Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
HASANNAH
S ince leaving home I'd had to be strategic with food, balancing medium quality protein and fat with inexpensive carbohydrates. I needed fuel and nutrients, and plenty of both, but I also needed to eat more than once every other day, so there was that.
As Andrei helped me put away the bounty of groceries he'd purchased, I couldn't help but cradle each item in my hand, examining its shape and weight and color before reluctantly setting it aside.
A brilliant red pepper, it's scent drifting off unbruised skin. A bright green apple. The deep, stately magenta of a fat eggplant. Bleeding cuts of red meat wrapped lovingly in brown paper. Plus the various purple and orange grains that passed as rice in this realm, round brown eggs, a jug of thick cream. Pats of hand churned butter?—
“Hasannah.”
I jerked, abandoning the attempt to forget what he'd said in the coach, and looked up at him.
“I feel your distress.”
Not a Low Fae. Not a simple—ora higher ranked—House warrior.
Sweet Jesus, nota Lord.
A High Lord.
This wasn’t going to end well.
Andrei stared at me, his hip propped against the counter, his turquoise eyes both amused and. . .almost angry.
Staring into them, I realized there were flecks of warm amber around the pupils, like embers of condensed sunlight. I didn't think he would hurt me, but I also wasn't stupid enough to want to test that theory.
“I see,” I said.
Was I supposed to use his title? Bow? Perversely, that was part of the etiquette I hadn't paid much attention to because I'd not only fully intended to avoid any High Fae Lords, but had assumed I would in any case. The only time I'd expected to come close was if I was accepted to Sahakian Arts company. Even then, we could only expect to be in the same building with High Lords during performances.
He uncoiled from his slouch and I tensed.
“How long has it been since you've had a decent meal?” he asked.
The pitch of his voice warned me to take care with the answer to that question. Heads would roll, probably at my feet. When I'd mentioned the bribes earlier, his eyes had darkened with an executioner's purpose.
“Do I look like I'm missing any meals?” I deflected, joking. Or making the attempt, at least. It was difficult, when the bruise on my neck still throbbed.
When I throbbed between my legs because evidently my normally low libido had decided to come awake around him. It just figured. I doubted it would last, though.
He studied my face, then set the question aside as if he understood my unease. “Do you want to take the vegetables or the meat?”
How could he make such soft, bland words sound so obscene? Was it because his gaze trailed up and down my body, pausing at my neck, at my lips, at my breasts. . .flaring with heat when I pressed my thighs together?
“My father always grilled the steaks.”
“Another gender-based custom among humans?”
I shrugged. “I suppose so. I neverquestioned most of them.”
There were always more important things to worry about, like mastering my en pointe or pirouette. Or vomiting through a bad period before I’d finally been diagnosed and put on meds.
He dipped his chin slightly, emerald dark hair falling onto his forehead as he lowered his lashes in time to the not quite smile curving his lips.
“And are you very obedient, my Anah?”
I'd have to be a complete moron not to understand the sexual purr in his voice.
I kept my tone light because stammering would make me look like prey. “I suppose it depends on the circumstances. And the man. So far I haven't been tempted towards obedience much.”
Andrei stilled, eyes snapping wide. I almost stepped back, uncertain what I’d said that was so provocative.
“Then I will have to be worthy of your obedience,” he said.
The tension now was thicker than that jar of heavy cream lounging with full fat complacency in the ice box.
I tried to use humor to break the tension again. “What could be worth that? Evidently you cook, but do you also clean up after yourself?”
“Are those your only standards?” His eyes brightened with anger once more. “A male who can prepare food and clean up his own messes? I wonder at the quality of human males.”
“You aren't the only one.”
I began to turn away and pick up a pepper, my fingers trembling a little because this conversation was going completely off the rails, when he stepped towards me. Not touching, but so close he might as well be.
Andrei lowered his head, the tip of his nose moving up and down my temple as if in slow caress as he inhaled deeply, then exhaled warm breath scented with desire. The beat of his forcibly restrained lust flit through my veins, and for a moment I saw myself clearly through his eyes.
Shimmering satin skin, head lowered, neck he wanted to sink his teeth into draped in shining hair. He wanted to shove her against the counter and sink to his knees, burying his mouth between her thighs and licking her into submission. He would teach her the pleasures of obedience on his fingers and tongue and cock until she?—
I jerked, startled, pressing a hand to my hot cheek. What in the world?
“I'm somewhat impatient to be forced to say this because it's so basic,” he said in a deep, silky tone as I mentally reeled, “but with me you will never go hungry. Never want for the proper fuel to feed your discipline. And I can offer you more, Hasannah. So much more beyond the paltry basics.”
My heart stuttered in my chest as I relearned how to breathe. How to feel something other than this sudden, all-encompassing lust. A shocking need that went so much deeper than mere physical desire.
For the first time I didn’t feel alone in my own mind. Bereft of warmth.
I closed my eyes to defend myself against him, and attempted to dance the choreography for my audition in my head, though of course that was useless. About as useless as telling him he couldn't come into my place.
“Really, you don't need to do anything for me. I have everything I need.” What I didn't need was to be in any way in his debt, or otherwise more entangled.
He turned me in his arms. It took me a few moments to realize the silence had changed, that some of that anger was now focused.
On me.
I opened my eyes and flinched.
“What you mean,” he said with the softness of a man restraining his temper—a man who normally wasn't required to stoop to temper because everything and everyone in his vicinity, he ruled, “is that you don't want anything from me. That you don't trust me.”
I looked away. No, I didn't want to anger him, but I also wasn't going to let him bully me into completely placating him. There was a difference between strategically avoiding unnecessary conflict and laying down to be his doormat.
“If you were in my position, would you trust you?” I asked.
His fingers caught my chin, turning my head so I was forced to meet his gaze again. “No, but that's only because I know you lack key information.”
“Are you going to share?”
Andrei paused. “I was under the impression you didn't want to know anything that would detract you from your current focus.”
“And not knowing is safe for me?”
“Little can harm you while you’re mine.” He released me.
I frowned and stretched on my tip toes, restless. I needed to move, but he wasn't letting me put physical space between us.
“That's one of the problems, Andrei. You've admitted you're a High Lord. What happens when—” I faltered, not able to voice the words though that was silly. I mentally smacked myself. “What happens when I don't interest you anymore? Can you guarantee me it will be a safe, amicable split?”
“No.” His faint smile matched his conversational tone, and did nothing to soften the frigid, impenetrable steel of that one word. “Forgive me. I've given you the wrong impression. There will be no end to us, Hasannah, other than my death.”
Skeletal fingers tapped along my spine. “Mine seems more likely.”
He shook his head. “The only circumstance under which I intend you die is if my body is already at your feet. If I cannot protect one mortal woman, I am not worth my lineage.”
I stared up at him, second guessing the decision that every second now was becoming more and more foolish. The decision to keep my head in the sand because I couldn't sacrifice an iota of concentration on my goal.
“I think you'd better tell me, Andrei. Tell me what this is for you.”
His gaze weighed me a moment. “You won't try to run from me?”
I covered my eyes with my hand. “Well, this isn't exactly inspiring confidence.”
He laughed, and tugged my hand down. “No. Fine, I warned you.” A faint grimace on his face. Then it smoothed with his sigh. “We are bound. Soulbound. The binding isn't complete, but it's there and unmistakable. It's a defect of my bloodline.”
The word soulbound was chased by defect as my human mind tried to rifle through the very inhuman implications of his statement. I'd read a little about the Cassanian culture and the surrounding territories of this realm. The great city of Ninephe that rested near the equator of this planet, several weeks travel.
“You mean like soulmates? Like we were meant for each other?”
He actually rolled his eyes. “It's a binding, and an anchor, and a chain.” He said the last word as if it was a curse. “A gift and a threat.”
“It doesn't sound fun for either of us.”
“At times it won't be.”
My heart sank a little more with each word. He didn't sound happy.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Is there anything I can do to make this easier for you? If I'm not accepted into the company, I'll be returning to Earth realm anyway.”
“You will be returning to Earth realm,” he agreed with another one of his easy-concealing-hard smiles, “over my dead body.”
“So we're establishing a theme here. You're going to have to choose how you allocate your dead body. You only get one.”
“If you say so.”
I had no idea what to do. What he'd revealed was too large, too complex for me tobegin to unravel right now. I had the knowledge, I understood a little better what this was. . .not dating, a date was a food. . .and now I could better set my expectations.
“Should I think of this as kind of like an arranged living apart long term relationship?” I asked.
That might not be so disruptive. He seemed fairly well-adjusted, not all ragy alpha predator Fae like we'd been warned.
Andrei—Lord Andrei, I supposed—opened his mouth, closed it, giving me an indecipherable look. “You're attempting to wrap me into a neat little parcel you can set aside and forget about until I'm convenient. I will not be ignored, Hasannah.”
“You said you wouldn't interfere in my dance.” My back stiffened, and I heard stone creep into my tone.
“And I won't, but I can't make promises for others. I'll try to keep your presence unknown for as long as possible. Unless you wish to be known.”
I shook my head. “No. Not at all. I don't want to be known for anything other than my dance. Certainly not as the. . .situationship of a local Lord.”
“Situationship?” He spoke softly. So much threat in so quiet, restrained, a voice. “I’m annoyed, darling. I am. . .trying to remember that youknow no better. You don't mean to insult me.”
I grabbed the pepper and a knife, slicing to give my shaking hands something to do. He watched for a moment then took the knife away.
I swallowed, wetting my dry bottom lip. Andrei moved, pouring a glass of water and handing it to me. After draining the glass, I eyed the wine, though I normally didn't drink. He obliged, and in the back of my mind I noted that the small caregiving tasks seemed to soothe the edge of his anger.
“Are there other human soulbound among your caste?” I asked after half draining the wineglass too. Definitely an acquired taste. Recalling I hadn't had wineglasses an hour ago.
“There are always a few, but rarely more than that for. . .reasons.”
Not touching that one.
Watching his careful lack of expression, the careful lack of inflection in his tone and coupling it with the strange internal awareness I'd had of him since we met, I realized he was lying to me. No, not lying. Fae couldn't outright lie.
But they could omit like a— “There's something else you're not telling me.”
Andrei laughed sharply. “There’s a palace full of things I’m not telling you.”
I wondered if the word palace was a deliberate choice.
By silent agreement, we set the subject of what we were aside and began to prep dinner, falling into a companionable domestic rhythm as if we'd been doing this for years. It eased some of my concerns. No pampered or overly powerful Lord was comfortable in a kitchen making his own food, scrubbing out pots, moving his body around another in the graceful dance required in a small space.
As we served dinner and sat down to eat, I relaxed.
This didn't feel like it was going to be a disaster. At least not tonight.
“Ido appreciate this, Andrei,” I said when we were done eating. He ate almost as viciously as I did. Which made sense. I was an elite athlete, he was a warrior. Food was part of our job. “You didn't have to?—”
The Cassanian Lord placed a fingertip on my lips. “Don't anger me by telling me what I don't have to do.” He paused. “Your father was a good man?”
“He is a good man.”
“He provides for your mother? For his young?”
“Of course.” I dampened the heat in my tone because Andrei was trying to make a point, not be insulting.
“Then why do you assume I wouldn't do the same for mine?”
“I don't assume. . .” I stopped, because of course he was right.
He'd just told me we were soulbound and more or less indicated this was a lifetime commitment he wasn't, grudgingly, going to fight. Which meant he now had responsibilities to me, in theory. We hadn't hashed out said theory, and I wouldn't make assumptions. I didn't know enough.
I wasn't exactly raised to be a proverbial independent woman but during the last several years I'd gotten used to being alone, to feeling unprotected. Which was better than the string of terrible relationships I’d attempted before I threw in the towel.
His eyes widened slightly. “Why do you cry, little mortal?”
“I'm not crying,” I lied. My eyes were a little wet. So? I was stressed. “I'm a grown woman.”
“And?” He flicked his fingers, his wariness fading. “My sister is almost three hundred, and she cries at least once a week. Though her tears generally signify someone is about to die or at least experience great pain.”
I jerked my head up, staring at him.
Andrei ran his tongue over his teeth, eyeing me as if he realized he should have kept that revelation to himself for now.
“She's the more vicious of the two of us. She does come by it honestly, however. We Fae don't have the same. . .idiosyncrasies. . .humans do when it comes to gender, but there are issues unique to females that they must deal with. As she tells me, vocally, on a regular basis.”
There was something I didn't quite understand. “If there aren't gender-based norms in your society similar to human gender roles,why do you talk about providing for me?”
“You misunderstand. It isn't because of your gender. It's because you’re weaker than I, less powerful, lacking resources. You have no protection, are hedged by no House. In so unequal a relationship, the onus falls on me to remedy what you lack. If we were equals in all ways, the point would be moot.”
Interesting. I filed that cultural subtlety away to consider later. It wasn't necessarily better than the human system, if the Fae predicated their relationship dynamics on power imbalances, or the lack thereof. A society where might made right combined with magic and immortality. . .those implications were terrifying. But it did give women an avenue to achieve power without the barrier of misogyny. It also hinted at why their political nouns—Lord, High Lord—didn't have gendered variations.
So either you were powerful, or you weren't, but your sex was irrelevant?
I lowered my gaze. “I have to get up early for training tomorrow.”
The silence stretched, tension humming in the air. Andrei stood slowly.
“I have some business to see to,” he said, and I noticed what was missing were words indicating he wouldn’t return when he was done. “And I'll need to arrange a telegem for you. You'll be safe here for tonight.”
I peered up. “I've been living here for weeks now.”
His lip rose over a slightly sharpened incisor. “But now you're mine, and I suspect at least one person knows, unfortunately. For him. We’ll see how foolishly he’s handled that information.”
“How could anybody know? We just found out ourselves.” Wait. . . him.
Andrei bent, pressing a kiss on my forehead, hesitated as if he wished to do more—the craving for more clenched my abdomen—then pulled away.
“Keep your door locked and let no one inside. You have a quad, so you'll be under watch at all times.”
“A quad?” I didn't think I liked the sound of that.
“Guards. Four of them. They're mine, but as soon as I can arrange it, you'll have your own. Mine will serve you for now, however. If you require anything, you may open your door to summon one, and your request will be attended.”
I had. . .warrior fairies? Warrior fairies. Or fairy warriors?
Andrei paused and glanced over at the remaining mess generated by our cooking and eating. We'd mostly kept tidy, but there was still a bit to clean up. “I can send someone in to?—”
I stood, shaking my head. “No. I'll take care of all of this, you go take care of your business. From your tone of voice, it's important.”
His expression chilled, and I almost stepped back, the taste of his anticipation in the back of my throat. He almost hoped Larry had mishandled the information. It would give him an honorable excuse to?—
“Yes,” he said, “it is.”
CONTINUE WITH BOOK 2, CAGED BY DANCE AND DESIRE