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  Unexpectedly, Kristoff’s eyes softened and he came to sit beside me.

  “My Lady,” he murmured, looking at me earnestly. “I see how weary you are. Why don’t you take your ease and sleep for a time? I will guard you that your sleep may be free of fear.”

  “You talk like an escapee from the Renaissance Festival, you know that?” I said, but there was no anger in my words, only a weariness so deep I felt it all the way down to my bones.

  Suddenly I was so tired I could barely move and I wanted to sleep more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my whole life. When I woke up, I could fight with my new, unwanted houseguest some more but for now, I simply couldn’t find any more energy to deal with him or any of the rest of the crap going on in my life.

  “Sleep,” Kristoff urged me.

  I wanted to agree with him, get up, and go slide into bed. Even with the racket coming from Mr. Peterson’s TV on the other side of the wall, I felt like I could sleep about a hundred million years. But I was so tired, I couldn’t even nod my head, let alone get up and go to bed.

  With a little moan of pure exhaustion, I scrunched down and laid my head against the arm of the couch.

  I’ll just take a fifteen minute power nap, I told myself. Then I’ll get up and get everything worked out. But right now I just need some time…just a little time to recharge…

  So telling myself, I drifted off and knew no more.

  Kristoff

  I waited until she was deeply asleep and then I gathered her into my arms and carried her into her sleeping chamber. She sighed deeply and turned her face towards me, nuzzling against my chest in her sleep. The innocent gesture made my heart tighten strangely though I could not have said why.

  I slid her between the sheets of her sleeping platform and debated taking off her outer garment, which was a type of robe. I didn’t want to overstep the boundaries she might perceive between us but actually, there are no boundaries between the Goddess-Empress and her personal guard when it comes to such things.

  As the Empress must be protected at all times, it is considered best to have her surrounded by attendants she can trust and so we of the Imperial Guard are trained in all aspects of personal care and comfort. We are able to give a soothing massage as well as fight off a would-be assassin. We are as capable of bathing and tending our Empress as we are of finding out and foiling a deadly plot against her life.

  My old mistress, Sundalla the 999th never required such intimate services of me, though she confided in me a great deal. But I knew that past Empresses had used their Guards for much more than just protection. And why not? Our bodies are sworn to the service of she who sits upon the Golden Throne. We are there for the Empress to use in any way she sees fit.

  There is no shame in such service—only honor and loyalty and the pleasure of a job well done.

  I decided at last that Charlotte would sleep easier without her outer robe. Carefully, I untied the sash that held it closed and slipped it from her sleeping limbs.

  Then I wished I hadn’t done it.

  She was too beautiful, lying there with her silky blonde hair spread over the pillows and her long limbs carelessly splayed. She was full figured, with ripe breasts and rounded hips—lush and gorgeous in a way I didn’t think she was at all aware of. The tips of her pink nipples poked through the fragile black lace of her small sleeping outfit and the V between her thighs was capped with a mound of silky-looking blonde curls.

  For a moment I thought of some of the other, more intimate duties I had heard past Guards had performed for their mistresses…and then I pushed the thought away.

  I made myself pull the coverings over her, hiding her luscious body. It was wrong to think such things about the female I had sworn myself to. Wrong and strange. I had never had such problems in my service before. Of course, my old mistress was forty cycles my senior and had once confided to me that her desire for any male had died when her bonded mate and Consort had passed into the other realm.

  It’s only her blood calling to me, I told myself uneasily. My chastity is dedicated to her along with my life. These feelings will pass…they must.

  Speaking of her exulted blood, I was cautiously relieved that, despite the large amount of it she had given me, Charlotte didn’t seem to be showing any signs of the Calet Sanguis, also known as the Burning Blood. It is the sickness which most often occurs following the Culling of the Consorts ceremony, after the Goddess-Empress has given her blood to the ones the Council deems worthy of her attentions.

  Of course she hasn’t experienced the Calet Sanguis, I told myself sternly. Your blood isn’t rarified enough to call to hers, no matter how much of her own blood she pumped into you!

  It was a ridiculous thought and I pushed it from my mind. I was there to protect and serve—nothing else. Accordingly, I looked around for another way to serve her.

  There was a pile of clothing which needed washing on the floor and I thought I remembered seeing a machine in the closet by her food-prep area that had pictures of clothing on it. Perhaps I could figure it out.

  Gathering as much of the clothing as I could, I slipped out of her sleeping chamber and went to make myself useful.

  Chapter Nine

  Charlotte

  I had the God-awfullest weird dreams while I slept—all about a snake made of flames that wrapped itself around and around me, crawling all over my body and making me itchy and restless and hot.

  When I finally woke up, I thought I was still dreaming.

  Stacks of neatly folded clothes were sitting at the foot of my bed and Kristoff was putting them away in my dresser, obviously trying to be quiet so as not to wake me. He had taken off the white lab coat—which was good because it looked like it was about to burst at the seams—and was just wearing the light green scrub. The thin material of the top was stretched tight over his broad, muscular shoulders.

  “What…what are you doing?” I asked, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. It looked like he was cleaning but that couldn’t be right—could it? The few guys I had been with before I gave up on dating wouldn’t have been caught dead doing household chores. It was beneath them—unmanly. Yet I had never seen anything more masculine, somehow, than my huge, seven-foot tall, self-appointed bodyguard folding my undies.

  Hey—he was touching my undies!

  “Excuse me!” I jumped out of bed and went to rescue my best black lacy panties from his large hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Serving you, my Lady.” He shrugged innocently. “Forgive me—did you want to wear those now?” His eyes drifted down to the area between my thighs and I remembered that the black lace teddy I was wearing didn’t have any panties to go with it. Also, it had somehow hiked itself up so that my little mound of well-trimmed curls was showing.

  “Oh my God!” I pulled the hem of the teddy down as quickly as I could. “How…why…don’t look!”

  “Forgive me.” He turned his head away considerately while I pulled on the panties.

  “Where’s my robe?” I demanded, looking for it. “I don’t remember taking it off—or getting in bed either!”

  “I carried you to the sleeping platform and removed your outer garment so that you could sleep more easily.” He spread his hands. “I ask your pardon if that makes you feel uncomfortable. I wanted only to serve you.”

  He looked so innocent that I felt bad accusing him of anything pervy. I still couldn’t find my robe so I crossed my arms over my chest, frowning at him.

  “I just…” I shook my head. “Did you actually do my laundry?”

  “I protect and serve,” he said simply.

  “Okay, well…” I looked around and finally spotted my robe, folded neatly on the side of my bed.

  “You don’t need to fear to show your body to me, my Lady,” he remarked as I put it on. “The Empress has no secrets from her personal Guard.”

  “Well this Empress does,” I snapped. “I don’t know you well enough to run around barely dressed. There.”