Page 73 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Did my incorrigible niece make friends?” he mused.

“Ah, sort of?”

“Good.” He gave her another squeeze that had her smiling. “Once we’re back upstairs, I’ll give you some salve for your elbow.”

Cyril blinked at him. “How did you…?”

“You hit him harder than you needed to,” Dion smirked. “And I know your tells better than anyone else, kiddo.”

Gods, wasn’t that the truth.

Mikael fought a losing battle as he watched his mother, Dion, and Cyril leave the arena. He wasn’t entirely sure what the fuck just happened, but his body was making one thing painfully clear—he was into the Rhodea woman. Even with the persistent ache in his chest he was certain would be a problem for days, he couldn’t keep his damn eyes off of her.

Specifically: her legs. Her backside. Her waist and how fucking perfect the subtle curve of it had felt in his hands.

Mikael flexed his fingers, trying to shake that soft yet toned feeling.

A fruitless act.

Even though a desperately clinging sliver of rationality told him he wanted nothing to do with her, he couldn’t fucking help it. He was a hot-blooded fae male, his bed had been unusually cold as of late, and Cyril’s snug base layers left very little to his rampant imagination. He certainly wouldn’t mind her on top of him with her fingers in his hair in a decidedly different context, that was for sure.

But there was something more to it than just some simple, primal itch he desperately needed to scratch. He saw the wild flicker of heat in her eyes too. He saw the current of interest that ran through her, the way her cheeks flushed when he just looked at her.

This wasn’t simple at all. No, this was…

Mikael sighed.

Not a notion he would entertain in the slightest right now. The embarrassment of that abysmal loss had to be buried in him somewhere too, and he needed to focus on processing that blow to his ego.

Maybe resenting her a little for it while he was at it.

As Mikael walked back to the lingering guards, Byron wasted no time in looking right at him and saying, “There goes your next conquest, hey boss?”

The other few guards all chuckled. Save for Kaia, who grumbled about how disgusting they all were with clear disdain. But the gleam of metal in his periphery caught Mikael’s attention, and he glazed over the comment.

Cyril had left her boot knives in the dirt on the side of the arena. He picked them up to bring to dinner.

“I’ll bet two coppers he’s got her bent over his desk before the end of the week,” Silas said, making an overtly lewd gesture with his body.

That caught Mikael’s full attention.

He turned back to them and snarled, “Enough.”

A few of the men stilled, exchanging glances with each other. Kaia smiled.

“In case it has already slipped the empty shells of your fucking skulls,” Mikael said slowly, “that was Lady Cyril, and she is a guest of my family. Martial prowess aside, you will treat her with some respect.”

He leveled a glance with the group that left little room for argument. Amusement fizzled from faces in an instant.

“Am I understood?”

Silas and Byron both grumbled their reluctant understanding and began sauntering off into the barracks to clean up for the day. The rest of the group filed away slowly after them.

Mikael raked his hands through his hair, unsure of when it had even come undone, and started his walk back to the palace. He took the long way, and hoped it would give him plenty of time to cool off before he readied for dinner and before he would surely be stuck sitting beside Cyril for the duration of it.

His mother was a cruel and smart woman, to her credit.

And his guardsmen could piss right off.