Something was up with Mikhail.

He stayed silent for the rest of the way home to Zhebair. He remained quiet when they ditched the camel and snuck back over the border from Djanna on foot. From there they veered back to Mikhail’s stall. There Kamar found the extra clothes he’d left behind. Donning the roomy robe over his dark-colored ninja-thief attire, he turned to find Mikhail staring off out of the stall at the emptied streets.

Sensing his gaze it seemed, Mikhail turned to acknowledge his state of dress. “Ready to go?” By that point, Kamar clued in they’d be separating, he lost his chance to question his lover.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mikhail grumbled, his mouth settling over Kamar’s in a quick kiss.

“Yeah,” was all Kamar uttered—that and a stupid little finger waggle. He watched Mikhail, heading for the inn no doubt, before he spun on his heels and started reprimanding himself.

Stupid, stupid! You should have said something. Anything…Gah!

On and on it went, his mind halved between concern for Mikhail and irritation directed at himself. He had enough sense left over to call for a ride. While Kamar waited, his thoughts flitted to the altercation outside the border, with the hostile, masked camel rider. It had surprised him when Mikhail had struck the first punch.

Closing his eyes, the scene played out vividly in his head. Mikhail catching the rider’s cheekbone unawares, and then grabbing him by the collar and shoving him off-kilter. Down on the ground, Mikhail climbed over the rider and continued striking. One fist battering away at the rider’s face and the other grasping for the riding stick that looked like it could do harm if the rider had gotten a chance to use it.

And, there, in his mind’s eye Mikhail glorying in the act of violence. It dawned on Kamar that his merchant had liked hurting the rider. Mikhail had enjoyed making the other man bleed…The sound of car wheels softly crunching bits of gravel opened Kamar’s eyes, and he pushed off the wall of the delipidated building he was leaning on.

His ride home was here.

Kamar shouldered the weight of this epiphany to the car and all the way home. He couldn’t shrug it off when he finally got into his bedroom, stripped, and headed straight for a warm bath to soothe his muscles and clear his mind.

“What were you thinking?” Kamar passed a hand over the steam curling from the aromatic bath. He sat in the tub, pruning rather than relaxing. When the water grew cold and his body was riddled with gooseflesh, he pushed himself out to wrap himself in a bathrobe and drain the tub. Padding out of the ensuite bathroom to his bed, Kamar crawled over the cool, silk duvet and slid into his warmer covers.

As soon as his head hit the pillow, he slept. Mikhail chased him in his dreams...and so did Kofi, and Suleiman and Asha and Jibril, and his father and Ali the stall hand, and Djannian fruit—so many fruit, bursting open and showering him, drowning him in their sweetly tart juices.

“Gaah!” Kamar gasped loudly, jerking upright, his hands curling in his covers, his eyes wildly taking in his surrounding.

His bedroom. He was home again. He’d been dreaming one hell of a dream.

Seeing the light of morning breaking through the sheer curtains of his double balcony doors, Kamar dropped back onto his pillow with a groan of protest. No, he didn’t want to face the day when he felt like a zombie. As if the day hadn’t started crappy enough, once he got down to breakfast he found his father entertaining company. And not the company Kamar really cared for.

“There you are,” his father sounded exasperated, his bushy brows and jiggling jowls filling in the disappointment he didn’t openly share, at least not in front of his guest. Because Kamar didn’t want to believe Kofi was here for him. Even though the vice-chair of defense stood and made his way to Kamar to greet him.

The first thing Kamar noted were the bruises on Kofi’s face. There was a bandage over his left brow and another over his right cheekbone. They looked vicious, made him appear more dangerous than before.

“My boxing sessions got out of hand,” he explained.

“I didn’t…” Kamar trailed off.

“Kamar,” he said, tone honeyed and deep, and rumbling like a lover’s might. “I’ve come to collect on our promise.”

“Promise?” Kamar blinked. He pulled his hand away, too quickly. Kofi held his up for a moment longer, his hand half-clenching before his fingers stretched open. Something about the gesture felt...off. A tad menacing, even. But Kofi dropped his hand, and a small smile touched his thin lips.

“The promise where we’d have lunch,” Kofi said. “Only this time, I’m running deliveries.”

“Vice-Chair Abd Al-Kareem came to deliver this in person.” Kamar’s father held out a square, embossed invitation. Then a similar invitation was in Kofi’s hand, and Kamar accepted it. Reading over the contents, he understood it was a housewarming party.

“The house belonged to my grandmother, but it was in disarray, and I’ve only been able to finish completion of its renovation now. Since it’s livable again, I moved in and have called it home for almost a month.” Kofi’s explanation didn’t fill in why he was holding a housewarming party.

When Kamar said as much, quite bluntly, his father took in a sharp breath of warning. Kofi’s lips ticked up, before the insincere smile flatlined again.

“I didn’t have time until recently. My schedule’s opened for that weeknight, and I thought it would be a perfect moment for a gathering.” Kofi shrugged. “I do hope you and your father will attend. You were the first two people on my intimate guest list.”

Kamar quirked a brow. “Really?”

“Of course we’ll be there,” his father interjected.

Kofi glanced over his shoulder at the prime minister. “I’m sure your son can speak for himself.”

Kamar was stunned. So was his royal prime minister because he gawped, closing and opening his mouth as if in a trance. Kofi regarded Kamar again, his stare, as usual, eerily unflinching. Sadly it undercut any praise Kamar had for Kofi.

“I won’t rescind your father’s invite if you choose not to attend.”

Kamar clutched the invite. “I’ll think about it.”

Ignoring his father’s reddening face, Kamar kept his eyes trained on Kofi, weeding out any signs of displeasure that would negate the honesty of his statement. Finding nothing, but still goaded by his resistant intuition, Kamar said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll keep the invitation…in case I change my mind.”

“Hopefully you do,” Kofi said.

Kamar might have believed him had there been any relatable emotion on his face. Instead, he was forced to make small talk over what was brunch for him with a man he had no desire to know more of. A man who chilled Kamar’s blood the way Mikhail heated him to the core.