Page 88 of The Mercy of Dawn

“I said thank you.”

“Oh, you are very welcome.” Mikael almost forgot how they’d ended up there. “Councilor Mathias has a taste for beautiful women, and the younger, the better. His hands also seem to have a habit of wandering to places they shouldn’t be, if you didn’t notice the state of his nose.”

Cyril looked up at him for the first time since they started dancing and amusement sparkled in the wild, sun-spun gold of her eyes.

She loosed a breathy little laugh. “I wondered.”

He offered her a grin as he twirled her away again, this time drawing her in with her back to his chest.

“What did he want from you?”

“To know if I was entertaining suitors,” Cyril said with no small amount of disgust. She stumbled a step, feet bumping against his, and cursed quietly.

“That bad?” Mikael chuckled.

Either that or she wasn’t as skilled a dancer as he assumed she would be.

Her eyes darted up for a breath before she looked back ahead, just a flicker of the faintest hint of the fire he saw when she royally kicked his ass.

“I almost threw my drink.”

“Don’t make me regret coming to your rescue now. The guards would’ve paid a boatload of coppers to see that.”

Cyril huffed a breath. He felt her tension ease, a little more fluidity in her step as she turned back to face him.

“He met my mother, apparently,” she said, with a softness and hesitancy that caught him off guard. “Sounds like he had a thing for her, too.”

From the corner of his eye, Mikael watched her nose wrinkle as the disgusting notion of it all settled into her face.

He didn’t blame her.

But selfishly, and maybe a bit of the wine speaking, he wanted to see her smile again. Not polite and reserved, either. No, he wanted to see the shit-eating grin Cyril wore when she kicked his ass, or like she did every time the other rogues were around.

Some desperately waving part of his subconscious knew this meant he was completely and utterly fucked, that he was in so far over his head. But he shoved it down with all the other bullshit he’d deal with another day.

Or never.

“Maybe she gave him one of those kinks in his nose?”

A quiet snort left her. Almost better than a smile.

“My father, more like. Dion says he was the one with a temper.”

Gods damn.

Mikael didn’t even want to imagine how hot-headed of a man her father was if Dion said that. Her uncle had one of the shortest fuses he’d ever encountered. Maybe it was for the best that her father…

Focus.

Make the damn woman smile.

Mikael leaned further into her space and, in as quiet of a scandalized tone as he could manage, said, “A Rhodea with a temper? I’d never believe that.”

Her eyes shot up to him, a flicker of molten gold, and her lips quirked. He almost had her.

“Shocking, I know”—Cyril looked back over his shoulder. Or tried to, at least. She didn’t quite have the height for it—“with how level-headed my uncle and I are.”

“Mm, of course. Just like how neither of you are combative, right?”