Chapter 26 #2
“What is ‘this,’ Aerinne?” He buries his nose in my hair and inhales. “This is the scent of your need. Don't try to lie to me.”
Weeping will do no good, neither will screaming obscenities. “A physiological reaction.”
His breath is a chuckle against my skin and he releases my hair. “Then this will be a physiological reaction as well, Malisse ni.” He pauses. “I honor your plea, but I’ve waited too long to deny myself, at the very least, a taste.”
He’s gathering the dress in his hands to raise it so he has access to my body and I edge away from indecision. He hasn't restrained my arms again and I ball my right fist to? —
The air ices. Our gazes clash, a silent battle. My refusal, his enraged need. Eyes on mine, he releases my dress but reclaims my breast instead, an edge of cruelty to his lips.
His grip on flesh is brutal, then a gentle massage, a playful twist of my nipple and I try, I try to keep the betraying noises from spilling from my throat because no matter how much he's able to manipulate my body into desire, I don't want this.
“I hate you. Every breath I take into my lungs feeds my hatred.”
He twists my nipple, too sharp to be playful. “Tell me so when your honey coats my tongue. Tell me of your hatred then.”
I grab his wrist. “You have no right, Renaud.”
His expression breaks with a snarl, the most. . .alive expression I've seen on his face. “You offered to pay the price, any price, and you were warned repeatedly, Aerinne Faronne.”
The words throw me into a mess of confusion but I remember Nora’s counsel and?—
Protection. Redirect him to protection.
I shove aside distaste and let my knees crumble, let him feel my trembles and he slides arms around my back, holding me up, pulling my body flush against his to brace.
He’s a furnace, and I didn't expect that. Earlier, I also didn't expect the hard musculature under the layers of his robes, a disciplined warrior’s well-trained physique. Which is stupid. He didn’t use magic to decimate me in our fight; it was an old-fashioned fists only brutal beat down.
“Will it be rape then?”
All that lean, hardened muscle goes rigid. “You dare accuse me of?— ”
“I said no. Do you understand?—”
“Do you think at my age I don’t understand consent, Aerinne?
” The words are icy with offense, with another emotion once again I can’t define.
Almost like pain, but why would he feel pain?
“That I don’t understand the words stop and no?
Yes, if I held you down, you would never be strong enough to fight me unless I allowed it. But you are not truly fighting me.”
“That’s an ugly lie. You can make my body feel desire, it doesn’t mean I want you.”
“I condition you now so when I take you to my bed, you will not be as afraid. You will anticipate pleasure and understand that I can control myself enough to keep from injuring you—a valid concern between a halfling and one of my power. This is mercy, not force.”
My mind struggles with his reasoning and the mad, twisted sense it makes from the perspective of a sociopathic demigod. Does it make it better if he believes he's doing this for my own good?
“Then control yourself now. If you want me, you should want me willing. What satisfaction is it for you to take? There’s no challenge in that, Prince. It would destroy me, and any petulant child can smash their doll into pieces. Is that what you want?”
The air swells with his struggle; it’s my same struggle. To give into animal instinct, to yevserra, to lose myself in the mindlessness of savage passion.
I can’t.
I take a deep breath, let it out. He hasn’t moved. He’s listening. “I didn’t expect this tonight,” I say, sorting through my feelings for words that are truth.
Helpless? No, I recoil. I will never be helpless.
Vulnerable. . .closer, but too intimate, almost.
At a disadvantage?
Yes. At a disadvantage and outraged to be so. Never have I faced an unwanted advance—who would even dare? It’s common enough when gaps between the power of individuals are frequent in our society, but I never thought I would fall victim to it.
No, I don’t like that word either.
Subject. I never thought I would be subjected to it. This is how it feels to be truly Low caste. Truly unprotected.
The irony isn’t lost on me that if I give into him, there will be no one else, ever, in this city who will ever dare what he dares again.
Play politics and death games, yes, but bedroom games?
No. No one will touch even a castoff of the Prince in that manner without permission, for fear he may one day circle back to reclaim what remains his, even if only peripherally.
Nora doesn’t have to explain that much to me—I’ve witnessed such dynamics among District elite, and bullies. The principle is the same now.
I wrap my hands around his upper arms to both offer him my willing touch and emphasize my request for protection.
From him. I play the game, at least for a few minutes, to avoid my own rape.
And, heart pounding as sweat breaks out in delicate beads, I lift my chin and tilt my head, offering my neck. It’s instinct I didn’t know I had.
He lowers his head and teeth clamp down, incisors sharp. He’s hard against my abdomen but other than that movement, he’s as still as I am.
“I’m overwhelmed, Renaud, and still grieving recent deaths in my family.”
It's not a lie. For the first time in my life I'm at the mercy of something I can't kill or control or maneuver around, and the experience is. . .unpleasant.
“Give me something.” It’s a cold demand, but stilted as if he’s masking a plea, and he rests his forehead against mine.
“For months, years, centuries, I’ve waited.
Patience expired the moment I opened my eyes; my will broke when I answered your call, heard your voice in the flesh.
Your eyes that scream their hatred. Your heart beats, blood I crave on my lips rushes through your veins and I have no more patience.
“I will give you what time is left in me to give, but we both need this, Nyawira. A few sips to sate the thirst, enough to hold on a little longer.”
What can I give him that won’t be a lie?
“Not yet.” The concession claws its way out of my throat, my stomach churning. Anyone who would force this is vile, worse than vile.
He lifts and tilts his head in that smooth predatory way, eyes unblinking sapphire, arms a vise. His body poised, but he still hasn’t struck.
Survive whole. Just survive. Slowly, painfully slow, I inch my right hand up and settle my palm on his face. The barest touch, but another concession.
“Not no forever, just not yet. Court me. Offer my parents and aunts honor as a suitor should. My mother is dead, but she lives in your mind. What says she of how you treat her only daughter now?”
This is not what Nora advised. She more or less said to open my legs and lie back and think of future vengeance if he displayed even a glimmer of interest, and fingers crossed he gets it out of his system after one hard fuck. It's easy for her to say though, she's not the one lying back.
I'm not apologizing for the slap.
I am going cold under his stare, and my trembling is no longer pretense. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Will I slit my own throat or suffer the shame? My family needs me. But I need to be able to live in my head, and it's already difficult enough.
Darkan, I need you. What do I do?
Renaud stills, then inhales and turns his face into my palm for a split second then steps back, releasing me, his eyes bleeding back to gray with a rim of blue.
My knees almost buckle; they tremble as I dig my nails into the tree trunk behind me.
I’ve negotiated, maybe even seduced, time, but how much?
“Court you. Very well, Lady Aerinne. For my sister’s sake, court you I will.” The hairs on my body rise at the mild response and arm themselves. If not for the tree at my back, I’d retreat, even knowing better than to run. “But we did not finish our dance.”
1 ? This word pops up in different dialects in this world (Immortal Sorting is probably where you first read it.) It is basically the feminine version of a rut, except females (or anyone with ovaries, though the gender terms will vary) get the short end of the fucking stick, as usual, because their biology causes instinctive, and entirely unwanted, submissiveness.
This may be an evolutionary thing since male type people in a rut can become very violent, very fast. And despite most of the feminine characters in the stories Scribe releases to the public being warriors, many Adalessikai females aren’t.
They have varying degrees of power, but so do the males (non ovary peoples, varying gender identities), and when there is a power differential in the society, the weaker party is more or less fucked (gender being irrelevant, such as with Aerinne’s parents, and Embriel’s parents. But. . .more about that much later.)
In édouard and Terreille’s case, there was no rut involved, but they came close.
In a situation like that, biology will either force one of them to be the submissive, or force both of them to back down because, like, two snarling alphas is a shitstorm waiting to happen.
Everyone was very happy, thank you, that that worked out.