Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
I can handle an angry, fuming man. I can handle an antagonistic and lecherous man.
But I was utterly unprepared for whatever it was that Eryx was trying to do just then. Apologize? Try to understand? Connect with me? Sympathize?
I have no interest in such things. I will not allow Eryx to humanize himself to me. I will not allow myself to become tricked by some false modesty or self-awareness that is wholly contrived. Men can put up fronts, just like I do to get what I want. I’ve no interest in seeing what it is Eryx wants from me this time.
Things are strained at the dinner table that evening, but I prefer it to anything else. I will not let down my guard around this man and allow him to hurt me more than he already has.
“A spoon is not meant to be slurped from, nor shoved into the mouth,” I say after Eryx samples the first course.
He looks to the spoon clutched between his fingers. “Right. I think I remember this one. In the army, we often had to eat quickly. I got into the habit of shoveling food into my mouth with haste.” He corrects himself with his next spoonful, raising it to his lips before tipping the contents into his mouth. After swallowing, he says, “My mother did teach me all this, but I lost a lot of good habits while fighting for my life. And there were certain things she simply could not teach me. For example, we didn’t exactly have access to fancy silverware so I might discern when to use each one.”
“Silverware,” Dyson chimes in with a scoff, “is a luxury we gutter folk didn’t have.”
What is Eryx doing? Telling me about his life and his mother? He needs to stop . We are not to become familiar with each other. I’m here to do a job and that alone.
Eryx looks down into his bowl of celery soup. “This, at least, has far more flavor than that street water we were given to swallow in the army.”
Argus grunts in agreement. “General Kaiser and the nobility would have their fancy five-course meals with meat and grains while we were given moldy stews.”
I explain, course by course, how to properly eat food and use the correct utensil for each meal. By the end of dinner, I’m absolutely fed up with watching Eryx’s mouth. He missed a spot of celery soup near the end of his chin, and I’ve been too proud to mention it. Occasionally I’ll stare at it. It gives me a small spark of joy to realize he has no clue it’s there.
It’s a pity when he finally manages to clean it after he wipes his mouth for the fifth time after sampling a bite of braised pork.
“Those bites are too big,” I state.
With the next, he opens his mouth less wide.
Unamused, I say, “I was, of course, referring to the size of the slice you put into your mouth and not the width of your jaw.”
He grins. “I know. Sometimes it’s terribly fun to prod at you. No need to be so lifeless.”
“If I wished to be prodded at, I would get myself a husband.”
Eryx chokes on his next bite. He hacks and coughs for a good two minutes, while Argus and Dyson fight back laughter in the corner.
“Duchess, was that a sex joke?” Eryx asks, tears streaming down his face.
“I was being less lifeless.”
“You constantly surprise me.”
“Maybe if you spent more time getting to know me instead of trying to get rid of me, you’d find you actually like me.”
The silence has weight to it. I can feel it pressing against my skin. Look up , it says. See what look he’s giving you.
No.
I meant that rhetorically. I don’t want him to get to know me. I just detest how much he detests me!
Or at least, he did in the beginning.
Now my eyes are mesmerizing, and he’s sharing stories about his childhood and his time in the army. And I notice things like his mouth and the way he smells so divine.
Damn it all.
I hadn’t realized these lessons would change things. I didn’t think he’d want to share stories with me or joke with me or elicit heavy silences.
He needs to stop. I need him cold and distant and detestable. Enough sharing and pretending to care. We are to remain just as unreachable to each other as we are when seated at opposite ends of this table.
A S USUAL , I TRY TO follow Eryx after dinner. I wait five beats after he disappears from the doors. Less time than I usually give him before following.
My slippers are silent on the carpeted floor, an added benefit I hadn’t considered when selecting the depth of the plush.
Just as I leave the dining room, Eryx’s figure disappears around a corner. I tiptoe to the edge of the hallway and peek around it.
He’s vanished.
Thinking he must have taken the stairs more quickly than I anticipated, I hurry toward the staircase and bolt up the first flight before pausing and listening.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I suspect he knows I’m trying to learn where he’s sleeping. He takes such care to ensure I can’t follow him wherever it is he lays his head at night. I wander the halls aimlessly, hoping to catch a whiff of him, even though I know it’s useless. He’s onto me, and that is terribly upsetting.
I end up in the library, scanning the shelves, thinking to select something to take my mind off the infuriating man living in my manor.
Those amber eyes flash into my vision, and instead of heading straight for the fiction, I detour to the nonfiction. History has never interested me. Why should it? It’s always about men stealing each other’s kingdoms or killing each other. Men doing great deeds. Men going on adventures. I’m sick of men having the spotlight. The history of women is barely recorded, which is why I retreat to fiction, where we’re finally given our due.
Though I suppose Alessandra will make a grand appearance in the history books for generations to come.
I don’t know why I bother to browse through the titles on the history of Naxos or look through volumes on different kingdoms of the world. What exactly do I expect to find? Something telling me why Eryx’s eyes glow amber when he’s incensed? Even as something so unnatural is presented before me, my mind still tries to find a rational answer.
Perhaps there are people in other parts of the world who have amber eyes. I haven’t been anywhere except Naxos. My knowledge is limited.
The hour grows late as I flip through page after page, index after index, with no results. My head slumps against my forearm as I lay down on a settee with my current selection. I feel my eyes start to drift, but I’m far too comfortable to move…
I KNOW I ’ M DREAMING because I’m standing in an impossible landscape. The floor is made up of clouds. Candles float above my head with nothing to suspend them. I hear the soothing sound of rushing water, but there’s none to be found. In fact, the only object I can see is the bed. Not a bed, exactly, but a mattress laid on the floor, draped with sheets and blankets. I watch them rise and fall with the deep breathing of whoever is sleeping there.
Because it’s a dream, I don’t experience any fear, only curiosity. I tread over to the bed, until I can see the head resting on the pillow.
It’s Eryx, and yet, not Eryx.
His messy hair is even more tangled than usual in sleep. His skin looks darker when he lies underneath a white down comforter. He appears more like a boy than a man like this, resting with impossibly long lashes against his cheek.
And then… there are the horns.
Two of them protrude from just above his forehead and angle toward the back of his head, reaching maybe four inches in length and coming to sharp tips. They’re black at the roots, slowly turning a deep purple at the tips. They’re not reminiscent of any animal I’ve seen before, so I haven’t the faintest idea from where my mind conjured them.
Because this is my dream and I can do what I want, I approach the sleeping figure, kneel on the floor, lace my fingers through his hair, and trail them along his scalp. The motion lifts a section of hair, revealing the shape of an unusually pointed ear, before my hand snags on a tangle, and amber wolf eyes shoot open. When they catch sight of me, Eryx rolls away, nearly landing himself on the cloud floor.
Instantly the fluffy white tufts turn to darkest black, and I hear the sound of thunder, see the flash of lightning beneath my feet. The floating candles sputter in a sudden breeze that I can’t feel on my skin, but I can still see Eryx perfectly.
“Have you ever even seen a hairbrush before?” I ask him, undaunted by the transformation the scenery has taken. “Truly it’s astonishing how messy that mop on your head gets.”
Eryx sits up, the blankets falling from his shoulders, revealing a hardened chest that is most definitely not boyish.
“What—what are you doing here?” he asks, looking around as though he can’t believe where we are. When he opens his mouth to speak, I note his canines are longer than usual.
“Me? This is my dream. You’re the interloper here. Now even sleep isn’t a respite from you? You really can’t leave me be, can you?”
I sit on the bed, where he has warmed the space with his own body heat, and lay myself out in the spot now unoccupied. The sheets are comfortable, though the mattress is harder than I’m used to. I close my eyes, hoping I’ll fall into a deeper sleep without company or even dreams. I could really use a true break from everything.
Eryx snatches the blanket from atop me and somehow manages to wrap himself in it while lying on the other side of the bed.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Trying to make you disappear. Now give that back.”
“This is my bed, and you need to leave. Get away from this place right now.”
I roll my eyes and body at the same time, turning toward him and propping my head up on my hand. My dress gapes open slightly at my neckline, but I do nothing to stop it because, again, this is only a dream, so who cares?
Yet Eryx’s eyes dart downward before he catches himself and brings them right back up.
I lift a single brow.
“Will you stop lying in that position?” he asks, and his eyes lower once more, as though he can’t help it. Finally, he just slams them closed.
“What are you wearing?” I ask, ignoring his question. Why did he wrap the comforter so tightly about himself?
“A pair of undergarments,” he says.
I feel a smile take over my lips, and I reach out for the edge of the blanket.
“Let go,” he demands.
“This is my dream,” I say. “Now drop it.”
“No.”
“What are you trying to hide from me?”
“Nothing!”
I pull as hard as I can, but not even in sleep can I will myself to be stronger than he is. Fine. I plump the pillow beneath my head before snuggling deeper into the mattress.
“You really shouldn’t be here,” he says.
“And where is here?” I ask, eyeing the storming clouds. “Is it one of the gods’ heavens?”
“Certainly not.”
“Right, you’re here,” I say. “What was I thinking? Then tell me what my brain has crafted, why don’t you?”
“Your brain?”
“Yes, this is my dream. Do keep up, Eryx. Even my dream self can’t conjure a more intelligent version of you.”
His glare is more dangerous than ever, with his eyes glowing and his teeth bared, but even now I don’t fear him.
My subconscious has transformed him into a monster. An incredibly attractive one, but a monster nonetheless.
“What are you hiding from me under that blanket?” I ask. “Did you grow an extra leg?”
“No.”
“Are your feet webbed?”
“No.”
“Do you have a tail?”
He hesitates just a heartbeat too long before saying, “No.”
“You do! You have a tail. Let me see it.”
“No! Chrysantha, get out of here.”
“I thought we already established I couldn’t because this is my dream. Now stop being a killjoy and just show me.”
He picks up his pillow and throws it at my head. After a surprised jolt, I add it to the one already beneath me.
“Why are you always in a bad mood?” I ask.
He tries to run a hand through his hair, but it snags on the same tangle I found earlier. His voice deepens. “What is the matter with you? Why aren’t you terrified of me? You’re lying right next to me, vulnerable. Completely open. Don’t you know I could rip out your throat?”
“Oh, will you? Maybe that will rouse me from this horrible dream.”
“Always jokes with you.”
I shrug. “I’ve never gotten to speak them aloud before.”
“What?”
And because this is a dream, and I decide it would be interesting to see what happens next, I tell him the truth. “I’ve always kept it bottled up. The joking. The anger. My temperament. Myself. I had to if I wanted to find a husband.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I learned at a very young age that men preferred women who they could control. So I pretended my whole life to be an idiot so others wouldn’t be careful around me. When Father was musing about the perfect husband for me, I knew his plans and even was able to direct them. You see, I couldn’t have just any husband. I needed a rich one who wasn’t long for this world. Pholios fit the bill. I knew he would die soon, and then I could inherit everything. I just had to let my father think it was his idea. He’d been trying to pawn me off on some of his rich friends. Orrin, Lord Eliades, was one he initially tried. But Orrin was young and healthy, and I didn’t want the match because I would be stuck with him for decades. But I knew about Pholios, and I just needed my father to be mindful of him.
“Do you think my father would have talked business in front of me if he’d known I was paying such close attention? Would he have left me alone in his office when he needed to run out for errands? I stole his seal and wrote letters on my father’s behalf to Pholios, asking him to come up to us and make a proper introduction of himself, because he had a daughter of marrying age.
“Father didn’t suspect a thing. Even when Pholios suddenly started talking to us as though he’d already had conversations with my father, he went with it. Because how could anything different have happened?
“I orchestrated everything. From our first meeting, to our courtship, to our eventual marriage. Every step I played a hand in. Father and Pholios were none the wiser.
“And then Pholios died, and I was free to be me for the first time in forever. I had months to enjoy it with the servants and my lovers.” I turn to Eryx. “Then you showed up. I was brash and intelligent in front of you because I didn’t know who you were, and by then, it was too late. I was stuck with you knowing who I was and unable to use my usual ways to get rid of you.”
“You mean to say that you haven’t found a lover who will have you without the incentive of money?”
I cannot read his tone, but I certainly don’t like the pathetic light he paints me in.
“I’m not in the market for a lover. I’m only interested in having a mistress. Do pay attention, I was talking about my past. You’re focusing on the wrong things.”
Eryx blinks approximately five times before the words make it through his thick skull. “So you had your family convinced you were a simpleton?”
“Not my family. Everyone. The whole court. Everyone I’ve ever met. I’ve been playing this part for seven years.”
“That’s a long time to be someone you’re not.”
“It would have been worth it if you hadn’t shown up. Then I would have had the rest of my life to be happy.”
He rolls his eyes. “Only you would say you couldn’t be happy. You live in complete luxury. You’ve never gone without shoes to wear or food to eat or a roof over your head. You want me to feel bad for you because you no longer can pay a man to suck your p—”
“Don’t you dare finish that crude sentence! It’s not about the money! What I’ve always wanted most was freedom, yet you try to convince me to marry again—taking away what little freedoms I have now. As it is, I’m beholden to you in too many ways. Just like your grandfather before you.”
“You are not beholden to me in the ways you were to him.”
“Oh, so I should be content to be only partial property, is that it? You don’t get it. No one gets it.”
So many women seem content with their lives. Being traded about for money. Forced to produce heirs. Living lives not wholly their own. They don’t even see it as a burden. Some of them like it.
I am not content to live a life that is not wholly mine.
I would rather die.
“You are not the only one who has led a hard life,” he says. “You are not the only one who has had to live to the whims of others. You are not the center of the world.”
“No, but I’m the center of my world, which is why I have to look after myself. No one else will.”
He pauses for just a moment. “Go a full day without food. Then tell me that isn’t worse than being a lady.”
“You think you deserve to take what’s mine because you grew up destitute? I’d have rather gone without food than dealt with Pholios constantly touching me and trying to pull me into his bed. You don’t understand. You will never understand. Stop trying to compare my life to yours. You are a man, and you will never know what it is to suffer as only a woman can!”
The last words are shouted, and they startle me awake.
It’s the middle of the night, and I’m still in the library, the book I’d been reading weighing down my chest. It falls to the floor as I rise and retreat to my room.