Page 55 of Spirit Rites

“Isn’t it cold?” I ask.

He gives me a soft smile. “It’s pretty warm; you should try it.”

“Oh, no thank you. I’m good, but...” I pause and look outside once again. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you go for a swim in the morning...or at all?”

He takes in my face and smirks. “You’re really not a fan of water, are you?”

“Not particularly. No. I just don’t get why you’d want to go in first thing in the morning.”

“I start out almost every morning swimming for an hour.”

My mouth drops open in shock. “You swim for an hour? For fun?”

“Well, it’s mostly for exercise; but I guess it’s fun too.”

“Do you go by yourself?”

“One of my five,” he stops and makes a face. “Four now. One of them always accompanies me. Usually, it’s Taren; but sometimes it’s one of the others.”

“Is that for safety?” I ask. He gives me a look. “Not that you can’t protect yourself,” I rush to say, even as I fight the smile.

“I can protect myself, even while swimming.”

“But your team doesn’t think so?”

“My team is overprotective.” He sighs. “But I get it. My father and mother were murdered; so they’re a little intense about the whole thing.” He says it so casually, as if he’s talking about theweather. I knew they’d been killed, but I didn’t know the details. I’m completely in the dark about how to respond.

“Knock, knock.”

I whirl around. “Oh, Harper. Uh,” I glance at Kaldar, but he doesn’t give me anything. “Come in.” She’s practically in anyway. There’s only the see-through netting keeping her out. She steps inside.

“I can come back later,” she says dryly.

“No, no, it’s fine. Come on in.” I do my best to sound relaxed.

She eyes me and then eyes Kaldar before crossing her arms over her chest. “I gotta say. I didn’t think you’d move that fast. Shows you what I know.”

I feel my face heat to a thousand degrees. “This is not what it looks like.”

“Okay.”

“We’re not...like sleeping together. I mean we did sleep together, but we didn’t...you know...sleep together.” She looks at me expectantly. “What?” I ask.

“Oh, I was just waiting for you to say sleeping together again,” she says, drawing out the words.

I shake my head. I don’t even look over at Kaldar because I'm already wishing to disappear; I don’t want to make it worse. “I think—”

“Knock, knock.” I spin towards the sound and see a woman I don’t know standing at the door with a baby on her hip.

“Rakel, come in.”

I nearly jump at the sound of Kaldar’s voice near my ear. At some point, he drifted way closer than I realized. I paste a smile on my face as the woman steps through the netting. “Good morning, Your Majesty,” she says with a deep head nod to Kaldar. I stay quiet because I’m not really sure what to do in a situation like this. When the beautiful woman turns to me, I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt more awkward in my entire life,standing there in Kaldar’s shirt. I’m suddenly wishing I would have done a million things differently this morning. Maybe shutting the front door would have been the best first move. Or getting dressed; that probably should have been my very first move. I blink and realize the woman is staring at me intently, and I inwardly cringe. I have no idea what she said.

“This is Harper,” Kaldar says nodding at Harper.