She kept her back to him. “Get. Out.”

“Exactly,” he said. He exhaled loudly and stroked his palm over his beard. “Look, we have this ceremony with the priestesses in an hour or so. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you don’t want to be around me, and rightfully so, but we do have a charade to keep up, Bones.”

“Bones?” Her head tilted.

“You said that before, at your lab—” Thabiso was cut off by the thing he least expected at that moment—Naledi’s laughter. Just like that, her expression went from pinched to soft and open. She threw her head back as she laughed, and his cock jumped at the memory of her tight around him as she executed a similar motion. Goddess, she was beautiful, all the time, but even more so when she was too preoccupied to push him away.

“You’ve never seen Star Trek, have you?” she asked.

“That’s with the guy with the black helmet and the funny voice, yeah?” He knew better, but he wouldn’t pass up this opportunity to make her smile one more time.

“I’m pretty sure I told you to get out.” The words were firm, but there was no malice in them; there was the slightest hint of amusement. Thabiso would take it.

“Someone will come for you to bring you to the temple soon,” he said on his way out.

“Oh, I got an alert for that. Likotsi added it to my planner,” she said, picking up her tablet. Thabiso was sure Kotsi would be pleased that someone finally appreciated her attempts at modern planning. Ledi swiped, squinting at the screen. “Purification ceremony. This isn’t going to get too weird, is it?”

“I think it’s just a blessing ceremony, shouldn’t be anything too extreme.”

She didn’t look up again, and after a moment Thabiso understood it was because she had already kicked him out three times.

Maybe his affection for her was futile, but if he’d hurt her more than anyone else, perhaps it was because she had cared for him more than anyone else. The minute chance that he was right meant he couldn’t give up. Not yet.

Chapter 27

After Thabiso’s departure, Ledi found herself unable to focus on the facts and figures before her. He’d broken her concentration, another thing to add to the list of reasons to hate him that she was compiling: liar, concentration breaker, shoddy cook, excellent kisser, master of making her toes curl . . .

Wait.

She was losing track of her thoughts. Perhaps pulling an all-nighter hadn’t been the smartest idea. That had to be why she was giddy instead of angry, why her fingers had been itching to pull up a video montage of a droll, intergalactic doctor for her and Thabiso to laugh over instead of shooing the annoying prince out of her door. She was glad she hadn’t asked him to stay; that would have been dangerous. She knew what happened when she watched TV next to Thabiso—or rather, what happened when she fell asleep watching television with him, and she was a few blinks away from slumber, despite her protests to the contrary.

She stood and stretched, almost toppling over from the rush of blood to the head. Yep. The all-nighter had definitely been no good. She grabbed her tablet and then moved slowly to her bed, where she perched on the edge to wait out her swimming head. She’d really underestimated how hard the jet lag would hit her, but her lack of travel meant she’d had no idea what jet lag even was. She’d be kinder to her lab mates returning from overseas conferences when she got back.

Because you are going back.

She tapped the photo widget on the tablet and flipped through the images in the device. She didn’t linger on any particular photo; she couldn’t bring herself to do that, although she’d already looked through them several times. A chubby toddler, presumably her, running through a garden, grabbing at flowers. Her parents, sitting on a couch and looking at each other; her father’s hand resting on her mother’s belly. Funny, how she thought she’d imagined certain features when she’d tried to recall her parents, like the way her father’s eyebrows arched like the villain in a movie. His eyes were large and kind, though. She hadn’t remembered that.

They looked so happy in all the photos. That made sense, since people rarely took photos when they felt like shit, but still. She couldn’t understand what had driven them to leave. To take her away from all that she knew. She had never been angry at her parents before during all those years bouncing around foster care, but now each memory of the past, each reminder of what she’d had and lost, stoked her resentment.

A wave of fatigue crashed into her, and she placed the tablet at her side and leaned back onto the soft bed. It was like falling into a dark well, where thoughts of her parents and Thabiso and Thesolo couldn’t reach.

“My lady?” There was a knock at the door, and Ledi jumped up. She’d only meant to close her eyes for a minute, but now she was sleep-drugged and unsure of how much time had passed.

“Crap,” she whispered as she sprang unsteadily to her feet. “Coming!”

The attendant from the day before entered, this time without her rack of clothing. She had only one item draped over her arm.

“Are you ready for the ceremony?” she asked.

“I haven’t showered or dressed. I’m sorry, but I need a few more minutes.” Great. She was going to piss off the priestesses. Hopefully their goddess wasn’t a vengeful one.