Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
ANDREIEN
I ’d frightened her last night.
Sane enough to regret it, I’d dragged myself out of her apartment where the temptation of her scent, her taste, the large dark eyes that could turn from sweet to flinty in the space of a breath, couldn't beguile me to into doing something stupid.
Like ravage her.
That was an act not even a bonded would recover from. Not fully. I wanted her heart, not just her body, but she flinched when I touched her. Barely perceptible, but present. A tensing around her eyes and mouth before she controlled her expression, the subtle stiffening of muscles. It was more than a lover’s nervousness with a new partner. Not the trauma of past assault, I didn’t taste that in her mind, but abuse of some kind, physical and emotional.
I hoped she'd allow me her bed soon, but for now my little human required gentle courting. It was to be expected. I'd come into her life like a maelstrom, and with less path of escape.
I'd given her no option but to accept me. With reserve, she'd acquiesced, bending her graceful neck with a submissiveness that softened the edge of my growing hunger.
Until I’d realized it was false submissiveness.
That reserve was still due to her thinking she was going to wait me out. I’d thought I'd kindly disabused her of that delusion. Evidently not .
Anah fell asleep in my arms the remainder of the ride to our townhome, her breaths deep, her body pliant. I buried my nose in her neck and inhaled, which was a mistake, sweat blooming at my temples and along my spine.
It was getting worse. She thought I was being cruel, to threaten her if she left me. It wasn't meant as a threat, merely a statement of fact.
I didn't trust my control if she made the attempt. No male could be trusted during the first awful days and weeks when desire unraveled sanity and deepened into rut, an instinctive, savage possessiveness that brought forth our most animalistic natures.
Fae knew how to handle us during this time. How to escape us without bloodshed when the signs first appeared. It could be done. But my Anah's window was rapidly closing, and I wasn't honorable enough to teach her to evade me.
Constin opened the coach door and stuck his head in, glimpsing my dozing bonded. His expression softened.
“ Oh. So sweet—” he shut his mouth, inhaling. “Damn.” His gaze flew to mine, his wariness instant. My scent must have changed again. “It's happening quick.”
He sounded as helpless as I felt. “Have you ever known a male to spiral in a matter of days rather than weeks?” I said.
“No. But you're a Sahakian-Casakraine.”
My bloodline and our curse to bond frequently, quickly, and more savagely than the norm.
“What did you do, Andreien? She smells frightened.”
I balanced Anah in my arms and stepped out of the carriage. A twelve foot high stone wall surrounded the property, accessible from the guarded front gates and a smaller back exit.
“She tried to lecture me about how we have to prepare ourselves for a civilized break up!” I’d barely kept my temper from snapping. “I. . .released a trickle of my power.”
I refused to feel guilty, damn her twice.
He glanced at me, gray eyes bemused. “Calm down, luudthen. I thought you explained the ha, very amusing, no, part of that to her?”
“I thought I had too. She must have been humoring me.” I thought back to the look on her face, the tension in her body when she'd exited the rehearsal building earlier. “Something during rehearsal upset her. She won't tell me what.” I'd find out. “Did Mathen report?”
I'd ask him. Forget this stubborn female.
“He said the rehearsal was uneventful.”
“He missed something then.”
The front door opened and we stepped inside, Anah still deeply asleep. She was exhausted, and part of that was probably a lack of food.
A frothy kind of rage surged up my throat again, and my arms tightened around her.
“She didn't even eat this morning. Or have lunch. And she has the temerity to look at me with hurt eyes when I rightfully take her to task.” Indignation cut through the anger.
Con followed on my heels as I walked to the wing with my suite of personal rooms.
“You provided food,” he said. “Why didn't she eat anything? She's not trying to make weight, is she?”
That hadn't occurred to me. “I don't think so. I would understand if she was, so why hide it from me?”
“Ack. You know she could get in trouble for restricting calories below the official macro guidelines.”
It was a dangerous practice and officially forbidden, even among warriors where units used to deliberately starve members to keep them under a certain weight to make certain maneuvers easier, and the warriors faster. Our power would consume our bodies if we didn't eat enough.
“I'll talk with her,” I said, Constin opening the bedroom door. “Make sure Mathen brings her lunch every day—never mind, I can already envision her face. . .assign a caterer to the dancers and staff for now. A cold snack table, and a hot buffet lunch. She'll eat if everyone else does.”
There—neatly outmaneuvered. The little mortal stood no chance against a male of my cleverness.
But I'd have to talk to my mother. Surely we could install a permanent commissary. Why hadn't she already done this? Her philosophy regarding mild deprivation spurring motivation was beginning to annoy me.
Amusement warmed Constin's eyes as he pulled aside my cloth-of-gold bedspread.
“She's not going to like you fussing. Order the chef to prepare her only the most decadent carbs for a week if she disobeys. She'll hate that worse than a spanking.”
I laid Anah down and removed her—I cursed. “Darkness. These aren’t fit to be called shoes. . .I need Mia. I didn't schedule for all this shopping.”
Anah needed everything. Shoes, basic leisure wear, evening gowns, Court attire and the proper cosmetics and accessories and under garments to match, of course. I wanted to chose most of it myself—that was part of the joy of taking a consort after all, dressing them up—but I didn’t have the time.
And she was likely to protest anyway, which meant more arguing.
Straightening, I stared down at my bonded, running my hand through my hair. I'd had to bully her about the groceries, and that tactic wouldn't work the more comfortable she became with me. I knew she wasn't going to let me replace her shoes without a fight.
Would she yell, stomp, throw things, threaten to stab me with my own blade?
Oh, no. Nothing normal.
She'd give me big sad eyes sparkling with unshed tears that gutted me every time she wielded them, and that aura of wary disappointment as she quietly accepted her fate and made me feel like a monster. Or worse, an Old One.
Would everything be a fight I'd inevitably lose? It was why I must be strategically cruel; slam my foot down and guard my rules rabidly or succumb to her every whim, no matter how idiotic or dangerous.
“I'm so fucked. I always thought having a female would be easy. They're supposed to be submissive when they bond.”
Constin choked. “Oh, my sweet faeling. Don't let your mother or sister hear you say that. You wouldn't survive the hour.”
I turned and laid my head on his shoulder and his arms came around me. He made soothing noises, smoothing his hand down my head.
“It'll be all right, faeling,” he said, and kissed the top of my head. “We'll get you trained. You're young enough to unlearn all the stupid shit the unmated males taught you. They're unmated for a reason, you know.”
I balled my fist up and hit him in the side, but didn't pull away from the embrace. I needed the comfort.
“You're not mated,” I muttered.
“I'm intelligent. And two hundred years your elder. What are you going to tell her about the townhouse?”
She'd be awake soon and I'd have to explain why we weren't at her apartment.
“Perhaps I should save that argument for tomorrow.”