just her, and Yaaf beside her, and a long concrete corridor with doors along one side.

"I didn't think he would just leave us like that," Sullha said, which wasn't a brilliant observation, but her mind hadn't caught up with what was happening yet.

"Yeah, me neither." Yaaf sounded as surprised as she felt. "I expected him to stay." He looked down at her, concern in his blue eyes. "Are you okay with that?"

"I'm more than okay with that. The only privacy we've ever had was when you created an invisibility bubble around us on the play yard."

"It wasn't an invisibility bubble. It was a bubble of inattention. I thralled everyone to ignore my presence."