37

When it happened, there was no warning.

“You’re leaving?” Anzi demanded. “Now? But you never said—”

Kai’s hand rose to cradle the side of her face, and for once, she didn’t shoot him a glare or make a single complaint to keep up appearances. She was too stunned to remember to, as he stood there with a small entourage of similarly dressed men standing behind him, all of them waiting in silence. No, two of them were women, now that she looked more closely into the darkness, all various shades of bronzed skin with their heads and shoulders wrapped in the style of the desert nomads. Bodyguards? They had weapons at their hips and slung on their backs. She had never seen them before tonight. Where had they been all this time?

When her narrowed eyes continued to dart around at his companions’ silhouettes over his shoulder, he turned her face back to him with a gentle nudge. He only stared at her, nothing else, and for a mo