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Frost actually caught Mistral’s arm as the other man slipped. The clothes and weapons had slowed them down.
Now they stood there, Frost’s hand on Mistral’s arm. Mistral was almost on his knees, from his slip, but they had frozen, staring at us. They hadn’t just caught a whiff of tension. Their reaction said clearly that there was bad blood between Sholto and Doyle.
Doyle took my hand in his. The moment he touched me the tightness in my chest, which I hadn’t even known was there, loosened.
He lifted me upward, off the other man. Sholto’s hands, all of his body, let me go with such reluctance. The sensation of him drawing out of deep within my body shivered through me. Only Doyle’s grip kept my knees from buckling.
Sholto raised his arms to help catch me, his hands on my thighs. Doyle pulled me in against his body, half lifting me over Sholto’s body. Sholto let me go; otherwise it would have been like a tug-of-war, not seemly behavior for a king.
I stood there wrapped in Doyle’s arms, staring up at his face, trying to decipher what he was thinking. Around me the tiny plants unfurled tiny leaves, and the world suddenly smelled of thyme, that sweet, green herb scent that Sholto had said he sensed when I was smelling roses.
The delicate herbs tickled along my foot, as if reminding me that there were some things more important than love. Staring up into Doyle’s face, I wasn’t sure that was right. In that moment I wanted him happy. I wanted him to know that I wanted him happy. I wanted to explain that Sholto had been lovely, and the power had been immense, but that in the end, he meant nothing to me, not when I had Doyle’s arms around me.
But you can’t say that out loud, not with the other man lying behind you. So many hearts to juggle, including my own.
The herbs touched me again, wound around my ankle. I glanced down at the greenery, and thought of my favorite thymes. My gran had grown them in the herb garden behind the house where my father raised me — so many varieties. Lemon thyme, silver thyme, golden thyme. At that thought, the plants around my ankle were suddenly tinged with yellow. Some of the leaves on some of the plants turned silver, others became pale yellow, and some that bright sunny yellow. There was a scent of faint lemon on the air, as if I had crushed one of the pale yellow leaves between my fingertips.
“What did you do?” Doyle whispered, his deep voice thrumming along my spine so that I shivered against him.
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