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“Are you…asking me to be your concubine?” she finally found the courage to utter the words that had been haunting her for a while.

“What?” he gasped as he gazed down in astonishment at her.

It was one thing to consider it.  It was another to hear those words uttered by her captivating lips.

She was indescribably lovely to him.  He knew that the others thought she was strange looking.  He’d overheard two maids discussing her odd eyes and pale hair.  One of them had dared to call her a witch.  Until he had intervened and made it abundantly clear that such talk would find her removed from the palace if she ever uttered such nonsense again.  He knew that fear of the unknown was the root of such rumors.  But those words had wounded him still.  Much, much more deeply than he would have anticipated.  It was then that he had first recognized that his feelings for Eun Sook had grown beyond the bounds of simple friendship.

“Are you hoping that I’ll do more in that bed,” her eyes slid towards it, “than just tell you bedtime stories?”

He was.  But he wasn’t about to admit that.  Because he didn’t desire it in the context in which she was imagining such an act.

He cleared his throat.  “I have no evil designs on your person,” he responded primly.  Drawing himself up to his full height.

“Evil designs on my person?” A trill of laughter escaped her then.  Never in her life had she heard a man speak in such a manner.  She found it absolutely adorable.  She sighed with relief.  “You are an odd duck, you know that, right?  Where on earth did you grow up?  So unaffected by the usual nonsense men inflict upon women.”

In consternation, he stared at her.  What on earth was she talking about?

“I believe you,” she continued a moment later as the silence between them lengthened.  “I feel oddly safe with you.”  Her eyes met his.  “Thank you for that.  I…can I finish my story now?”

He glanced down at her parchment.  He was jealous.  Of the person for whom that story was intended.

“No,” he replied a little petulantly.  “Leave it.  And join me in my bed.  I want you to tell me more of my story.”

“Oh, ho.  Your story, eh?  You think I created the king’s story just for you?  Just as he created his woods for you too?”

“Absolutely,” he responded emphatically.

She huffed.

“Come,” he commanded like the most powerful of kings.  And those beautiful fingers were trapping her wrist between themselves again.  Then he tugged her towards the most comfortable bed in which she’d ever slept.

“But,” she argued, “it’s not even nightfall yet.”

“Still.”  He gazed down at her intensely.  “I am most fatigued.  And I need your lullaby to put me to sleep.”

“Lullaby?”  There was that lovely laughter again.  “You consider my tales a lullaby?”

“For me, they are.  The finest sleeping potion I know….  I didn’t sleep a wink last night,” he murmured after a moment, admitting how much he’d longed for her after dismissing her to her own room.

Her eyes met his as her heart turned over.

His gaze left hers as he collapsed onto the bed and pulled her down on top of him for a moment.  She gasped as her eyes collided with his.  And her heart felt like it was racing away to some distant shore.  Unwittingly, her gaze fell to his beautiful mouth, and she sighed inwardly.  She wasn’t about to admit that she had fantasized about kissing those lips several times already.  She’d simply write it into one of her stories as a plot point.

She could feel her whole face growing warm.  When she blushed, the color didn’t just invade her cheeks.  It spread out across her entire countenance.  Embarrassing her to no end.

She hid her gaze from his as her eyes wandered to the other side of the bed.  She wanted to move that way, but her wrist was still imprisoned in his hand.  So, instead, she closed her eyes.  And imagined she could feel his heartbeat under her chest.

His eyes slid over her mesmerizing countenance.  With his free hand, he reached up and slid his fingers into her pale hair.  It seemed almost shimmery in the light streaming in through the windows.

“Your hair is stunning,” he whispered affectionately.  With a sense of awe lacing his voice.

Instantly, tears pricked her eyes.  She squeezed them more tightly shut.  And one lone teardrop escaped to slide down her cheek.  When he noticed it, he frowned.

“What’s this?  Are you crying?”

“Please,” she begged him in a tiny voice, “let me go.”

His fingers unlatched, and her wrist was free.  She rolled over to the other side of the bed.  And hid her face in a pillow.

“Sookie?” he breathed in a concerned question.  “Did I hurt you?”

He sounded as though he’d crushed an innocent dove.  Her eyes flew open to meet his brokenhearted ones.  “You did not,” she murmured.  “I’m fine.” 

She stared up at him in surprise.  When had he chosen a pet name for her?

She reached up to wipe off the tear.  But before she could touch her cheek, his soft finger was there, capturing that tiny bead of moisture on its tip.  She inhaled sharply as she felt the zing of his presence invade every capillary hiding under her skin.  She would never again be indifferent to him.  It was the truth with which she was living.  The one she couldn’t escape.  The one that caused her to lose sleep.

She cleared her throat.  “Where was I?”  Her brain sought for the story, so she could pick up where she’d last left off.

His lips twitched upward.  “You were explaining the king’s scruples.  And his desire to end the bone rank system.”

Her eyes met his again.  “Ah, yes.”  She paused, lost in that beautiful gaze for a few moments.  “He challenged the belief system of all the others in the hwarang.  And shocked Hwa Gong.  But the king would not back down.  Even when he failed the exercise due to sticking by his principles.”

“He failed?” he asked faintly.  Again, shocked by her perspicacity.

“He did.  Yet he persisted.  In excelling at every task.  While maintaining his standards.  Like I said, he was a hero amongst heroes.”

He glanced at her as humor laced both his gaze and his voice.  “Did you?  Did you say he was a hero amongst heroes?”

“Uh,” she paused as she wrinkled her brow, “I believe so.”

“And if you met such a man in real life – a king who wanted to end the bone rank system, a king who rose to every challenge while maintaining his own standards – would you think him to be the hero of all heroes?”

Why did she feel as though he’d just presented her with a test? 

She tipped her head to the side and studied his face.  “Why is my answer so important to you?”

“Because it will reveal your character to me.”  As she continued to remain silent, he whispered, “And your heart.”

She inhaled sharply as she discerned something rare in his gaze.  “I would,” she nodded firmly.  “Such a man would gain my instant admiration.”

“And your love?” he queried.

“My love?” she quirked one snowy eyebrow.  “Upon first sight?  I doubt it very much.”

“Hmm…but given the right set of circumstances, do you think you could come to love such a man?”

Her eyes fenced with his as the furrow in her brow deepened.  He knew what he was talking about.  But she was clueless.  So she gave him the only answer she could.

“Perhaps.”

The king smiled.  Perhaps there was hope for him yet.