Chapter 11
Lilias
FOR THE PAIN
Anura peels me out of my dress and helps me wash my face in silence. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying, which feels wrong to me. I’m the one who just married the damn snake of Vsenrog. Shouldn’t I be the one crying?
But, aside from my outburst in the carriage after the wedding, I’ve held it together. And as I bit the cake on the end of the sword that was trembling in my new husband’s hand, I felt like I’d won something.
But that victory feels hollow now that I’m in a room with a massive bed and Anura is holding something out to me that looks more like a few scraps of silk and thread than clothing.
“What is that?” I whisper, staring in horror at what she’s offering me.
Anura shakes her head like she’s apologizing for something.
“Sometimes they need a little help,” she whispers back. “You know. To make the marriage official.”
I swallow hard. Something about the look on my husband’s face when I bit the cake off the end of the sword makes me think he won’t need any help. But that thought just makes me feel cold.
I know what’s coming. I’ve done this with Blayne; I should be ready for the kissing, for lying down and spreading my legs, even for the strange mixture of heat and pain, the pleasure and pressure that happens when men and women make love.
I thought my practice with Blayne would leave me feeling prepared, ready for whatever was going to happen on my wedding night.
I do not feel prepared.
The kissing and teasing I did with Blayne feels like it happened in another lifetime, to another woman. I can’t imagine teasing the snake like that. Not while he watches me with those hard, dark eyes.
Anura asks me to turn, and she begins to tie the scraps of cloth around my chest. It’s a deep, crimson V, the color echoing my wedding dress, with just enough fabric to cover my nipples and the thick curls around my sex.
My hands are shaking by the time she’s done.
I look at myself in the massive mirror hanging on the wall and feel like a horse about to bolt.
“I can’t wear this,” I whisper to Anura.
She brings me a long white robe, wraps it around my shoulders, and presses a glass of wine into my hand.
“Drink it,” she says.
I take a sip. It’s probably good wine; I can’t tell. I’ve never been a big wine drinker.
“All of it,” Anura says, frowning at the glass.
I choke it down. Anura pulls a tiny bottle from a pocket in her dress, then offers it to me. She looks like she’s going to cry again.
“What is this?” I whisper. “Poison? Should I kill my new husband already?”
She gives me a very weak smile. “It’s for you,” she says. “It will help with the pain.”
Gods. I shiver under my robe. This big room is too damn cold. At least I’ll be able to sleep in a bed again, once all this is over.
I force the wine down, hand Anura the glass, and take the tiny bottle from her hand. The cork makes a little popping sound when I pull it out. For the pain, I think as I bring the bottle to my lips.
The liquid inside is thick and bitter, and I almost gag on it. When I hand the bottle back to Anura, the room pulses softly around the edges of my vision. And by the time she leads me to the foot of the massive, curtained bed, I can’t feel my legs.
“Gods be with you,” Anura whispers. She leans forward and kisses my cheek. “Good luck.”
“You too,” I say.
My voice sounds thick, like my mouth is stuffed with cotton. The air in the room ripples as Anura walks toward the door. It opens without a sound, and someone else comes inside. When the door closes, she’s gone.
I’m alone. With the snake.
I try to summon up the same defiance and anger I clung to during the ceremony, but it’s hard to do when the floor is tilting beneath me.
The snake walks toward me slowly, like a predator stalking his prey. His eyes run up and down my white robe as he peels off his cloak and places it gently across the back of a chair. He unbuttons his jacket very slowly, then the shirt beneath. I stare, fascinated despite myself.
He’s wearing a necklace, a thin chain with a tiny metal tube that rests in the hollow of his collarbone.
His pale chest is lean and hard, rippled with muscles and strange scars.
It’s mostly smooth, unlike Blayne, whose skin is covered with thick hair, but the snake has a thin trail of tight, dark curls that lead down the front of his chest to his—
Oh. Oh, gods, he’s close to me. And I’m staring at the massive bulge in his pants as he unbuckles his belt.
I close my eyes. My cheeks burn, and the floor pitches and sways like a ship. I hear the hiss of fabric against skin and open my eyes.
His pants are on the floor. He’s wearing tight black shorts, and shit, he’s not going to need any help at all, is he? My hands close around my waist, and I realize that I’m trying to hold the robe closed as I stare at what he’s got between his legs.
This is going to hurt. He’s twice as big as Blayne, maybe more, and gods, there’s no way that thing can fit inside of me. Shit—
I take a step back and hit the bed. The room bucks beneath me. The snake grabs my wrist, then my waist, and then his lips press against my neck. Panic races through my body, hot and frantic. He inhales, long and slow, his breath whispering across my skin.
“You’re drugged,” he whispers.
I open my mouth, but I can’t remember how to form words. He steps back and lifts his hands. He slips the robe from my shoulders, then leans close to me, one hand against the small of my back, the other on my shoulder. His breath is hot against my ear.
“Never assume privacy in this room,” he whispers in a voice so low it’s almost inaudible. “Nod if you understand me.”
I nod. He leans back.
“Gods, you’re gorgeous,” he announces loudly. His eyes are hard and sharp when they meet mine. “Get on the bed.”
I stagger backward and collapse onto the covers. He leans over me, his bare chest dragging across the thin red silk covering my nipples, and the bed spins like a potter’s wheel. His breath rakes the skin on my neck as he brings his lips to my ear.
“The mirror,” he whispers, “is a window. There are witnesses behind it.”
I start to turn toward the mirror. He grabs my chin.
“Don’t look,” he whispers, then leans down again. “The mirror is one. There are probably more.”
The bed rocks as he leans back. I follow the trail of curls down his abdomen as he slips off the bed. There’s the rattling sound of rungs pulled over wood, and the light dims.
He’s closing the curtains around the bed. I shiver again, fear and something else swirling together inside me, creating a strange, pulsing throb between my legs. The mattress dips again. The snake climbs on the bed, closing the curtain behind him.
I know what’s coming. I saw the hard length of him; he’s past the stopping point.
I shut my eyes and spread my legs. He makes a strange sound, a sharp sort of inhale, and the bed starts rocking. I hold my breath as it creaks below me.
Gods, whatever Anura gave me is working. I don’t feel a thing. Not between my legs, not pressed above me—
There’s another strange sound, a low, strangled moan. I open my eyes.
And he isn’t between my legs. No, the snake is kneeling on his hands and knees at my feet. He’s—
I blink, then drag myself up to sitting. And then I stare, my mouth open, as Zarek thrusts his hips and digs his knees into the foot of the bed. Below him, the bed frame rocks and creaks. He moans again, then glances at me and raises an eyebrow.
He’s faking it.
What in the nine hells?
I glance down at the stupid red strips of fabric I’m wearing. They’ve come off-center, so I have red cloth covering the curve of my stomach while my bare nipples point at my husband.
Sometimes they need a little help, Anura told me.
I didn’t think Zarek would need help. His cock was hard when he walked into the room.
And the strips of crimson fabric trailing down my body feel stupid, like dressing up a goat and parading her through the streets.
He must not have been past the stopping point after all.
Or maybe he just doesn’t want me.
“Fuck,” Zarek growls, loudly, as he rocks back and forth on the bed. “Fuck, yes!”
I feel too hot, then too cold. There’s an unpleasant ache between my legs; the room is spinning so violently I feel like I’m going to throw up. And when Zarek leans back, there’s nothing hard between his legs, just soft black fabric across his thighs.
And a knife.
Shit.
I gasp as Zarek pulls a blade from a sheath strapped around his thigh. Without looking at me, he runs the blade across his skin. Blood swells from the cut in his thigh. I gag, and he reaches for the sheet beneath me.
Crimson spreads across the white fabric as Zarek presses it to his skin, and I think of the map that Blayne showed me, the one where Vsenrog flowed out like ink to cover all the places I loved.
Vsenrog. My husband’s kingdom.
The back of my throat turns hot and bitter.
I only just make it to the edge of the bed and shove the curtain aside before vomiting onto the floor.
I retch over and over, thinking about mirrors that are windows, wondering how many people just watched me puke cake and wine and Anura’s drugs onto the thick carpet beneath the bed.
A sob slips out from between my lips, followed by another, harsh and barking.
“Well, that was fun,” the snake says from behind me.
There’s another rattle of rungs pulled over wood. He slides off the other side of the bed and comes to his feet. I’m dimly aware of my husband pulling on his pants as the room spins wildly around the bed, and the tears I feel like I’ve been holding for my entire life pour down my face.
“I’m going to go get drunk,” Zarek announces.
With that, he pulls the curtains closed and leaves me alone, on the bloody sheets, sobbing as if I’ve just lost something important.