Chapter One #3
By then, she had understood that the way he’d lounged about on all the furniture, threatening to snap it beneath his dizzying height and vulgar, muscular bulk with every breath, was deliberate. That everything he did was deliberate.
That he was a study in quiet ferocity and his every move was considered before it was executed.
It had been easier when she’d imagined him the feckless playboy she’d always thought he was, despite his demeanor. A man after notches on a bedpost and little else. The male version of an airhead.
I am conversant on decent men, Aikaterini had snapped, letting her temper get the better of her—something that had never happened before. Or not in as long as she could remember. What a pity that the definition of one escapes you.
Even now, all these months later and currently stood on the altar of the Grand Cathedral in as public a manner as possible, she could remember the way he’d looked at her. His hazel eyes so dark they’d seemed to haunt her in real time.
Then that slow curve of his mouth. She would not call the shape it made a smile.
And the way he’d said, We will provide the principality with heirs, Aikaterini. Unlike in your previous marriage, we will make it a priority.
She had been flustered. Disturbed, she’d told herself.
I don’t know when I’ll be ready for that, she’d told him, her voice rather more shrill than was ideal. Shrill and shaky.
Conditions that had only worsened the longer he’d studied her, remaining entirely too still for such an unseemly, oversize man—like he was a predator ready to pounce.
I imagine it will be sooner than you think, he had said.
It was funny that she’d thought about that exchange just about every night since. She was thinking about it now.
And it was an odd thing to think about when there were so many other things that should have been foremost in her mind, she thought crossly.
The vows were exchanged and she decided she didn’t like the way that Kyriakos’s voice resonated throughout the cathedral. He sounded so calm. So sure. As if he really was more than ready for this role of his.
But then, she sounded the same when she spoke, because it was expected.
Princess Aikaterini always, always did what was expected.
Up to and including this forced wedding.
They exchanged rings. There was far too much hand-holding.
She did her best to avoid his gaze as he slid the same ring Venediktos had once given her back onto her finger.
They had taken it from her a year ago because it belonged to the principality and now it was returned to her anew, but she couldn’t help but think of it as tarnished.
Tarnished and twisted into something different, because it was Kyriakos who put it there.
She slid a ring on his hand as well, though it was far less showy. She did not, she told herself fiercely, notice for even one moment how different his hands were from Venediktos’s. Venediktos’s had been soft, smooth. Aristocratic.
Kyriakos clearly used his hands…in ways she could not begin to imagine. There were faint calluses on his palm beneath each finger. And the hands themselves were much larger than hers. No doubt proportional to the rest of him, she thought.
And there was no particular reason that idea should seem to root its way into her and make everything inside her feel…warm.
Perhaps she was coming down with something, she thought.
But no, it was only time for the kiss.
First there was a long speech from the priest, but it seemed to her to go much quicker than it should have. Then there was no escaping it. She knew the ceremony. She’d already done it once before.
“Your Serene Highness, you may now kiss your bride,” said the priest.
Kyriakos moved closer and pulled her into his arms and they had not discussed this. In truth, Aikaterini had been putting this inevitable moment out of her mind.
But he seemed to know exactly what to do. Not simply to lean in and kiss her, but to do it in a way calculated to please the crowd. Which was, after all, the point of this moment.
So there was no reason whatsoever that when he leaned in close and pressed his mouth to hers, she should feel it as if he’d dumped scalding water over the top of her head and let it pour all over her.
There was no reason that she should feel shaken, down deep to her core.
His mouth was warm, unsmiling, and somehow deeply austere as it pressed against hers.
And it felt seismic within her.
Then he lifted his head, and there was something assessing in his gaze, something hot and knowing.
She looked away.
The priest stepped back, the ministers approached, and another procession made its way around the altar. Kyriakos—her new husband, which still seemed wrong and impossible—took her hand as if he meant to help her kneel.
That, too, was for show. Aikaterini had practiced this for months.
Because as hateful she found this moment, and this man, she knew perfectly well that her obeisance was the point of all of this.
It would be the image seared into the minds and hearts of the principality, and she’d known that no matter what her true emotions might have been, this was the moment that she had to make her own.
This was the moment that could make or break Kyriakos’s reign.
And with it, her own legacy.
It had been tempting to deliberately ruin this moment because of that, but she didn’t have it in her. Venediktos had cared too much about the principality for that. The truth was, so did she, and her legacy was his, too.
So she let Kyriakos hold her hand as she swept around and stepped down so that she was below him. Then, making sure that her dress swayed out behind her—she’d practiced that too—she sank gracefully to her knees before him and bowed her head.
“It is my honor to offer you my fealty, Your Serene Highness,” she said, making sure to project her voice.
“Raise your head,” Kyriakos commanded her.
She had studied this moment when it had happened before across the history of the principality. It had usually been quite dry, according to all reports, though the widowed Princess’s willingness to submit to the new Prince in such a public fashion was always deemed of great importance.
Yet Kyriakos was making this…different, somehow. He did not let go of her hand, for one thing. She couldn’t help but think that somehow, he’d made what was no more than a legal requirement into something private. Almost intimate.
Still, she lifted her head as he commanded her.
“Do you swear to me your loyalty?” he asked her, gravely.
“I do, and gladly,” she replied.
These were stock replies. The palace staff had pulled them from the history books and scrolls to make certain that this ritual, which had not taken place in at least a century, hit all the right notes.
But none of it felt to Aikaterini as if it was being delivered by rote.
Kyriakos’s dark hazel gaze bored into hers. She felt him everywhere, as if he had climbed into her and—
She had no idea where her head was right now.
His eyes gleamed, but he continued. “Do you give to me, willingly and without reservation, your body and soul, heretofore considered the exclusive property of the principality?”
She felt herself flush, as if he was asking her something very different. Then again, he was, wasn’t he? She wasn’t sure how it had never occurred to her until now that all of these vows and declarations hinged entirely upon her body.
What she intended to do with it. And who she would allow to access it. They made it a solemn ceremony but, in the end, it was all about sex.
Had this been the reason she had reacted so badly to this man from the start?
Had she always known that should something happen to Venediktos, she would end up having to contend with Kyriakos’s rampant masculinity and that white-hot blaze of a knowledge she was sure she wanted nothing to do with in his gaze?
Aikaterini didn’t know.
But the nation was waiting.
She felt him crowd into her, though he did not move closer. Still, she felt him everywhere.
“I do gladly give myself to you,” she said, and the old words felt like wine on her tongue, “so that I may serve you for the remainder of our days, in whatever manner you wish and command as my husband, my protector, and my Prince.”
“Rise then,” he commanded her, “and serve me as my wife, as mother to my heirs, and as Princess of Zaccaria once more.”
She rose in the same graceful way she had descended, and suddenly it was as if the two of them were the only ones in this huge, graceful cathedral, because his gaze still seemed to be the only thing she could see—
Until his eyes flashed and he spun her around to face the gathered congregation, who all rose as one.
“So it is done,” Kyriakos intoned. “And now, together as man and wife, Prince and Princess united, Zaccaria shall continue.”
“Zaccaria shall continue!” all the people cried, here inside the Cathedral and outside, too. She could hear the cheering.
The ancient ritual was done.
Zaccaria would survive intact.
Kyriakos would see to it.
Yet deep inside, behind the mask she always wore in public and her very deep fear that he could feel her trembling, Aikaterini found herself wondering if she was going to survive as well.