Chapter 20 #2
“That’s because it’s all bullshit ,” he says, and I flinch at the slash of his tone. He reaches around me, and I almost choke on his deep, manly scent as he snatches the book off the table and waves it through the air. “Why do you think this ended up in a dusty old cellar?”
I daub my brow with my sweater sleeve. “I don’t know, Rhordyn.”
“Well,” he purrs, and although his voice is treacle, I get the sense of a snake preparing to strike.
“Consider this your religious lesson for the day. Believe me when I tell you, any Gods worth worshiping would take more pride in their position, and they certainly wouldn’t leave it to someone else to clean up their mess. ”
He flicks his wrist and the book goes fluttering over his shoulder.
I squeal, jolting as it lands in the belly of the mammoth fireplace atop a stack of blazing wood.
Sparks explode, embers crackle, and I feel like it’s my heart he just lobbed into the raging inferno.
Flames gobble up the rich tapestry of ancient culture and beliefs, and my eyes sting as I watch the pages blacken and curl—all those beautiful, telling pictures falling victim to a fiery demise.
“That was a beautiful book,” I whisper past the lump in my throat, feeling a tear dart down my cheek.
“And it made fantastic firewood,” Rhordyn snips before charging back to his seat.
I wait in patient stillness, watching the pages burn, listening for sounds of him filling his plate. It’s a hollow hope—the sort that’s aching for sustenance to fill its void and give it something to feed on.
The sort of hope that leaves me winded when those sounds never come.
Unable to watch any longer, I turn from the book, haunted by the hungry crackle behind me as I wipe the swells of my cheeks.
I clear my throat, lift my chin, and try to focus on a platter of fruit, searching for any sense of appetite.
Trying to ease my mind from the heartbreak flaming at my back and the internal smolder that’s threatening to offer me a similar fate.
“Eat, Orlaith.”
I very nearly scream the same thing back, but think better of it. He just burned a relic of ancient lore as if it were nothing but trash. Who’s to say he won’t toss me in the fire, too?
That’s a bit dramatic, but his extreme demonstration set the trend.
Hand trembling, I pluck a peach from the pile and rest its furry, sunset skin against my parted lips ...
Rhordyn’s stare is a cube of ice being dragged down the side of my face, a vast contrast to the fire blazing in my belly; shifting lower ... lower ... spreading across my belly button like the stretching wings of a bird.
Perhaps the Gods are punishing me for leading Te Bruk o’ Avalanste to a fiery demise?
Battling to keep my hands steady, I set the peach in the center of my otherwise empty plate and roll the sleeves of my sweater. When that doesn’t cool me down, I peel the entire thing off, seeking an ounce of relief from this small sun dawning in my abdomen, setting my skin alight.
“Laith. Are you feeling okay?”
I look to Baze watching me with narrowed eyes, a slice of meat pinched between his fingers that seems to be forgotten about.
He’s dressed in a thick sweater while I’m considering whether it’s socially acceptable to strip down to my chest wrap and panties at the dinner table.
Because this button-down, these pants .. .
They’re suffocating my skin.
“It’s just a bit hot this morning. Can someone douse the fire? How are you bearing this heat wearing all those clothes?”
I wiggle in my seat, trying to temper some innate itch I can’t seem to pin down. The friction makes me quiver from the tips of my toes all the way to my fluttering lids, but does nothing to quell my smoldering skin.
If anything, it makes it worse ... although now I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop .
“I’m not hot,” Baze murmurs, frowning when I clear my plate and start using it as a fan.
Rhordyn makes this low, abrasive sound that arcs my spine, shoving my breasts forward. I glance at him, lungs compacting when I see his hands gripping the arms of his chair like they’re the only things binding him to this world.
His nostrils flare, eyes full-bellied moons, and there is no color in his cheeks. No light in his features. Nothing but cold, astute awareness.
Something in those depthless eyes reminds me of Shay; of the way he perches in a slab of shadow, waiting for me to toss his fleshy feast so he can pounce.
“What’s your problem?” I ask, working my plate-fan to a frenzy.
Baze makes this high-pitched choking sound. “Oh ... fuck .”
“ Out ,” Rhordyn snaps, but Baze just sits there, watching him with wary eyes.
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“I said out. ”
His brutal command vandalizes the air, and Baze curses, eyes to the ground as he stands and pursues the door.
I pause my fanning. “Why are you—”
“And clear the north wing of all males!” Rhordyn bellows, his voice a clap of thunder.
“Was already on it,” is Baze’s nasally response before he disappears.
I frown, glancing at Rhordyn. “What the hell is going on?”
Ignoring my question, he waves a hand at Tanith. She peels off the wall and sways toward him, her movements a dance I usually admire—
I don’t realize I’m snarling until Rhordyn growls, long and menacing, and I pry my gaze off the approaching female.
“ No ,” he berates, eyes skewering me in place.
He seems bigger—broader—his pressing essence commanding me to yield.
I’m just about to stand when he rises like a mountain shoving out of the ocean. “ I said no .”
The words power out of him and snip the flame off a candlestick in the middle of the table.
Though my chin is jutted, something inside me curls.
“Tanith,” he grates, keeping me impaled with his emphatic regard. “Cast your eyes to the floor. Now.”
I study the pretty female who is staring at the ground, paused a respectable distance from the table. The sight has my shoulders softening, upper lip no longer peeled back from bared teeth that were ready to chew.
“A cold bath needs to be drawn in Orlaith’s tower,” Rhordyn flings at her, attention aimed at me.
“Notify Cook that she’ll be taking meals in her room for the next week; simple, palatable food.
And she’ll need some rags prepared and brought up, seeing as she won’t be able to retrieve them herself when the time comes. ”
Hang on ... “ What? ”
Tanith curtsies, then hurries from the room.
“But I don’t want to take meals in Stony Stem for the next week,” I plead as Rhordyn sinks into his chair. “Whatever this is, my answer is no .”
Silence stretches. The man’s not even breathing. So, I take the chance to validate my point while rocking back and forth against my seat.
“Look, I know you think I don’t have much of a life, but I do.
And I have things that need tending. There’s just no way I can spend an entire week trapped in my tower.
Much as I like it there,” I quickly tack on.
“Wonderful view. Fantastic housekeeping service. The stairs are a bit much after a long day, but who am I to complain?”
His eyes drift shut, lips stamp together. Even his shoulders look heavier ... but I disregard that in light of my own barreling emotions.
“I’m sorry. As thankful as I am for Stony Stem, it’s just not possible for me to cloister myself up there.
I mean, I’m not sure how you were expecting Baze and I to find the space to train.
” I fan myself with the plate again, matching the beat of my jerking hips. “We’d be right on top of each other.”
Rhordyn’s eyes open, and I suck a breath.
His face looks sharpened by a whetting rock, his eyes flat like twin sheets of slate.
Suddenly, I feel like a fat, overfed kitchen mouse hanging by its tail.
“There will be no training.”
My head kicks back as if he just slapped me. “Why the hell not? You’re the one that said—”
“Because you’re going into heat.”
My heart stills.
The breath in my lungs becomes heavy like mortar, and even the sensual fire boring deep into my groin seems to abate a few degrees.
I know what a female’s heat is, only because I stumbled on an anatomy book when I was thirteen.
But that’s about all I know.
Two paragraphs into the chapter, I skipped to the next, cheeks aflame. The medis who wrote about the experience made it all sound so ... so ...
Sexual.
I thought I’d avoided it. That perhaps the caspun had successfully warded it off—one of the side effects I’d noted while studying the herb in a medicine book I found in Spines. One of the only adverse side effects I was actually pleased about.
Suddenly, my chest wrap feels too tight. Too constricting. My body’s desire to mature despite the hurdles has cast light on the fact I’ve been punishing it for far too long, blind to the nail-biting pain that comes with having my budding breasts flattened.
“Can I ... can I stop it?”
Please say yes.
“No, Orlaith. You can’t.”
The words land like rocks in my stomach, certain to weigh me down for the rest of my life.
“I need you to walk out of this room, go straight to your tower, and stay there.”
Stay there ...
Not only is my body rebelling against my mind, but I’m also being shunned to my tower—being ordered to stay for the first time in my life.
I need something normal to cling to or I’m going to fall apart. Maybe not straight away, but eventually the noose of anxiety will slither in and steal my breath, just like it always does when I feel like I’ve lost control.
“Surely exceptions can be made? I’m not asking for much. Just an hour a day for me to ...” hell, I don’t know, feed Shay ... collect flowers ... visit Kai ... “ wander? ”
The wooden arms of his chair groan.
“ Now, Orlaith!”
Guess that’s a no.
My hands fall to my lap, bunching into fists as I glance at the door, lips pursed.
What if Tanith comes back?
“I’ll be in my room. Alone ,” Rhordyn grates out, and I slide my gaze back to him, weighing the value of his words. “With the door locked , ” he swiftly tacks on.
I try not to over analyze the fact that his statement seems to tame my volatile nerves. The last thing the mural of our relationship needs is another layer of paint. It’s messy enough as it is.
“Fine,” I snip, knowing exactly how stubborn that lock is.
Nothing is getting through that thing without a key.
I stand, making to walk around his side of the table when a low warning sound rumbles out of him.
My feet cement in place.
He jerks his chin in the other direction, and I sigh, diverting my path, heading toward the exit while fanning myself with a silver plate that doubles as an unrewarding mirror for my flushed face.
“Your handmaiden will be up to tend to your needs and collect your nightly offering,” he says when I’m halfway across the room.
His words peck at me, though I try not to let my discomfort show.
Likely fail.
Half my enjoyment comes from listening to him ascend those stairs, open The Safe, remove the goblet, and collect that little part of me . I use his sounds as a stencil to create a physical picture in my mind, and now he’s taking them away, too.
I quicken my pace.
“ Orlaith. ”
My name is bitten out like it’s some sort of curse, and I spin, seeing an ocean of unsaid words in his catacomb eyes.
“Yes?”
“Do not, under any circumstance, leave your room. Do you understand me?”
Swallowing, I nod.
“ Say it .”
“I understand, Rhordyn.”
“Good.” I note a softening of his tone—detect an easing of the tension in his features. “Go.”
I don’t wait for him to tell me again.