Chapter Three #3
“Over the next few months, you’ll get very used to this and to having me so close.
Evoq has assured me that he can teach you to love it.
Now go to bed and wait for me,” he said, turning my body around and lightly slapping my ass, before whirling me back around to face him.
“This body is mine now to do with as I like. I’m going back to the dinner to speak to Evoq about your therapy now.
” He put a knuckle under my chin and raised my face up so he could kiss me again.
This time he was far gentler, but I didn’t dare move or fight him either.
He chuckled when he pulled his mouth away.
“You see? You’re adjusting already.”
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“I don’t like this story,” Rakkur said, interrupting me. “Not at all.”
I glanced over at him and decided I maybe shouldn’t have been so frank about things. This was my son, after all. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have told you all this. It’s far too graphic.”
I saw that he was furious, but still listening carefully. His fingernails were biting into his hands, though. Yeah, I’d said too much for sure. Even Davos didn’t know that full story about what Werros had done and said that night. I’d never had the nerve to tell him.
“Where is this man Werros now? I think I’d like to have a word with him.”
“No, baby. He died in the war long ago. I’ll end the story here, okay?”
“No,” Rakkur said. “I need to hear it all now. I don’t like it, but if you had to live it, then I can at least hear it. Maybe you’ve needed to tell someone all these years.”
“Maybe I did.”
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I lay awake a long time that night. When Werros finally came to bed, he was very drunk, and I smelled someone’s spicy cologne all over him, so I didn’t have to endure as much groping as I’d feared I would before he fell asleep and started snoring.
After that brief flash of roughness, Werros started being solicitous to me again pretty much right away.
In public, he treated me like I was made of porcelain glass.
But I never forgot the ugly words he’d said to me in private.
Werros still handled me familiarly all the time, and sometimes he was…
not rough exactly, but demanding, if I didn’t react to him quickly enough.
He never penetrated me, however, except superficially, with his fingers a little, and he slept with me every night and did almost whatever he wanted to with my body.
As long as he never penetrated me or hurt the baby, I allowed it, and I didn’t fight him, even though I was repulsed by him.
I had accepted there was nothing I could do about it.
I did think of killing him in his sleep, and one day, I promised myself, I would. But until the baby was born, I felt trapped. One day, though…one day…
“Don’t tell anyone about Davos being the father of this child,” he ordered me.
“I’ll claim him as my own. And in case you can’t have another male child, then I’ll make him my direct heir, though your son will still be in line for the throne, like I promised you.
I’ll always take care of you both.” He pulled me over to him to kiss me, and I reacted as he wanted me to, kissing him back, like he required and telling him how much I loved him if he insisted.
It was all an act on my part, but what else could I do?
My only goal was to survive until the baby was born. After that, all bets were off.
He announced our coming wedding at the church that next holy day, and for the next two weeks after that. Before we left the church, though, that last time, he took me to see Evoq.
“Hello, Blake,” the high priest said, as I came into his office. “How are you feeling now that congratulations are in order?”
I just stared at him, feeling sullen, until Werros leaned in close to my face and took my chin in his hand to make me look at him. “Answer Evoq properly, nobyo.”
He released me, and I bowed to the priest and said, “I feel fine, Evoq. Thank you for asking.”
I was able to do it because I’d finally taught myself a little trick.
I disassociated my mind from what was actually happening, as if I’d simply stepped aside for a while.
In my mind, I might be hiking down an old familiar trail at home or watching an old favorite movie in my head or lost in some other project or activity that was far away from this place.
I guess it was a form of self-hypnosis, but at least it seemed to work.
“Come and sit down.” He turned back to the king and smiled. “I’ll have him brought back to the palace when I’m through with him, Your Majesty. I have a long session planned for him.”
Werros nodded and turned me to face him, gripping my chin again, as he so liked to do. But he was careful never to hurt me.
“Be good and do as you’re told, nobyo. I’ll see you back at the palace.”
When he left, Evoq looked down at me in my chair.
“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be working on your knowledge of the church and its history today, as His Majesty has ordered.
I’m also going to set up the date for your conversion to our faith.
Again, a direct order from the king. A king’s consort must be a devotee of Veran,” he said, referencing their principal god.
I sat through an endless lesson on the history of Veranon that day, though my mind was far away.
Then a group of men, including the boy, Valkarr, the one Davos threw down the hall in the palace once, came in to observe the mind conditioning.
I was given another pill, as always and I fell asleep—as always.
I awoke with the memory of someone droning on nearby, but I saw no one near me when I opened my eyes.
I did see Valkarr watching me with a hateful, smirking expression.
Later that night when the dreams came, Werros was there again.
A voice was telling me over and over that the grieving for Davos needed to be at an end.
I was now deeply in love with Werros, and I should be grateful of his care for me, and I had to stop my useless efforts to fight my love for Werros.
The voice said I should be the king’s obedient, faithful companion until the end of my days and that I should worship Veran and go to church weekly.
I should pray to show my gratitude and my love for Werros.
In my dream, I went to the church, and they told me again and again that I had nobody to rely on but Veran and the priests.
They repeated this to me, telling me I had to obey them and saying how much I loved Werros and how lucky I was that he’d noticed me.
They told me I was in danger from the Tygerian public, and I couldn’t trust anyone to help me but the church and the king.
Since I felt constantly in a state of fear and guilt for being human, and then after a while, it all began to make sense to me.
The voice, which sounded like Evoq’s, made me feel inadequate and worthless because I was just a lowly human.
I wasn’t in good shape then. I wasn’t sleeping well because of the near constant dreams, and I hated the food, so I was barely eating.
My dreams told me over and over again how much Werros loved me and how lucky I was to have him, and that kept on each night for what seemed like hours, until perhaps two months of Alliance time had passed.
I no longer fought what they told me to do and think.
It was simply too much trouble, and it was much easier that way.
I had decided to make the best of things.
I had a wonderful, soon-to-be- husband in Werros; his child was on the way, and I lived in a beautiful palace.
What more could I possibly want? Why should I resist these ideas when to deny the truth of them only caused me pain and suffering?
It was so much easier to simply let it all go and just do as I was told.
I attended church regularly and often by this time and Evoq was right.
Everything had become so much better in my life.
The king was affectionate and nice to me.
He took care of my every need. He didn’t press me for sex, probably because he didn’t like the way the pregnancy was changing my body, but I knew he had love slaves that came to him frequently.
I tried not to care about them and never mentioned them to him.
After all, why should it bother me? I wasn’t in love with him.
Even as cloudy as my mind was every day now, I knew better than that.
I was going to be his consort, though, and he told me over and over that as soon as the baby was born, I’d be the only one who serviced him sexually.
My pregnancy was going well, and I was getting bigger every day. In fact, Werros and I never spoke of the baby much either and since I wore a robe every day, it hid the progress of my pregnancy. I think he liked it that way.
Werros had begun to pick out names for him, though—all the male bearers had boys. It was just as the Tygerian doctors engineered things. I was never consulted. I told myself I didn’t care, so long as the baby was healthy.
After the initial sickness in the mornings had worn off, I felt pretty well, and Werros insisted that I exercise daily and take the drugs that Evoq and the doctors gave me.
The pills made me drowsy, but Werros and the doctors assured me that was all very normal.
I slept a great deal of the time. And I dreamed…