“Yeah, well, I don’t want her,” I retorted.

“Also irrelevant,” he replied, eyes still fixed on Ysabel. “You made a promise to give your teacher a fair chance-unless you’re going to be human and go back on your word?”

“This isn’t quite what I expected!”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re either going to keep your promise or you won’t. And you,” he said to Ysabel, “are either going to obey or not.”

Ysabel’s eyes were ablaze with rage, and her breathing was heavy. I had the feeling she wanted to burst forth with a million expletives, but she bit her lip as though physically forcing them back. At last, she swallowed and took a deep breath. When she spoke, her words were to Dorian, but her gaze was on me. I hadn’t seen malevolence like that in quite some time-no, wait. That wasn’t entirely true. Her look was a lot like the one Volusian often gave me.

“Of course, I will obey, your majesty. With great pleasure.”

Along with Ysabel, Dorian sent me back with some shipments of food on credit. I almost would have thought he was trying to soften the blow of me being stuck with her, except Dorian was the type who would actually enjoy the thought of us having an uncomfortable trip. He would get a kick out of knowing how irritated I was and probably regretted he couldn’t be there to witness our interactions. Nonetheless, I mitigated the discomfort by riding at the head of my group, sticking Ysabel all the way in the back behind my guards and Dorian’s servants.

Shaya was understandably surprised when we arrived back. I left her to distribute the food and deal with Ysabel. “Put her somewhere. Anywhere,” I said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“But why…why is she even here? That’s Dorian’s mistress.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, watching as a scowling Ysabel stepped aside for the rest of the entourage spilling into my castle. I kind of took offense at the sneer she gave my residence, despite the fact that I knew it was in disarray compared to those of other monarchs. “Believe me, I know she is.”

Shaya seemed mollified and distracted enough by Dorian’s gifts that I was able to slip away without too much argument. I made the crossing back to my world, not even bothering to change clothes before I went. When I finally got back to my own house, I had the pleasant surprise of finding Kiyo lying on the couch. Three cats slept on the couch’s back while one rested on its arm. The fifth lay sprawled across Kiyo’s stomach.

“That,” he said, “is a great dress. Smells a little like horse, though.”

I glanced down at the purple silk dress, which was holding up remarkably well considering all the dust and sweat it had been subjected to today. “It was part of a diplomatic outreach.”

“Dorian, huh?”

“What was your first clue?”

“The slit.”

I headed across the living room, toward the hall that led to the other side of the house. “I’m hitting the shower. You want to go to Texas with me afterward?”

Kiyo straightened up, spooking a couple of the cats. “Is that like a new restaurant? Or do you mean the state?”

“State. I have to go talk to those two shamans that Roland told me about.” I glanced at a clock. “We’d probably have to stay overnight.”

He considered. “If we can be back by noon tomorrow, I’ll do it.”

I assured him we could and then left to shower away the day’s dirt. Miraculously-and a little disappointingly-Kiyo didn’t come harass me while I cleaned up. He had a tendency to show up while I was showering and offer to “help” clean me off.

Conscious of our time, he let me be, and a half-hour later, we were ready to hit the road. Yellow River was just over the Texas border, making it about a four-hour drive if we kept a little over the speed limit. Kiyo liked to drive-I think it was some manly instinct-so I let him. We stuck to casual topics, which allowed my mind to wander to the Otherworldly affairs on my plate.

The whole stress of running and caring for a kingdom still weighed upon me, but I had the comfort of knowing I’d done what I could and that Shaya would manage the rest. That was her job. We both knew it, and she would perform her duties excellently. I needed to stop stressing about that. The missing girls…well, those were my problem. At least, I’d made them my problem. Meeting with these shamans in Yellow River would hopefully shed light on that situation, so until I saw them, there was no point in worrying about that either.

Ysabel…yes, well, that was something worth worrying about. I’d just let a viper into my household and took some comfort in realizing that my reluctance to stay the night in my castle would probably save me from being smothered in my sleep. If I’d had my way, I would package her up and send her straight back to the Oak Land. My stupid promise bound me. Maybe she did have something useful to teach me, but I had no evidence that she’d actually try to be helpful. She’d probably just glare the whole time, no doubt paranoid I wanted to move in on Dorian….

Dorian.

I sighed. He was a problem, one I kept thinking would go away but didn’t. I needed him, and we both knew it. So long as I did, he was going to use that as leverage to keep seeing me and taunting me. For the most part, that annoyed me. I hated being part of his games. Yet, at the same time, there was always something irresistible about Dorian, something that made me laugh in spite of the exasperation he so often caused.

And, yeah…I hated to admit it, but no matter how much I loved Kiyo, and no matter how much I’d washed my hands of the romance between Dorian and me, there was still a part of me that would probably always be attracted to him. Our night together still haunted my dreams. His hand on me earlier today had woken a lot of those feelings, and I couldn’t help but imagine again how easy it would have been for him to slide that hand up my leg….

“Eugenie?”

“Huh?” Kiyo’s voice startled me out of my indecent thoughts.

“What are you thinking about? You have the weirdest look on your face.”

“Oh, well, I…” I was totally astonished when the next words burst out of my mouth. “How come we never have any foreplay?”

Kiyo’s hold on the steering wheel momentarily faltered, and I feared we’d run off onto the shoulder. He quickly regained control. “What are you talking about? Of course we have foreplay. Remember that thing I did with the honey last week?”

“Yeah, I guess. But that’s more the exception than the norm. We always just kind of jump right into it.”

“You never really seem to mind.”

He had a point. “No…I mean, it’s always good. It’d just be nice to…I don’t know. Expand our horizons.”

“I’m okay with that,” he said after several thoughtful moments. “I’m up for anything. It’s just my…well, instincts, I guess, that tend to drive me right toward the main attraction.”

I knew what he meant. The problem with spending part of your life as an animal was that you picked up some of their traits. Foxes in the wild didn’t really devote a lot of time to foreplay.

“I don’t really mind. I’m just saying that I’d like to shake it up.”

He fell silent for a while. Finally, he asked, “Does this have anything to do with Dorian?”

“Why do you say that?” I asked blandly.

“I don’t know. More instinct.” His dark eyes narrowed as they focused on the road. “I’m not stupid, you know. I know you slept with him.”

I jerked my head in surprise, unable to attempt any sort of denial. I’d never technically lied to Kiyo about what had happened with Dorian, but seeing as we’d been broken up at the time, I’d never really felt the need to go into detail.

“How do you…” I couldn’t finish the question.

Kiyo gave me a rueful smile. “Dorian used to watch you like a starving man who wants meat. Now he looks at you like he wants seconds.”