51
I woke in my rooms, darkened by the closed drapes.
Fire crackled. Something odd lay beneath me on the bed.
I touched it.
A towel. I wore only my slip, which had been folded to my hips. “Goddess.” I tried to sit up, then thought better of it when wetness pooled between my thighs. “No,” I breathed. I’d thought I had more time. Weeks, at least.
“It’s not a bad thing.”
Voran.
In the armchair near the hearth, he leaned forward and clasped his hands between his spread knees.
“I’m…” I swallowed, both mortified and terrified.
“Bleeding,” he said simply. “Fertile.” He rose and crossed to the nightstand where two glass bottles stood. He tapped the one with a clear liquid. “A tonic to dull the cramping.” Then he tapped the other, which contained a dark blue liquid. “To avoid a pregnancy.”
I frowned up at him, confused.
“You told Raxon you were not ready, and I’ve only just broken you, so I had it prepared. But I’ve been warned that this”—he tapped the blue liquid again—“may not work if you take something else with it.” His finger dragged from the bottle. “You cannot have both, myishla.”
He was letting me decide. Rid the risk of pregnancy or rid the pain.
I didn’t hesitate. Not because of what he’d done, but because what I’d told Raxon was true. “I’m not ready to risk it.”
Voran freed the cork and poured the blue liquid into a tiny metal cup.
I pushed up onto my elbow, but when my hand shook, he took the cup away. “Let me.” I stayed still, and he carefully tipped the liquid into my mouth.
It was slightly sour, and I winced as I swallowed.
“Here.” He poured water into another metal cup. “The potions master also warned me that it would not taste pleasant.”
He’d spoken to the potions master.
I swallowed a few mouthfuls of offered water before murmuring a distracted, “Thank you.”
He returned to the armchair, and his hands returned between his knees. He squeezed them as he said, “I’ll make sure you receive a tonic each moon for as long as you want.”
I didn’t respond. Gingerly, I lowered back onto the bed.
As I lay there, staring at him while he stared at me, the wedding came back to me. All of it came crashing back in with stunning force. But what stayed and threatened to stain was Voran’s admission—the truth behind his ruthless pursuit of me.
I looked away. Only for my eyes to collide with my wedding gown—in a blood-speckled heap before the dressing chamber.
“You fear me again.” Voran muttered what sounded like numerous curses in the old language. “It had to be done that way, broshklin. I needed an audience, and I needed Raxon to believe you were without hope.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” I closed my eyes. “And I understand.”
It was everything else. All I’d dared to trust. Now soil sliding through my fingers.
“Then why are your eyes closed?”
My throat swelled. “Because I’m tired.”
Silence.
I heard the chair groan, then his footfalls over the wood floor. The bed dipped from his weight. “Open your fucking eyes, Ayla.”
I squeezed them shut tighter.
A huff, then he said, “Fine. Just know that I’m content to sit and stare at you until you do.”
I lasted all of two minutes before my weeping heart took control. “Did you know how to read?” When he failed to respond, I opened my eyes and asked, “Did you know how to read before you arrived at the Archives of Avyshla, Voran?”
“I did, yet I had you reading to me like I was a babe.” His grin was sharp. “Impressive, yes?”
“No.”
He blinked.
That, and how the rigid line of his jaw feathered ever so slightly, told me he hadn’t expected my curt response.
Maybe I should have just been grateful. Relieved that I hadn’t ended up married to Raxon. But it was hard to feel anything more than pain. The ceaseless cramping of my stomach and the acidic blaze within my chest.
Voran hadn’t wanted me. Not really. He’d needed me.
And his continuing silence only further proved it.
I’d felt foolish countless times before. But never more than right now, as I recalled the stupid little story I’d written for him. The even stupider pictures I’d drawn. All of the times I’d pronounced words he’d already known how to say.
My friends had been right.
“You needed me to accept you as my mate, so you forced me to want you.” I clutched the blanket—squeezed it as I whispered, “You made me indebted to you. You made me kiss you. You even snuck into my room and woke me with your…”
“With my mouth on your cunt,” he finished for me.
Hurt pushed the words free. “You used me.”
A lupine tilt of his head accompanied the furrowing of his brows. “You’re angry about this.”
Incredulous, I stared at him—searched for any sign of regret or remorse in those fearsome features. But aside from that hint of confusion, there was nothing. He didn’t care. He never had, and that was the problem.
He enjoyed me, that much was undeniable. But I could now see that was it.
All he was capable of.
“I’m glad you and your kingdom are free of Raxon.” I rolled over. “But I don’t want you in here.”
“Ayla.” A coarse whisper.
“Please leave.”
He didn’t. He sat behind me on the bed, his gaze a familiar weight on my back.
Tears escaped my closed eyes. They slid into my hair and dampened the pillow. My legs bunched as the cramping in my stomach worsened.
The bed eventually dipped again. Low, Voran said, “Our kingdom.”
Then he was gone.
Later, my friend arrived with Dusk.
Celestine turned back as the door closed behind them, then frowned at me. “He looks like he’s about to burst into flames.” Dusk screeched, and Celestine hurried toward the bed. “Behave. She’s sore.”
Dusk leapt from the princess’s arms and waddled across the bed. Her gold eyes seemed to narrow, wings aflutter. She was cross with me. But as she reached me, she stopped and went still. She tucked her wings and turned to Celestine, as if to tell her that something was wrong with me.
Celestine gathered her pleated lilac skirts to sit on the side of the bed. She pet beneath the hatchling’s chin. “She’s all right. Just a bleed.”
Although Dusk didn’t understand what Celestine had said, her soft tone seemed to mollify her. She waddled around my bunched legs to curl between them, grunting as she tried to get comfortable.
“You do know that Valadorn’s new king is sitting against your door?”
“Probably wants to make sure we don’t conspire against him,” I mumbled.
“He was there when I arrived.”
Guilt gripped me tight. My next breath became a hitched sob.
Celestine cursed and crawled over the bed to lean against the pillows. “Come here.” She urged me close, and I laid my head on her stomach. Dusk protested my moving legs, but settled with a huff and another grunt.
“I know I should be relieved. But he…” I rasped, “I was just a means to an end.”
Moongold’s princess stroked my back until my sobs became sniffles.
Then she said, “He doesn’t look at you like you’re a means to an end. That wedding…” She exhaled a laugh. “Ayla, he looks at you like you’re the end and everything else is the means.” A pause before she whispered, “Like you’re his queen.”
My eyes closed over a fresh wave of tears.
“Want to know what I think?” She didn’t wait. “I think you need time. Time to let him prove that to you, and time to wake up from this nightmare.”
Perhaps she was right. I desperately wanted her to be.
“You were forced from your home and replaced by a hidden half sibling. Forced to marry an evil king. Forced to hide your fear and do as you were told to survive. Forced to cross a frozen river housing an ancient monster that almost ate you. Then, regardless of your feelings for Voran, that evil king forced you to spend the evening with him in some sort of sex cottage.”
Laughter bubbled up my throat from that last one.
Quieter, Celestine said, “You were forced to be strong, Ayla. To be brave in ways you never imagined you’d need to be.
Now, you needn’t be so brave. Now you can cry.
You can scream if you want to. You can reprimand anyone who upsets you.
You can tell your father he’s a rotten toad for his duplicity.
You can even tell the wolves now under your command to tear chunks off anyone who dares to make you feel afraid again. ”
Again, I laughed, but it broke into another sob.
“You’re free now. Safe to feel whatever you wish.
” Celestine ran her fingers through my hair, releasing the braids from the wedding.
“Just don’t do anything you may regret. The first bleed is the worst for wreaking havoc on our emotions.
” She huffed. “Want to know what I did when I had my first bleed?”
“Do I?” I asked.
“Oh, I think you do.”
I smiled and hugged her waist. “Did you threaten to maim Meront?”
“Worse,” she laughed out. “I did maim him. He has a small scar on his upper arm from when I stabbed him with my favorite quill.”
Almost gasping, I croaked, “Why?”
“He told me it was only blood and to get out of bed. Father and Mother were delayed in returning home, and Meront claimed it wasn’t fair to let him suffer through dinner alone with Lord Nichan.”
I snorted. “The one who smells like cheese?”
“Yes. Perfect timing on my part.”
Some moments later, I rasped, “Meront absolutely deserved it.”
She hummed, as if remembering. “I know. He’s brought me treats for every bleed since.”