Chapter 2 #2
One corner of his mouth hitched up in what I was beginning to recognize as his reflexive smile. “See? You don’t really want to kill me.”
“If I kill you now, they’ll kill my brother’s mate. I don’t want to kill you…yet.”
His eyes flicked to my white knuckles gripping the table, then back to my face.
He gave me a look of pity. “If we don’t consummate it, he’ll see it as a sign of rebellion, and he’ll punish you for it.
In my experience with him, that likely involves part of someone you love being sent here in a box. ”
“The sex isn’t the problem. Fucking you means nothing to me. I can’t do it like this.” I gestured to his body over my prone form.
He studied me, and I hated the understanding that softened his eyes. “To them, letting you get on top might be worse than failing to consummate it. What if we do it quickly?”
I took a steadying breath. “Can’t you just pretend to stick it in there and grunt a few times?”
He looked away. “The priest likes to…check for seed.”
“Charming.”
His expression turned tender. “You’re the bravest warrior I know. Look at me and we’ll get through this. Whatever haunts you, whoever haunts you, I’m not him. I’ll never be him, Sigrid.”
There he went being soft again. Softness was dangerous, and I had too much at stake for it. I assessed him, realizing he was just as ready to snap with tension. His eyes kept darting to the priest, and each time he looked away, they flicked back to me, haunted.
I snatched at the thought, desperate for anything else to focus on. “I’m not the only one who’s afraid right now. What do you have to fear?”
Bastian blinked, then wouldn’t meet my eyes. “He neutralized your berserker. You can’t feel my fear.”
“No, but I can see it. Fear and I are old companions. I might need my berserker to show me the exact nightmare, but I can see when it haunts your eyes.”
He didn’t glance in the direction of the priest, but I sensed Bastian’s awareness, detected the effort it took him to not look.
“The priest. What did he—”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does. What did that motherfucker do?”
Bastian locked down his emotions, giving me a completely neutral expression.
I didn’t know how nor when, and I had no interest in examining why…but I was going to make the priest suffer before sending him to meet his maker.
Holding that thought in my mind was enough to ground me to the present instead of letting the past take me. I wasn’t powerless. I could kill everyone in this cathedral with my bare hands if I wanted to, but it didn’t serve my ends in that moment.
Control.
I was in control.
I clenched my jaw and nodded to Bastian. “Just do it.”
He hated this. It was the only reason I could contemplate tolerating it. If I thought he was enjoying my misery, I would’ve lost control and killed him.
He carefully lowered himself onto me, and I flinched involuntarily when his body touched mine.
“That’s it, lad! If she doesn’t wince, you aren’t doing it right.” A ripple of laughter followed the nobleman’s comment.
Bastian pulled away again, shaking his head.
I seized his chin and made him look at me. “I can do it. I told you I can do it!”
The muscles in his neck were rigid with tension. “I can’t. Not going to live with traumatizing you like this.”
From the back of the cathedral, someone loudly called, “The lad seems to be struggling to get it in. Perhaps we should show him where it goes.”
I shuddered.
Bastian launched himself off the altar, naked and livid, cupping between his legs like it might give him some dignity. “Get out,” he growled in a tone monstrous enough to have made my berserker purr.
“A royal marriage must be observed,” the king drawled calmly, as though explaining it to a toddler. He took a sip of his wine and gave us an indulgent smile, one that made tremors of anger pulse through me.
Bastian raised his chin defiantly. “By one priest. That’s all the law calls for. If you want me to perform, you’ll get everyone but him the fuck out. Now.”
He dropped his hands from where he covered himself, revealing he was no longer erect.
Many laughed and called out suggestions. He ignored their mockery, staring down his father.
Bastian was making it about him, about his inability to stay hard with an audience. They’d ridicule him for it, and he knew that, but he was doing it to shield me.
Soft.
Dangerously fucking soft.
The king flicked his hand carelessly. “Everyone out except Father Benedict.”
The crowd filed out the back door of the cathedral until we were alone except for the priest.
Bastian didn’t look at the priest who’d be observing us. But I did.
The priest met my eyes, then shamelessly let his gaze slide down my body before glaring at me with disgust, like it was my fault he was a pervert.
From Bastian’s obvious discomfort, I’d thought perhaps the priest wouldn’t be interested in me like that, that his interest might run solely towards little boys, but the gleam in Father Benedict’s eyes said otherwise.
Now that I could work with.