For three days following his encounter with the princess and soldier of Venus, Kunzite was in a state of agitation. And unfortunately for him, it did not go unnoticed.

“You’re tense,” Nephrite observed around a mouthful of porridge. He reached over and plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and proceeded to bite into it as well. The sound of crunching into the skin and flesh set Kunzite’s teeth on edge.

“He’s always tense,” Endymion observed sleepily from their couch. He started to follow that up with another thought, but his words dissolved into an unintelligible yawn. He did not feel the need to clarify.

“More than usual,” Nephrite clarified after he swallowed.

Kunzite massaged the bridge of his nose. The area felt something like some maniacal little clawed monster at been clawing at it for the past three days. Not sleeping always made him feel that way. “I’m fine.”

“Ever the stoic leader,” Zoisite remarked as he stirred in the copious amounts of sugar he felt lunar tea (or any tea for that matter) required.

“Or I could just be fine.”

Jadeite snorted from the other end of the table, one leg thrown onto its surface. “Yes. I’m sure that’s as true as the idea that the reason the Lady of Mars has such contempt for me is that she secretly wants in my bed.” He looked very pointedly at Nephrite.

Nephrite threw the apple at Jadeite with just enough force to bruise. “Would you shut it about that?”

Jadeite caught the throw one-handed, spun it around, and took a bite out of the side Nephrite’s lips hadn’t touched.

“You’re all heathens,” Zoisite said in a placating tone. Then he turned his gaze onto Kunzite. The leader felt pinned under the other man’s green eyes, so unlike his own and yet still capable of similar intensity. “You’re not sleeping, are you?”

Kunzite merely exhaled in a way that could be construed as a sigh.

“You’re worrying aren’t you?” Endymion called, his voice muffled due to the fact that his face was buried in a pillow. “Someone tell him not to worry.”

“What does he have to worry about?” Nephrite asked.

“Do I have to throw this apple back at your head?”

“What? It’s just a question.”

Zoisite saw fit to intervene before it turned into a brawl. “We are still on a diplomatic mission, Nephrite.”

Nephrite folded his brawny arms. “I have noticed that, Little-Man-Whose-Legs-Are-Like-Twigs-to-Me.”

“I love it when he makes up names,” Endymion mumbled.

Nephrite and everyone else ignored him. “I meant that it’s going well. Excepting the part where Mars either wants to roast Jadeite alive or—"

“I can already tell I’m not going to like where that sentence ends, so please stop,” Kunzite interrupted.

“All right, it’s going well,” Zoisite agreed. “But things can change very quickly…”

The four of them cast a dark look towards their exhausted prince.

“…You’re all looking at me, aren’t you?”

“Very astute, Master,” Kunzite commended.

After mumbling the standard wish that Kunzite would not use that particular honorific, Endymion pushed himself up on his elbows. “I know what I’m doing.”

Jadeite took another bite of the apple.

“I mean it,” he insisted. “And I wouldn’t take such a big risk if I didn’t think it was important.”

“You’d better be right,” Jadeite warned. “That’s all I have to say.”

Before the conversation could get any more heated, the door swung open. Kunzite sent Jadeite a pointed look that very clearly meant, ‘Put that leg down or I will take it down myself.’ Jadeite responded with a look in kind: ‘If you could get up to do that, you would have done it already.”

Kunzite kicked the table, effectively dislodging the limb before the maids come to clear away the mess saw it.

Jadeite threw the remains of his apple onto his empty plate, scowling.

The maids – all sporting either impossibly pale or dark hair – all circled around the table and took up their usual positions. Rexia gently tried to convince Nephrite that he would receive another meal so there was no need to gorge himself before breakfast was cleared away; Letania and Zoisite exchanged pleasantries while Jadeite ignored them all in a manner entirely too trenchant to be believed; and they all mercifully ignored Endymion’s nearly unconscious form on the chaise.

Kunzite turned to address Melin, who always knew what sort of day the Court of Quicksilver had in store for them. He was surprised that before he could finish the revolution, she had practically fallen into his lap. He sprang to his feet at once, catching her wrists and pulling her upright before she crashed.

“Thank you,” she said, her lashes fanning out against her pale cheek.

“Are you all right?” Kunzite questioned.

“Oh, yes of course,” she insisted, tossing her ebony hair over one shoulder. Her pale eyes glittered with unusual intensity. She looked like she hadn’t slept much the night before either. “I had a bit of a late start this morning, and I didn’t get practice.”

“’S plenty left here if you need it,” Endymion called out, sounding drunk now instead of just sleep-deprived.

Jadeite and Zoisite each arched an eyebrow and turned to look at Nephrite, still shoveling food into his mouth. Rexia merely sighed and pushed her white bangs off her white forehead. “Of course, my Lord,” she called politely.

“Thank you once again,” Melin repeated.

Kunzite began to draw away when Melin quickly passed her palm over his. He felt a tiny slip of paper brush against his flesh. Without pausing to question or fumbling with confusion, he closed his fingers around whatever message had been passed to him. The clean-up and daily itinerary then continued without incident.

The women left and Kunzite announced his intention to shower, ignoring the fact that he had done so earlier that morning when the others were asleep. As he passed what he thought was a fully unconscious Endymion, he felt the younger man grasp his wrist. He held on with surprising strength, preventing Kunzite from simply ignoring him.

“Yes?” Kunzite asked quietly, concealing this from his fellow guardians out of an instinctual knowledge that the prince wanted privacy.

“You are worried,” Endymion muttered. “I’m sorry.”

Kunzite furrowed his brow. “Master—"

“I’ll stop,” Endymion whispered. “If you asked to, I would stop.”

Kunzite’s eyes darted over to his liege. It was instantly apparent that Endymion didn’t lie; the prince wouldn’t lie to Kunzite about almost anything, mostly because Kunzite would be able to tell. However, Kunzite wondered if Endymion knew how obvious his anguish was. The set of his jaw, the curve of his eyebrows, and the intangible storms that formed in his irises were as obvious as if Endymion had simply blurted out how much it would hurt him to stop. Kunzite had always known that when Endymion said it was important, he didn’t mean to the mission. He meant to his own heart.

Kunzite tried not to be bitter; he settled for hiding it well.

“Just be careful, Master.”

With that, Kunzite exited the room and made his way back to his own private chambers. He threw the lock into place; he knew the others would think it either out of habit or his usual paranoia. In truth, he wanted privacy for what he had to assume was a communication meant specifically for him. If he was wrong, he could simply turn right back around and announce it – no harm, no foul.

He unfolded the tiny piece of paper, momentarily amazed at how many times it had been folded and refolded. He recognized the loopy feminine handwriting immediately, aware of the care that had gone into the formulation of each character. It was written by a hand who had not been raised with this language and it was absent of any idioms or flourishes common to a native speaker. She’d kept it direct and to the point; he wondered if he could rightly assume that writing in another language didn’t come easy to her. He suspected speaking did, though he had no basis for that assumption.

He had speculated so much that he’d read the note without actually committing it to memory. He perused it again.

Kunzite,

After what happened three nights ago, I believe we need to speak. Meet me at the labyrinth gate tonight when the others are asleep. I’ll wait.

Oh, and could you please tell your prince to be more careful? I doubt the moon has enough cosmetics to cover the marks he leaves on Serenity’s neck.

V

Kunzite chuckled, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders. Or perhaps it had been pushed off.

“I’ll pass that message along,” he muttered, promptly curling his hand into a fist and effectively destroying any evidence of the correspondence.

But first, he was due for a nap.

-----

The rest of the day passed with interminable slowness. Of course, this was no surprise to him, nor was the complete absence of Venus from his comings and goings. This had been the state of things since their late night encounter, although he had seen plenty of Jupiter and Mercury and more than enough of Mars. He had made a point not to ask after her.

Night fell and eventually Zoisite, Nephrite, Jadeite, and even Endymion went to sleep. Slipping out of his room and through their shared chamber was simple, but getting to the labyrinth gate as per her request proved to be more of a challenge. The palace itself was a maze, and while he knew it fairly well – better than any of his compatriots – his knowledge was far from complete or even extensive. It was barely competent, and it showed.

Finally, he came upon the door, colored blue in the darkness. The gate the labyrinth was an arch of stone, put together with what seemed to be artfully haphazard mortaring. Even the placement of the creeping ivy seemed planned. He remembered that the moon’s weather patterns happened according to a schedule and wondered if the plants were also subject to their monarch’s whims.

Venus emerged from the shadows like a sun flare from the depths of space. He’d expected to find her pacing. She was frighteningly still.

“I suppose I should have given directions,” she said softly, not quite meeting his eyes.

“I managed,” he returned.

It was all he could do not to launch into a string of questions and demands for explanations. Part of him felt it was his due, but luckily, the more rational part of him overruled. Such histrionics would likely do nothing more than scare her off or raise a temper he hadn’t seen as of yet (though he suspected it was something to be contended with). It would bring him no closer to getting the answers he sought.

Her torso suddenly bent at what was almost a right angle. Her lower back pressed against the stone and mortar and her hands sought out her knees. He almost asked if she was ill, but he bit his tongue for reasons he couldn’t be bothered to examine.

“I shouldn’t have,” Venus murmured, shaking her head.

He raised an eyebrow. “Kissed me or invited me out here?”

She laughed, but it was with some reluctance. “Probably both, but since I did the first I could hardly avoid the second. I can’t schedule my life around seeing you for the rest of your stay.” One hand suddenly jerked upwards so that her fingers were tangled in her bangs. “I’ve really made a mess of things.”

Kunzite took a cautious step forward. When she didn’t react to the proximity, he said, “I feel as though I ought to apologize.”

She nodded. “It is your fault.”

“…But I’m not sure what is I’ve done.”

She shrugged and straightened up. “It depends. Were you born this way or is it learned behavior? Were you always meant to be the leader, was it thrust upon you, did you plan for things to be this way?” She looked at him directly now. It felt like a punch to the gut. “Do your eyes always see straight through to the soul?”

He swallowed and stepped forward again. “Do yours always damn men so thoroughly?”

“I’ve been told as much.” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, leaving them red and glistening in the low light.

He tore his eyes away from them, but her gaze offered him no respite. He sought out her eyebrows and took refuge there. “I could blame you for this as well. After all, you kissed me.”

“You were thinking about it too,” she challenged.

He couldn’t deny it. “You’re the one who pretended to be empty-headed for so long. That was a guerilla attack.”

She scoffed. “You never fell for the act. You couldn’t see through it entirely and you didn’t know why – still don’t I’d guess – but you never believed it. You know better than to underestimate me.”

“In battle, of course not,” Kunzite countered. “This is different.”

She reached up and grabbed his chin, pulling his face down just a fraction so that he was forced to make eye contact. He did not miss – in fact, it was impossible to miss – the gold rays that momentarily shone among her crystal blue eyes. This was a feature of Venusian biology he was not familiar with, but he could venture a guess. She leaned forward, not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel her body heat. It was comfortably warm.

“Lust is a battlefield.”

She began to draw away, but before he could lose that warmth, he pulled her close. She made a noise very unlike what he would expect from a princess and a warrior – perhaps a frightened mouse. He muffled it quickly by pressing his mouth to hers. She stilled for a moment, unsure whether or not she should permit this, and then acquiesced. After all, she knew just as well as he did that she’d been asking for it. She just hadn’t expected it so soon.

The kiss started out innocently enough, as they had a tendency to do. However, it didn’t take very long for her fingertips stroking his cheek to send sparks through his skin. His hands found her lower back, palms splaying just far below the waist as he dared. A moment later, he realized his prudence was wholly unnecessary as her hand slipped down the side of his face, down the front of his chest and between his legs.

They both stepped back at the same time, their breath a bit short. Light quickly receded from her eyes.

She fluffed her hair in an attempt at dignity. “I don’t suppose we can just call it even and have done with it.”

He glanced down surreptitiously at the uncomfortable hardness beginning to develop. He hoped the dark concealed it although they both knew it was there. “I doubt it.”

She wiped at her mouth delicately. “You’re very lucky I didn’t kill you.”

He couldn’t help but laugh, full-bodied from his gut. He indulged for a moment, but quickly stifled it for his own safety. “I’m sorry. I just don’t hear that very often. Particularly in this scenario.”

He didn’t add that he found it oddly amusing that she was probably one of the few who had a fighting chance.

Her cheeks were pinker than usual. He liked seeing her blush. “We can’t do this.”

He knew it, but there was a twinge he didn’t have the heart to ignore all the same. “Of course we can’t.”

“One clandestine love affair between the planets is more than enough.”

“Hardly clandestine,” Kunzite grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

She started to wring her hands and then stopped abruptly. He wondered who she’d borrowed the gesture from and why it was so distasteful. He wanted to know this and everything else about her and he wanted to tell her that. He couldn’t.

“It’s too risky.”

“Too dangerous.”

“So stupid.”

“Rash.”

“Impulsive – all the things my father tells me not to be.”

“All the things I’m not.”

She swallowed. He swayed.

“We can’t do this,” she whispered.

He nodded. “Of course we can’t.”

They stood without speaking, listening to manufactured wind blowing through transplanted trees and the eerie silence that comes at late hours in places no one else dares to tread.

He couldn’t say for certain who moved first. Perhaps it was their first act of real togetherness by moving together – reaching for each other when they had both just said that it would be better to stay apart. In the end it didn’t really matter. Within moments, her tongue was in his mouth, his hands were in her hair, and there was almost no blood left above his shoulders.

His teeth nipped at her bottom lip and then they sought out the pale expanse of her throat. He felt blood pounding through the vein and her heartbeat – elevated for more reasons than her race. Her hands clutched at his back and an exquisite sigh flew from her mouth. He raked her neck from collarbone to jaw line and then found her lips again, drinking in her taste like it was ambrosia from Olympus.

She grabbed at his collar and pulled him back until her back was flush against the wall. She grabbed his hand and pushed it underneath her skirts then up between her legs. He felt warmth and wet and a decided lack of undergarments. He would have been insulted if he hadn’t known that was custom.

“Someone’s impatient,” he hissed, stroking her with what he knew instinctively would be slightly less pressure than she craved. He watched her hand fly away from his wrist, her nails scraping against the stone. It curled into a fist and trembled, tightening with each movement of his hands. He slipped two fingers inside her and licked her ear. “Very impatient.”

She glared, eyes glittering blue and gold and pulled his trousers down to his knees, exposing his erection to the earthlight. “Shut it.”

He had barely enough time to prepare himself before she leapt up, wrapping her impossibly long legs around his waist. He caught her around the thighs, pushing her dress up to her hips. His fingers bruised her skin as he struggled to adjust her properly, but all she did was giggle, sigh, and push her hands beneath his tunic. Finally, he had her settled and he found the right angle and then he thrust, harder than he normally would have with the first. It replaced her giggle with a gasp and an open mouth.

“I like warning,” he growled.

She smiled and whispered, breathless, “I like surprises.”

He thrust again, slow but firm, and then again and again. He relished in the sensation of being inside her, her musk, and every noise that came from her mouth. She soon proved that she was anything but a quiet lover, and even though this was supposed to be a secret, he didn’t care. There wasn’t room in his head for anxieties. It was full up of her – her body, her voice, her light.

She threw her head back and shut those shining eyes from him. A thin sheen of perspiration formed on her skin, and her hair clung to her collarbone. Her lips seemed impossibly red now. In that moment, he thought of a thousand more things he wanted to do to her, and he had no idea if they had the time or she the desire.

He felt himself nearing the edge.

“Open your eyes,” he snarled just before his teeth sank into the swell of her breast.

She yelled and her eyes flew open. There was no blue left to be found – just solid gold searing his vision and leaving him momentarily blinded. His grip on her tightened as he climaxed, moments after her. It was without a doubt the most blissful seconds of his life.

She fell against him, panting, and he found he couldn’t hold her up with the utmost confidence any longer. He let her down as gently as he could, expecting her to pat her hair and move away, too far away because it wasn’t tangled up in him. Instead she rested her head against his chest, ignoring their various states of undress and the possibility of discovery. He knew it was probably risky, but he rested one hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair. Maybe she didn’t mind or maybe she was too tired to notice. He didn’t care and he didn’t analyze.

Venus laughed like silver bells. “I really do like surprises.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That was a surprise?”

“I tend to lower my expectations,” she clarified. “Saves me from too much disappointment.”

He nodded. “Glad to see I… measure up.”

She snorted and then immediately retreated, covering her mouth as if that would erase the slip. “That was awful!” she accused.

“I’ll be witty in the morning.”

A strange glint lit in her eye, a twinkle he had a feeling would terrify a lesser man. “We’ll see about that?”

The left corner of his mouth inched upwards. “Oh?”

“How’s your stamina?” she asked wickedly.

He shrugged. “Tolerable.”

She giggled. “Says the master of understatement.”

She turned in a move far more suited to a ballerina than an instrument of war. Then she untied a strange sequence or ribbons and ties that would have had him at his mercy. The dress fell away in one swift movement, and though he loved to get lost in her hair, he was quite annoyed at its length in this particular moment. Then she reached forward, whispered something in rushed Lunarian, and the door flung open. She looked over her shoulder and how he kept from pushing her to the ground right then and there was a mystery he would never solve.

“Are you coming?” she asked.

He didn’t hesitate, and he didn’t even bother to speak.

He’d already made his choice.