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I thought of them the way I’d found them that morning. Sitting side by side on the couch in the sitting room, towels still slung around their hips, voices low. They’d looked up at me, and the look in their eyes had made me freeze right there. Not just like I was something worth guarding, but like I was something they were just barely stopping themselves from reaching out and grasping.

“I’m pretty tired,” I admitted, as I slipped outside the office to where the two men were waiting. Kage had his hands shoved inside his pockets and had been leaning against the wall. Lysander had been pacing. As soon as I finished my sentence, he vanished like a shadow. I looked at Kage.

“He’ll meet us back there,” the Avari said with a grin.

Those grins seemed to be coming much more easily for Kage Tanaka these days. Funny that I’d once thought of him as a man who rarely smiled. I said something along those lines, and he grinned wider.

“I’m happy,” he said simply, looking at me in a way that pierced my heart. I flushed, and he must have taken it for confusion. “I mean, yes, the world is going to shit, but it’s Sangratha, so what else is new?” He shook his head. “These are dark times. With the return of dragons, it was always going to be complicated. But this?” He looked down at me as we turned a corner. “You don’t know what it means to Lysander and me, knowing we found you.”

My flush deepened, a strange gnawing guilt permeating me—not for the first time. But we’d nearly reached the Avari Tower. I was saved from replying as Kage opened the door for me and we stepped through. Up in Kage’s suite, I felt like a weight was lifted as soon as the door closed. I might have hidden away in my room with the door closed, but sometime in these last few weeks I’d become used to their company, and not just when I slept. So instead, I took my coat to my room, then came back out and made a beeline for the long living room couch. I sank down onto it, closing my eyes with a groan, and kicking my heels off onto the floor.

Lysander was a stickler for neatness. I looked down at the shoes guiltily. “Sorry, I’ll pick those up in a minute.”

Kage was leaning against the doorframe to his room watching me. “Oh, I think he’ll make an exception for you.” He crossed the room and dropped into one of the armchairs near the couch, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “I give killer foot rubs, you know.” He eyed my feet like they were a much more appealing body part. I felt my face heat up.

“They do hurt,” I said cautiously. “But …”

He put a hand over his heart. “Just a foot rub. I swear.”

“They smell,” I said, suddenly self-conscious. I swung them off the couch. “I should go for a bath instead of airing my feet in the common area.”

“Stop,” Kage commanded. “Regan, this is your home. You don’t need to go for a bath. And besides, you smell—” he sniffed at the air “—wonderful.”

“Wonderful? I can smell my feet from here. I’m sweaty and tired and—”

“And everything about you is perfect.” He said it so simply and with such firmness that I blinked. “Lysander and I love how you smell. Don’t you understand that?” There was suddenly a naked hunger in his eyes. I shifted on the couch. He blinked, and his expression changed to something milder. More palatable.

He sighed. “Look, it’s all right. No foot rub.”

I hesitated, then wiggled my toes. “I’d love one. If you’re sure.”

He didn’t even bother replying, just sat down at the end of my couch, lifting my feet up onto his lap. He wrapped his hands around my right foot, and I drew in a breath.

“Never thought I’d be accepting hospitality from the enemy,” I muttered as he slid his hands over my silk-clad foot. I tried not to react, not to show how much of an affect the touch was having on me, but it was hard to do. Who knew a foot rub would feel so … intimate?

Kage was careful. He didn’t touch above my ankle, didn’t even brush a hand over my calf. He kept his fingers on my feet, thumbs pressing into the knots of tension in my soles like he knew exactly what he was doing.

Blake had never given me a foot rub before. Thinking about him sent waves of something like shame stabbing through me. Blake had never really wanted me at all. It had taken me … a long time to realize that. To stop hoping that we were ever going to be the perfect match. I’d never been right for Blake. He’d always been settling. And maybe I had been, too. I’d wanted him because my parents had told me he was perfect for me. Because they’d seen our match as a way to elevate our family and gain more status. What was love compared to greater power?

“What are you thinking about?” Kage asked.

I cleared my throat. “I was just thinking about Blake.” Kage’s eyes darkened. “About how we were never right for each other,” I said quickly.

“Did he ever … mistreat you?” Kage asked quietly.

I shook my head. “Not like you’re thinking. No. He was just … indifferent.” I flushed. “He never wanted me, not really.” It was a hard thing to say aloud.

“You deserved better.” Kage’s voice was quiet. His eyes flicked to mine briefly, then back down to my feet. Suddenly, I knew what he was thinking about—not Blake, Viktor. But he didn’t ask. Didn’t pry. Instead, “How badly do you want to murder my grandmother right now?”

I gave a choking laugh. “A lot. How did you know?”

He shot me another wide grin, and the sight of the expression on his handsome face sent heat flooding through me. “She’s quite the troublemaker. My mother always said I took after her.”

“Then, I can only imagine what a brat you must have been.” I studied him. “You’ve always seemed so composed. It’s hard to imagine you as a wild child.”

“Oh, I wasn’t wild. Just stubborn.” He smiled at me. “I knew what I wanted, even then. And I wouldn’t back down.”

I drew in a breath just as the door opened. Lysander came in, effortlessly carrying a heavy tray in one hand. “I thought a night in might be best,” he said, glancing at me.