Chapter 15
As soon as I entered the dining room, I spun on my heel to leave.
Ovan closed the doors and stood in front of them.
“Majesty,” Hanna said from the table. “We need only a few minutes of your time.”
“I’m busy.” I scowled at Ovan. “Let me out.”
“Busy?” asked Hanna. “Busy hiding in your rooms and reading all of those new books your mother sent you?”
Teeth gnashing behind my closed lips, I whirled to give the ghost who’d brought me my most recent book delivery a withering glare. Then I said to Hanna, “You’re not allowed to borrow any now.”
Hanna’s mouth hung. She snapped it shut and shook her head. “Sit with us. Just for a little while.” With a smile that looked painful, she gestured to the dining table. “I used the last of our flour to make you lemon cakes.”
“You’re bribing me?”
The cook didn’t even try to look contrite. She waved her hands at the stack of gleaming yellow cakes and the chipped floral teapot. On either side of them were platters of sliced fruit. “I’ve already poured you a cup of tea.”
Unbelievable.
I turned back to the doors.
Ovan raised a brow. “If I’m stuck here, then so are you.” Inclining his head, he cleared his throat slightly, and added, “My queen.”
I glowered.
He merely lowered the thickly slatted visor of his dented helm—shielding everything but his orange eyes.
My shoulders slumped.
Might as well drink the tea I’d crept out of my tower for while I was indeed stuck.
Brey rose from his chair to untuck mine. He returned to his once I’d settled and picked up my tea. He crossed his legs and hid behind the latest Nightly Newsprint, the large and blocky headline on full display.
CHAOS CALMS AFTER FIRST FEEDING OF THE WARDS
Below it was a sketched portrait of us from our wedding. Brey was tilting my chin, his thumb on my lower lip. My hand was on his chest, and my eyes were hopelessly attached to his face.
My stomach twisted.
Not just because of that night, but because of the newsprint.
It was another one of those tiny blades I continuously bumped heart-first into.
Those smaller things. Such as not analyzing the latest gossip column or his ridiculous dreams. Not being able to tell him about the book I’d been reading.
Not looking at each other with suppressed laughter when Hanna became so flustered that her cheeks billowed like a blowfish.
Things I’d barely noticed until I was suddenly without them.
Things that weren’t small at all.
I set the teacup in the saucer with a clatter and gave my attention to the cook, who’d taken a seat at the other end of the dining table.
A brow raised, I said, “I’ll wager you’re quite proud of yourself for managing to trap me, but you’re wasting everyone’s time.”
“That you are,” Brey said. “Never have I met a more stubborn woman.”
I might have thanked him—were it not for his crisp tone.
A mere three evenings had passed since we’d fed the first ward, and already, Hanna and Groth were attempting to push us back into the chalice room to feed another. However, not only did we have plenty of time before my father’s three-week window closed, but…
Well, I had decided I was done.
I’d declared as much when we’d found the ghost, the captain, and the cook awaiting our return from the ward in the foyer.
Brey hadn’t seemed bothered by my declaration. Though, looking back, we’d been so discombobulated that he’d probably assumed I was jesting.
Of course, due to being sequestered in my rooms, I hadn’t seen him since our return from that horrid isle. Every time I dared to sleep, nightmares plagued me. So I found respite in some new and brilliantly sordid stories instead.
Hardly a crime, and well-deserved, if you asked me.
“Majesties,” Hanna said. “A discussion, at the very—”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” I said. “I’m not feeding the other two wards, and there’s nothing any of you can do or say that will change my mind.”
Let the people revolt. At least I’d live long enough to see it.
Groth balked. “But you cannot leave the wards unfed, Majesty.”
I crossed my arms. “Watch me do just that, ghost.”
He gaped, then stuck his chin in the air. “I do not appreciate such venom.”
“Well, I do not appreciate being ambushed again and forced to endanger my life,” I said with as much venom as I could muster. “Again.”
Ovan asked from the doors, voice muffled by the steel covering his face, “Wasn’t it just a spider?”
Brey whistled.
“Just a spider?” I repeated. “Yes, Captain. Just a gargantuan spider that can impale you with one of its many legs and speak into your mind and scent things in your fucking blood.” I lifted a finger.
“Which, by the way, it wants to feed to its hideous amount of offspring so they can become just as gargantuan.”
“Right.” Ovan pushed up his visor. “Looks like we’ve failed. Can I leave?”
But Hanna raised her hands. “Now let’s not get too dramatic about this. I understand that would’ve been…” Her nose scrunched. “Quite unpleasant. But it got your leg, not your heart.”
“Her thigh, actually,” Brey said while still perusing the newsprint.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I laughed. “Is getting chased through the forest by a giant spider and stabbed in the thigh by its ghastly leg not dramatic enough for you?” Glowering, I said, “I can assure you, it is more than unpleasant.”
Ovan coughed.
Hanna blinked. “Well, I just meant—”
“And it was hairy.” I trailed my finger around the rim of my teacup. “Wasn’t it, Brey?”
He drawled, “Disgustingly so.”
“And as if that wasn’t horrifying enough…” I jabbed my thumb at Brey. “I had to drink his blood so I’d heal and make it to the damned ward.”
“A chore indeed. However…” Brey lowered the Nightly Newsprint to show me his thinning eyes. “Our queen’s need was painfully dire.” The newsprint then rose to cover his feline gaze.
Once again, Hanna’s mouth fell open.
Groth blushed.
Failing to squash the memory of the overwhelming need that had indeed ensnared me, I dissolved in my chair.
“That’s it.” Ovan threw his hands up. “I’m going.”
“Fine,” we all responded at once.
Avoiding Hanna’s blue gaze, I drank my tea in quick and very unladylike gulps before deciding to leave, too. No one tried to stop me. But as soon as my apricot skirts swished through the doors, talk erupted.
Their panicked voices trailed me down the hall.
Moments later, so did Brey.
“Ethel.”
After several moons and spending nearly a whole day on that wretched isle with him, I should have been used to it—hearing my actual name in that silken voice. I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get used to it, much less acknowledge it.
I continued walking.
“Wait.”
“I stopped waiting for you moons ago,” I said. “I’m not about to start again now.”
Brey guffawed, then had the audacity to chuckle. “I’m curious. Just how long did you wait, exactly?”
“Too long,” I whispered.
He heard me, of course. “An entire evening?” Tutting, he said, “A truly appalling waste of your precious time.”
I pretended to gasp. “Careful. You’re dangerously close to the truth.” Tossing a smile over my shoulder, I shrugged. “It was two evenings, actually.”
But the truth was, I’d never stopped waiting. I was still here, after all. Still trapped yet also failing to so much as look for a way out.
Brey drawled, “I suppose I should be flattered.”
“You should be.”
He said nothing else, and I might have thought he’d ceased trailing me, were it not for the quiet steps and the unwavering intensity of his attention.
“Is there a reason you’re following me?” I asked snidely.
“I have a decanter of wine, a sweltering novel, and freshly washed bedsheets waiting for me.”
“We need to finish the wards.”
I almost stopped—to remove my slipper and throw it at him. “Now you’re interested in feeding the stupid wards?”
They weren’t stupid. I knew that. I also didn’t care.
“We’ve done one. There may be consequences to leaving the other two unfed, Ethel.”
“We don’t know that, Breyron.”
“My point exactly,” he said. “It’s never been done. They’ve always been fed together.”
That gave me pause. But only for a moment. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I laughed out. “Only a third of the isle is hidden?”
“Maybe.”
Done with this conversation and these ghastly wards, I increased my pace. “Leave me alone, Brey. I said I wasn’t doing them, and I meant it.”
I made it mere feet from my tower door before he spoke again.
“What will it take for you to finish this?” When I failed to answer, he said with surprising exasperation, “Tell me what you want.”
My hand gripped the steel handle—tight enough to hurt as the immediate response entered my mind. You, it screamed.
All I want is you.
Never would I ever say such a thing. It would only grant him an insurmountable victory in this war of ours.
“Ethel,” he said, softer now. Believing he had me. “Name your price.”
A trick, that gentle tone.
I fell for it anyway and turned to face him. “Name my price?”
Brey merely tucked his hands into the pockets of his black trousers and waited.
Because of course I had a price. There was always something lavish I wanted. I was unapologetically materialistic, and he would exploit it to get what he needed.
Well, then I’d exploit him too.
Lifting my chin, I met his eyes. “My price is freedom.”
It gave me unspeakable pleasure to watch the arrogance drain from his face. To see his features slacken and that perpetual tilt of his mouth wilt.
“Freedom,” he repeated.
“Yes, Breyron.” I took a daring step closer to him. “Allow me to leave this disastrous marriage, and I will feed the other two wards with you.”
“There is no escaping this marriage.” Cold and low words. “We are bonded.”
“Be that as it may, I’m referring to being stuck in this palace.” Unperturbed by his darkening eyes, I said, “With you.”
As he gazed down at me, a muscle feathered in his jaw. His pupils shrank.
Averting his eyes to the throne room below the railing, he removed a hand from his pocket to scrub it over his mouth. “And just where do you intend to go?”
“Anywhere I wish.”
I’d never thought about it because I’d never thought he’d agree to it—letting me go.
Not now.
He wanted to punish me. That, and it just wasn’t done. No bonded vampires ever separated. No matter how miserable their marriage, they lived in the same home and tolerated one another.
But what we’d had…
It had been so much more than tolerance, and if this palace still wasn’t big enough for the aftermath of what we’d destroyed, then it never would be.
Brey dropped his hand. “You cannot return to Blueburn Estate. You are the queen. Your father would never allow it.”
“Then give me the gold to go elsewhere.” I wrapped my arms over my chest. “I don’t care. I just want the ability to leave.”
Really, it was more than a want. It was a vital need.
This king was a poison forced into my veins long before the bond trapped him within me. There was no bleeding him out.
Leaving wouldn’t change that. It wouldn’t keep memories from finding me. Nor would it stop me from torturing myself over what he might be doing in the tower he’d once called ours. But distance would make it more bearable.
It had to. Not seeing him, scenting him, or hearing him could even arouse an interest in other men.
For moons, waiting and hoping for these suffocating feelings to fade had been my only option. Now, I could have another. Just imagining walking down this hall to the stairs and seeing my belongings in the foyer…
The relief would be worth the sorrow.
Brey continued to stare at the throne room.
My voice firmed. “This is my price.”
More silence.
Just when I thought he might not respond—or that maybe I’d finally given him a wound to rival the ones he’d given me—he swept a hand into his long hair. A breath slowly exhaled through his nose loosened his shoulders. “Fine.”
Then, without looking at me, he walked back down the hall.
I blinked.
Fine.
The lone word slashed deep, the pain worse than being impaled by a serrated spider leg. My lower lip trembled. I bit it so hard it bled. I certainly hadn’t expected him to ask me to stay, but a single apathetic word…
Venom sweetened my tone. “Oh, and Brey?”
He stopped but didn’t turn or speak.
“I want your promise on parchment.” I didn’t care how unnecessary it might have been. I added, “Signed in blood.”