Chapter Nine
Meg
I shiver, even though the fire is crackling nicely.
Beck spent the better part of an hour building it. He stoked it until the
orange and red flames flared and gave a warm glow to our camp. I’m all alone
with a complete stranger. Oh, sure, we’ve had a couple of sexual encounters,
but I don’t know him. I sit back against the trunk of a huge tree and watch the
man who claimed me.
True to what Dante told me to expect, Beck let me do
absolutely none of the work. He helped me off the horse and settled me
carefully on my feet. His first task was to make a comfortable place for me to
sit. He took two blankets out of his saddle bags to make a nest for me while he
gathered wood for the fire.
I remove my boots and pants before wrapping up in the
blankets. He’s never out of sight. After starting the fire, he pulls out bread,
some cheese, and what looks like beef jerky. My stomach rumbles. I decide not
to honor my New Year’s Resolution to avoid meat and dairy.
Beck doesn’t touch a thing until I declare myself full, and
then he eats everything I haven’t.
He’s such a puzzle, sweet one minute and completely shut
down the next.
“I need to know something,” he says quietly as he sits down
across from me.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. He’s heartbreakingly
beautiful by firelight. The glow of the fire delineates the lines of his face.
His jaw is carved from granite, but his eyes are soft. He’s a real, actual
faery prince, and according to him, he’s mine. Even after the way he treated me
this afternoon, I want nothing more than to throw myself into his arms.
I never, ever learn.
“Did you leave a husband behind?” Beck asks. “Do you have
babies who will wonder where their mama is?”
All I have to do is say yes. If I say yes, cry prettily, and
talk about my sweet babies, he might try to get me home. I can say I have two,
a boy and a girl. I can also tell him about the husband I love more than life
itself.
“No.” I can’t lie to him that way. Not when I still feel the
connection between us humming. “I’m alone.”
He seems confused by the statement and moves to sit beside
me. He covers me with the blanket before carefully placing his arm around my
shoulder. “Did your parents die before they could find a husband for you?”
I laugh at the thought. My parents can’t be in a room
together for more than two minutes before a war breaks out. They didn’t attend
my wedding, much less try to advise me on who to marry. “No. My parents
divorced when I was twelve. Mom remarried roughly six months later. She married
the guy she was having an affair with. Dad married his secretary, excuse me,
administrative assistant, two months after that. Neither one of them wanted to
deal with a teenage girl, so I got shuffled around. I stayed with Mom until she
got tired of me, and then I got shoved off on Dad. Casey, his
ten-years-older-than-me wife, didn’t like me very much. They both had new
children with their new spouses. Needless to say, everyone was happy when I
left for college. So, to answer your question, no, they didn’t bother to find
me a husband. That’s not something parents do in my culture.”
Beck’s eyes are dark in the firelight. “What is divorce?”
I study him for a moment, trying to figure out if he’s
pulling my leg. “You don’t know?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t understand your story, love.
Your parents did not die? They left each other and formed bonds with other
people? They had children with people who were not their mate?”
“You don’t have a way to dissolve a marriage?”
“No. Why would we have that?” Beck asks, his face showing no
signs of teasing. “Marriage is sacred.”
“Okay, how about if the husband abuses the wife? Is she
supposed to stay in the marriage?”
Again, he looks blankly at me.
“What if her husband smacks her around? What if he cheats on
her with the local floozy? What if he calls her names and is generally
unpleasant to be around?”
Beck nods, finally getting my point. “If this happened in a
Fae marriage, then the female would beat the male into submission. If she is
too small to beat him properly, one of the larger women of her family would
perform the task for her.”
“And the man stands there for the beating?” Somehow I can’t
see it.
“If he has any honor at all,” Beck replies with a frown. “If
his abuse of the wife continues, the males of her family would take care of
him. As I said before, the only way out of a Fae marriage is death, but that
can be arranged.”
I can’t help but smile because he sounds so very serious. “I
kind of wish those rules had been in play when I got married.”
Beck turns me so I’m forced to look him in the eyes. His
lips are down in a scowl, and his eyes pin me. “They were in play when
you got married. I assure you, our marriage was properly witnessed. I signed
the paperwork with the gnomes before we left.”
He’d done what? “Marriage?”
“Yes. What did you think I was doing with you? I told you I
needed a bondmate. You’re my wife now, and there is no divorce.” He says the
word as though he finds it distasteful.
“I thought you were buying me,” I stammer, trying to wrap my
head around the fact that I apparently got married and no one bothered to tell
me. I look at Beck, a bit panicked at the thought. He’s my husband? “You know,
like a slave.”
“You have strange words, wife. I don’t know what a slave is,
but we’re married, and nothing is going to change that.” He takes a deep
breath. “If you are angry with me for what I did today, you have my permission
to hit me. It might make you feel better. I can only promise I won’t do it
again. I was overwhelmed by the battle.”
An alarming thought strikes me. I wonder if the whole
beating thing goes both ways. “So if I step out of line, you’ll hit me?”
Beck shakes his head. “I would never beat you, Meggie. It’s
different for a man. We’re bigger. We could hurt you. I know after what I did
to you earlier you must think me a man of no honor, but I would never, never
beat my woman. I might put you over my knee if I thought you were stepping out
on me, but I would only use my hand.”
“You would spank me?” The words are supposed to come out as
an outraged question. They’re supposed to show that I will never put up with
such a thing. Instead, they come out as a breathless, curious query. The
thought of being put over his knee, completely naked and open, and having that
big hand smack my ass is stimulating. Though I can’t help but think about the
one time I asked Michael to spank me. I was curious and desperate to put some
spark into our marriage. He rolled his eyes and called me a pervert. Beck would
likely think the same thing.
“If I had no other choice, I would spank you,” Beck says
grimly.
I nod, trying not to think about how he would trace the line
of my spine while I’m across his knee, open and vulnerable to him. I turn back
to the fire so he won’t see how my cheeks are flushed as I think about how I
would wait, anticipating the blow, my pussy getting wet at the thought.
“You talked about marriage and the Fae rules being in play
when you got married. What did you mean if you weren’t talking about our
marriage?” There is suspicion in his voice, like he already knows the answer.
It’s an effective way to shut down the arousal I feel.
Thinking of Michael Starke immediately makes me think of humiliation. Despite
my ex-husband’s assertion that I’m a pervert, humiliation isn’t my kink. “I was
married once. We got a divorce.”
“He allowed you to get away from him?”
I laugh, but it’s a bitter sound. “He packed my bags and
shoved me to the street. He literally did that. He needed me out of the
apartment before his new girlfriend showed up. She was a nurse. She made more
money than I did, so she could take better care of him than I could.”
“What?” Beck is on his feet, his hand rubbing his head as he
paces. “He forced you to support him? What kind of a man was he?”
The truth is I’m tired of being pissed off about the
divorce. Somehow the events of the last twenty-four hours make my rage at a
marriage gone bad seem a small thing. Beck’s whole life was destroyed. At least
Michael had the good sense to divorce me before we had kids. Our marriage was a
mistake, and it’s past time to move on. “He was a young man. We were really
young when we got married. I was only twenty-two. I was twenty-five when we
divorced two years ago. We were stupid kids trying to be grownups. I wanted a
family. He wanted to play Xbox and drink beer. It’s a typical American story.”
Beck’s hair is long and flows around his shoulders and down
his back. He took it down after he got the fire going. It was an oddly erotic
moment. His eyes were on me, and I watched as he brushed it out. Now, it’s a
silken blanket around his body.
It’s also a fire hazard. I hold out my hand. “It was a long
time ago, Beck, and in a galaxy far, far away. Please come back over here. I
don’t want to have to put out your hair when it catches on fire.”
He looks back and seems surprised that he hadn’t caught that
himself. He sits down. When I hold open the blanket for him, he moves close and
wraps it around the both of us.
“Sorry, love,” he whispers. “I can’t imagine anyone letting
you get away.”
“You must have a very small imagination,” I reply solemnly.
“I am not known for my creativity.” Beck frowns and stares
at the fire.
He’s so serious. I can’t help but laugh. “I was teasing you.
You take things too literally. Don’t give my ex another thought. I don’t intend
to. He was an asshole.”
Dark eyebrows draw together. “You sound so much like Dante.
Are you sure you’re not from the Vampire plane? They are entirely obsessed with
anuses, too. I don’t understand it.”
I giggle and let my head drop to his shoulder. It’s an
instinct, and I catch myself. I would have immediately brought it back up, but
his hand is there, smoothing my hair down, holding me close. His arms go around
me. He’s so warm. I give in and snuggle closer. He’s a furnace, and it’s chilly
out here.
“I would like very much to make love to you, Meggie,” Beck