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“Why?” A question asked with a cool sophistication that ht’ve intimidated her once, but now made her wonder what Dmitri didn’t want her to see that he’d put up those silken shields

“It isn’t right” Honor stood her ground, the voice inside of her whispering that this moment was critical to how Dmitri would see her “I refuse to be just another woman you take to your bed”

Dmitri rubbed his thumb across her knuckles, no hint of any readable emotion on his face “You think which bed it is ht, such cruelty in him at that moment He could hurt her badly and walk away as if it“Perhaps not for you,” she whispered, knowing the ti passed, “but for arrote worked into D down the hallway that seemed to decide Dmitri “Yes, interruptions are far more likely here”

Such a practical reason, but one she illing to accept for the present

Leaving the Tower, they drove to her building and headed up to the apart into a home Hunters did that Ashwini’s apartold-shot silk, sculptures picked up here and there, postcards of spice-heavy stalls in faraway markets Honor’s was less exuberant, but she’d taken her personal mementos out of boxes—items Ash had left as they were—started to unpack them

Now, frahing grand a hunt in Mexico, a ainst the snow in Alaska—while her battered but beloved ca table, ready to be checked after its tiun to make her own The sheets were a fine blue cotton, the pale crearaphs from her personal collection

“Wildflowers,” D on the doorstep “Those weren’t here last tiraphs when the sexual tension between them was at fever pitch, she said, “I just put theo when I found this field” The memory of it had haunted her for months, until she’d put up the photos where she could see theain when she woke

Dmitri walked to stand in front of the array of fine black fraht blue flower nodding in the corner “There was a ruin here once”

Spine tingling, she crossed the carpet to join hi had once stood there, even though there was no evidence of it” She’d also had the insistent sense that she’d be disturbing so precious should she cross the border of tiny blue flowers that separated one small section of the riotous field of color from the rest

“How did you find out, Honor?” Dmitri’s eyes were hard black stones, his tone the same one he’d used on Valeria, on Jewel Wan

They’d stripped the a violent interruption, but now instinct had Honor calculating how fast she could get to the knife hidden down the side of the bedstand