Chapter 20 #2
Oliver needed to intervene. If this conversation went any further, Amelia would wind up in leg irons and installed in the dungeon before the first course was served.
Tessa beat him to it. She cleared her throat delicately, and though her face was white with stress, she gazed down the table toward Romanus and said, “Your imminence?”
Romanus finally lifted his head, fork held suspended, dripping citrus juice from a piece of spinach, and regarded her with slightly raised brows.
Candlelight flickered wildly on the side of Tessa’s throat, where her pulse raced.
But she held eye contact bravely, and though her voice was thin, she didn’t stutter.
“When I spoke with Lucius earlier, I explained to him that I am, in fact, already married.” She left it there, with all that marriage implied.
He studied her a long, unblinking moment, then took his bite of dripping salad. His gaze dropped back to his bowl as he chewed. “I don’t care that you’re not a virgin. The physician can examine you along with your sister. It’s an easy enough obstacle to overcome.”
Tessa pressed her fingertips to her mouth, nostrils flared.
Lucius tipped his head the faintest fraction to look at her, lips pressed together. He radiated distress.
Interesting.
Marcellus said, “I don’t—”
“Eat,” Romanus commanded, voice cracking off the walls.
They ate.
~*~
The meal seemed unending, but in reality, only lasted an hour or so.
Footmen whisked dishes away, and set down the next course, and Amelia only nibbled, here and there, all of the imported and pilfered delicacies tasting of ash on her tongue.
She met Tessa’s gaze only twice; it hurt to have so much to say, for her throat to be jammed up with reassurance and apology, and not be able to voice any of it.
After, Marcellus escorted her back to her chamber, his hand biting cruel and cold on the back of hers, where he held their arms looped together.
If I’m such a whore, why don’t you throw me down tonight and have done with it? she wanted to taunt. But the still-burning mark of his hand on her cheek stayed her tongue.
She’d known a brief regret, when he first talked of breeding her, that she hadn’t taken a tumble with someone; read: Leif. She’d thought, then, that being with child might keep Marcellus away from her. Now, she found it a small mercy that there wasn’t a growing child to be “dealt with.”
Marcellus halted at her door, and unhooked his arm from hers with haste, like he couldn’t bear to touch her a moment longer.
He glanced somewhere in the vicinity of her left ear and said, dismissively, “Someone will bring the physician to you tomorrow.” Then he turned on his heel and continued down the hallway.
The two guards who’d followed them took up posts on either side of the door, and Amelia knew that, if she tried to bolt, they’d catch her, and she’d have more than a bruised cheekbone for her efforts.
With a sigh, she let herself inside the chamber, and when the door was shut, heard the lock turn from the outside.
The fire crackled merrily, bright and pulsing warmth into the chamber. Candles flickered on the bedside table, and in the sconces, and on the low table in front of the sofa.
She thought it was the work of a slave—and it was, but not the lady’s maid she’d envisioned.
Cassius straightened from the table and blew out the fireplace spill he’d used to light the candles. He’d lost his stiff coat since she’d left for dinner, dressed now in a spring weight thigh-length tunic and breeches. The ensemble made his shoulders look broad—broader than she’d thought they were.
“My lady,” he greeted. “How was dinner?”
She turned, crossed to the sideboard, and poured herself a large measure of wine.
“Ah.”
She took a long, fortifying swallow and turned to lean back against the sideboard.
Cassius, she saw, had perched on the arm of a chair, legs stretched out long in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
He’d traded his usual boots for a soft-looking pair of slippers; they were dark purple lined with some sort of dyed fur, a sharp contrast to his pale, trim ankles.
She stared at them a moment, the distinct lines of bone and tendon, the faint blue tracing of veins.
Pretty, she thought, and then gave herself a mental shake and took another slug of wine.
“Did you see your sister and cousin?” he asked, and she looked up at his face.
If he’d looked informal earlier, he was downright casual now.
Clearly tired, no longer trying to hold his expression in check.
He sat with arms folded, brows drawn together, chewing at his lower lip in an absent way.
His sleek white hair was ruffled on top, like he’d been raking it back with his hands, and she realized he’d taken out the leather tie that kept it pulled back at the crown.
It framed his face in a whole new way, now; lent a little color to his cheeks by contrast.
Again, against her will, she was reminded of Mal. Of him unbuttoning his collar and slouching against her bedpost, relaxed but attentive, caring but ready to tell her a hard truth should she need to hear it.
She took another sip of wine. “I did. I couldn’t speak to them—not freely.
But they’re alive, at least. Tessa was—” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat, and pressed on.
“She was very brave. Bold in a way she didn’t used to be.
” She smiled despite the situation. And then sobered.
“Oliver looked terrible. He looked…he looked sick.”
She knew that he’d had a bout of marsh fever in Aeretoll; knew, thanks to Oliver’s blushing and Tessa’s sly smile, that his illness had been a catalyst for Erik to profess his affections.
But every time she’d seen him in the Between since, he’d been healthy.
Long-haired, now, and braided and beaded, and gaining muscle, learning sword work.
He’d looked the best she’d ever seen him, dressed as a Northerner, flush with love, confident in his new title.
Tonight, he’d been a shell of that Oliver she’d met on the astral plane. Not simply frightened or worried, but unwell. She knew that glazed expression, the slackness of his jaw, the tremble of his hands. He was having a relapse, and she couldn’t help him.
Another sip. “He has a recurring illness, you know. Or…he had one. It’s back, I suppose.”
Cassius tilted his head, which sent his tousled hair cascading over his shoulder in a distracting way. “I…” He hesitated, chewing his lip some more.
“What? Say it.” If she felt sorry for being dictatorial, she decided it was justified. (Even if he’d been good to her. Even if he was…gods help her, attractive.)
He huffed out a breath and said, “I spoke with some of the other sl—” He faltered, frowned. “I spoke with the slaves. They said that they were trying to bring your cousin’s temperature down with snow baths.”
“Snow baths?”
He tipped his head, a conciliatory gesture. “The drakes go up into the mountains and bring it back. He…” He bowed his head. “Yes, he’s fevered. When his temperature spikes, they pack him in snow from the peaks, brought down by dragon riders.”
“It will break eventually. Or, well, it always has, in the past.”
He nodded.
“Is he really the emperor’s grandson?” Romanus had informed her and Tessa of the fact over dinner, and it was the thing that had finally loosened her hand on her fork.
She and Tessa had locked eyes, and then looked together toward Oliver, whose face had remained slack and impassive as he picked listlessly at his chicken.
“Or is he manipulating Oliver? It doesn’t seem possible.
His mother died when he was very little. I never even met her.”
Cassius uncrossed, and then recrossed his ankles. He sounded reluctant when he said, “I can’t know for sure. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
His lips quirked, almost a smile. And then smoothed. “Slaves are ordered not to gossip, especially not about the royal family. But there were rumors. Romanus had a daughter, his eldest child, and she fled Seles. So it’s possible.”
“Gods.” She tipped back her goblet, and found it empty. She turned and refilled it. It gave her a chance to think back about something he’d just said.
She turned back around, and decided the table didn’t make for an effective seat. She plopped down on the end of the sofa and said, “You said ‘dragon rider’ before.”
“I did. Prince Marcellus has a mount of his own. That’s how he managed to snatch your sister, as it happens.”
“He attacked them in the air?”
“Yes.”
“Gods. And Oliver, too, I suppose.”
He shook his head. “Oliver was taken in the tunnels under the mountain. He wasn’t flying with your sister.”
“She went alone?” She swatted a hand through the air, dispelling the question. “Nevermind, that’s not what I asked. So Marcellus has a drake of his own.”
“He does.” He raked a hand through his hair, pushing it back where it had fallen over his shoulders, an unselfconscious, human gesture she found fascinating.
The candlelight caught his eyes, a new glimmer that might have been excitement.
Muted, but there. “But not in the way that you do. He rides it just as anyone would ride a horse. There’s no mental connection, like you have with Alpha. ”
“No magic.”
“That’s right.”
She took a long swallow of wine and scooted lower on the sofa, one elbow hooked over its arm. “And Romanus thinks that my blood will produce a child that combines both families’ magics.”
“Precisely.”
Amelia drained her goblet in a few long swallows, gasping for breath afterward.
Unasked, Cassius stood, and hovered his hand beside the empty goblet. She passed it to him, and he went to the sideboard to refill it.
The two cups she’d downed in quick succession were hitting her now, head pleasantly heavy, her stress melting into a manageable puddle.
When Cassius returned with her fresh goblet, she even smiled at him, and his brows jumped in quiet surprise before he smiled back, slow and a little shy, and… well. Damn it. Pretty.
When he settled into the chair opposite her, she nearly patted the sofa beside her and invited him closer. But she wasn’t that drunk, thankfully.
She sipped. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have arrived at a hypothesis.”
Maybe she was that drunk.
She pressed on when he nodded. “When the physician tells his royal highness that I’m not with child, and that I’m not malformed in any way”—she rolled her eyes, and caught the wash of pink on his cheeks; he’d blushed—“and he then has a go at me”—she gestured own the length of her body, and the blush deepened—“and I resist, he’ll have men come in to pin me down to the bed so he can rape me. Correct?”
As fast as it had appeared, his blush vanished. His cheek sucked in on one side, as though he was chewing at it. “I’m afraid so, yes.”
Amelia nodded. Sipped. Nodded some more. She was numb enough now that the prospect didn’t horrify her the way it would in the morning. The way it would in the moment it was happening.
“Well,” she said, finally. “I’m fucked either way.”
She laughed to herself, but Cassius frowned.
The last of the wine went down with one more swallow, but when he leaned forward as if to refill her goblet, she waved him back down. “What of the second son?”
“Lucius.”
She’d forgotten his name, so furious was she about the son who meant to mount her. “Yes. Tell me about him.”
He hesitated, mouth twitching to one side, and she thought he wanted to say something else, but answered her question. “He’s not his brother.”
“That’s a start.”
“I may have…asked about him. Discreetly, of course.”
“Oh, of course.” When she gave him an exaggerated wink, he blushed again.
“I. Um. Well,” he stammered. Cleared his throat.
She was drunk enough to find it charming.
Blushing fiercely, even on the tips of his ears, he continued, “I spoke briefly with one of his slaves, and he told me that Prince Lucius is stern, and quiet, but not cruel. I don’t think…
” His gaze flicked to hers, then away, then back again.
His tone turned careful. “He’ll force himself on your sister. ”
“Well.” She slid down deeper into her chair. “At least it’ll only be me. I can take it.”
His brow crimped. Amelia thought he looked pained—but that was probably the wine talking.
He swallowed, a dry click that echoed through the room. “If I could help—”
“You can’t,” Amelia said, quickly, as panic swelled in her chest. “At least not in the way you mean.” She thrust her cup toward him. “You can get me another drink.”
He frowned elaborately, but nodded, stood, and did as asked.