After work, she went looking for him.
She crossed the compound once, then again, checking the places he usually lingered when he did not want to be found. The watch posts. The yard. The stables. It was still before dark, the sky pale with the last stretch of afternoon, and the fact that he was nowhere made her more unsettled than she cared to admit.
She returned to their room out of habit.
He was there.
Malcolm was already in bed, a book open in his hands, posture relaxed as if nothing heavy had been decided that day. The sight of him struck her wrong. She had expected him anywhere else. Not here. Not this early.
Annoyance rose sharp and immediate.
His eyes lifted and fixed on her, calm giving way to that familiar heat that made her chest tighten despite herself.
"Come here," he said.
Iyisha felt irritation spike at the assumption in his voice, at the certainty that she would move when he spoke.
Do what he wanted.
She always did but that was not the point.
