It was just a dream, she told herself. Her spine tingled as her mind wandered back to the warm water, his hands even hotter as they slipped over her skin. She shook her head, the smell of coffee percolating wafting into her room. It was just a dream, after all. She hadn’t consciously traveled there, not like before. They’d been drinking. She was lonely. He didn’t need to know, and she needed to forget it.
Astra pulled on a pale lavender dress and boots from her closet. She glanced in the mirror on her dresser to twist her hair into a half-back knot, sliding the crescent pin into the mess of curls. She smoothed the wrinkles in the linen of her dress, officially out of reasons to linger in the bedroom.
The coffee smelled so divine to her hungover senses—at least she could soothe one headache.
“Morning!” she chirped, passing by the balcony and heading straight for the pot of coffee he’d brewed on the small stove in the corner. The balcony doors opened to a fair breeze where Luxuros sat on an iron patio chair, dwarfing it as he sipped on one of the coffee cups next to him. Her eyes landed on the second cup as that tingle in her spine begged for attention again.
Enough, she hissed at herself.
She sat beside him, the heat she’d worked so hard to keep at bay stronger now. He glanced at her quickly but did not speak, which would have been expected, but this morning, his silence suffocated her. She fussed with the skirt of her dress, watching the breeze ripple across the lush grass along the Somnia’s riverbed below. Women were shaking off the night and starting in on their daily chores, their eyes flickering up to the man on Astra’s balcony as they passed.
Waves of moss-green curiosity and amber discomfort floated on the late Summer air, but they seemed to settle when they caught sight of her ruby curls beside him.
“I want you to train me,” she blurted out. “Train, train me.”
Luxuros nodded. “I can do that.”
“It’s that easy?”
“I think it’s for the best. We know more about the dangers you’re up against, Astra. But I’m not just going to train you on the mental game, you need to learn basic self-defense. And some diplomacy?—”
She huffed. “I hardly think I need lessons in diplomacy from your pissy ass.”
The commander only stared at her, waiting for the words to echo against her skull.
“Fine,” she sighed, setting her coffee cup on the glass table. “I heard it. I’ll learn anything you want me to.”
“Very good,” he mumbled, his eyes turning out toward the sea beyond the city. “One more thing,” he said, the fire behind his gaze sparking with something that made her nervous. Something that felt rather like the ghost of last night’s simmering flames.
A bead of sweat rolled down the back of her neck, despite the cool morning.
“You’re getting greedy, Commander,” she muttered. She drained her coffee and leaned forward, spotting Cameren and Ameera leaving Cam’s building and heading their way. They wound over a bridge, a basket of what Astra hoped was something Sephone baked between them.
“Lux?” she asked, his condition still hanging in the air. She turned back around and met his strange stare, a wickedness within his smile she couldn’t begin to read. He took his time as he wrestled with whether he should say whatever sat on the end of his tongue, but as she heard her door scrape inward, he murmured softly for her ears only.
“You have to do something about the dreams, As.”
Her chest exploded in a symphony of mortified reds and oranges as heat rushed across her limbs. “Wh-what?”
The commander’s lips curled into a truly diabolical grin. “Were you unaware, Princess?”
“We brought breakfast!” Ameera cheerfully burst into Astra’s living room, poking her head onto the balcony and displaying her basket proudly. Astra barely heard her over the rush of blood in her ears. “Oof, what are we fighting about now?”
“No fights here,” Lux sighed, smirking still as he finished his coffee. “We were just discussing a dream Astra had last night.”
A scarlet blush unfurled over her chest. She growled, “Commander!”
“Was it serious?” Ameera asked, her vivid yellow concern wrapping around Astra’s heart. “A vision?”
“No,” Astra bit. “A nightmare, actually.”
“You should have heard her scream,” Luxuros teased, resting his boots on the balcony railing as he leaned back.
“Luxuros!” Astra hissed, kicking his feet back onto the floor. “Which one of us needed lessons in diplomacy?”
Lux opened his mouth to argue with her, but Cam cut him off.
“We have a job for you, if you’re willing to lend us your strength, Commander,” Cam said, cutting through the tension as she tossed Astra a scone. “The younger girls managed to jam a boat under the bridge. They’ve been working at it all morning but have made little progress.”
