His Bride

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

M ila

I wake up in bed to the almost inconspicuous rattle of a tray. For a moment, I have morning amnesia. I know this is not my bed at home. There is no golden light filtering through lead-light windows. I am waking up in a whole other country, as a whole other person. I am a married woman. I am no longer a virgin. I don’t know who I am anymore, or who I will become. All I really know is that who I was is no longer going to work in this world.

“Your breakfasts,” the servant announces.

“Thank you, Cordingly,” my husband says.

I know what is happening now.

I am beneath the covers in a dim, red-lit room, curled up against my husband’s side. He is big and strong and warm, and I feel a kind of safety I never felt when I used to sleep alone. The moment I move, however, I feel the other consequences of having been married. My ass aches, and I feel a low throbbing between my legs. I am no longer a virgin. No longer an innocent. I have been thoroughly deflowered, filled, and yes, used by my husband.

His morning scent is masculine, with a hint of the seed he spilled inside me. I still wear some of it on the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. I can feel all of his many marks on me, some obvious, others subtle.

A tray is settled on the bed.

I do not emerge from the covers until the servant is gone. When I do, new scents await me. Coffee. Toast. Cured meats. Eggs.

There is a full and generous spread. And I am starving.

“Good morning,” he murmurs as I slide up.

I meet his flinty gaze with more than a little shyness. There is something about mornings that makes everything seem new again. I only met this man yesterday, and though he has taken my virginity, which in some ways makes him the person who knows me best in this world, he still feels like a stranger in so many ways. We know one another carnally, but other than that, we know very little.

“Hello,” I say.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” I say.

He hands me a piece of toast, dripping with butter and slathered with a generous amount of jam. I cannot believe it. I have never been permitted to eat in bed except when very ill, and if I had been, I am sure that I would have been encouraged strongly to eat over the tray.

This is the first hint of my new husband being anything other than a complete stickler for rules and formality, and I find it intriguing.

“Aren’t you worried about crumbs in the bed?”

“It will be stripped after we get up,” he says. “The sheets are sticky anyway.”

I blush as I realize why that is. We have made a mess of the bed already, and of ourselves.

I bite into the toast, feeling rather decadent as I do. Many other bites of many other delicious things follow, along with coffee that is bitter and yet rich. I find myself wriggling my toes with happiness as my belly is filled.

Arthur reads on his tablet as we eat, catching up on the news, I suppose. I chance a few glances over at the words on the screen. The emblem of The State appears on quite a number of what look to be communications. I probably shouldn’t be seeing these things. They look important. That only makes me more curious, of course.

He clears his throat.

I look up at him under my lashes. I have been tucked up against him, not quite under his arm, but very close. I am not hiding what I am doing.

“Are you enjoying the reading material?” He asks the question dryly.

“Not really,” I say. “I don’t know what half of it means.”

His brows rise. “You don’t know what it means that the West is falling?”

I shake my head in a silent no.

“Do you know what Soma is?”

Again, I shake my head.

“You are aware that there are those in this world who rebel against and reject the authority of the Artifice?”

“Yes!” I say. “I knew that one. Terrible, isn’t it!”

It’s good to know what to say in a certain situation. I don’t know if I really do think it is terrible, but I know I should be saying that.

“Well,” he says. “It is all related. In some ways, it is three different ways of describing the same phenomenon. Soma is part of the cause of the rebellion, which in turn threatens the stability of society in general. The drug spreads the rebellion’s message. Much of the enforcement of law and the art of war these days is around controlling the spread of that dangerous substance.”

“What is it? Soma, I mean?”

He hesitates for a brief moment before answering me, almost as if he is wondering what sort of answer to give. “It is a powder that once ingested, infects the mind. You have spent a lifetime learning how to be in the world, the rules of proper society, so on and so forth. You understand your place, and sometimes, I presume,” he says, his voice dipping into a hint of censure, “you know how to behave yourself.”

“Mhmmm…”

“Soma destroys all of that,” he says. “It gives the user the sense that there are no rules whatsoever. The rebels we suppress are mad on the notion that they should choose which laws they follow, and which they do not. They are erratic, unpredictable, disorderly, and dangerous.”

I like listening to him talk like this, with passion and stern gusto. I can just see him laying down the law to these feral rebels who dare reject the Artifice.

“Soma is also very valuable as a traded commodity, in large part because of how potent its effects are,” he continues. “What you were just peeking at are reports that the West Coast production of Soma has…”

I accidentally interrupt him with an ill-timed yawn. “I’m sorry,” I say, catching his glowering glare. “I didn’t mean to… I’m just tired. This is very interesting of course. Please tell me more about Sonma.”

“Soma,” he corrects me. “You should understand the basic underpinnings of our economy and society. At the bare minimum, it will allow you to participate in conversations when we socialize.”

“Women speak of such matters among themselves here?” I ask the question in surprise.

I have not been educated in the traditional manner. My parents are old-fashioned, and believed that a woman’s role was to bear children and to tend to them. Knowing too much about the world could only lead to being worried about things over which one had no influence whatsoever. I was raised to be somebody’s match, and to put my womb to the service of their seed. I was made to be happy as a wife, a homemaker, and a mother.

“Women speak of many things,” he says. “Some say the women control more than the men do through their social machinations.”

“I thought the Artifice was the ultimate authority,” I say, parroting the old line I have been fed since childhood. It is a safe and proper thing to say.

“Indeed it is,” he says, his expression closing. I wonder if it was not the right thing to say. Back home, we would make polite little comments like that to one another and that would ensure that conversation flowed smoothly. Here, I feel as though my repeating that line put a barrier between us. Whatever he was going to share, he no longer seems inclined to. In fact, he turns the screen of his tablet off entirely.

A moment later, I realize that I have not offended him at all. He didn’t turn the tablet off because I’m too slow. He turned it off because he wants something else from me.

His large hand slides across the side of my face, turning my head toward him. He kisses me deeply, possessively, driving all thought of society and women and Artifices out of my head as I become acutely aware of nothing besides my body.

Arthur manhandles me atop him, the light clinking of discarded plates and sauces on an abandoned tray providing background to the spreading of my legs and the slow impaling of my sex in the morning light.

I like lying on top of him this way. I can feel the length and strength of his body beneath me, the heat of his skin warming my own tender curves.

I let out a slight hiss of discomfort as he slides up inside me, my aching, recently deflowered pussy protesting just a little at this fresh intrusion.

“Good girl,” he praises me as his cock slides into me. “You’re going to be such a good little breeding mate, aren’t you,” he growls. “You’re going to take your husband and master’s cock nice and deep whenever I need you. This is your place in life, Mila. Quivering on my dick, your tight, wet cunt pleasuring me.”

He is less gentlemanly this morning. His words are filthy, and the jolting of his hips drives his cock harder into me than before. His big hands slide down my back, taking hold of my lower ass and upper thighs, spreading me wide so he can pound me.

I whimper and whine, feeling the lines of the cane, the marks he left, the ache he ensured I’d still feel today doing their job.

This man is still a stranger to me, but his bare cock is inside me, fucking me, making me take another load of seed into my unprotected pussy. It excites me more than it should. Sometimes he seems so gentlemanly, but at moments like these he is nothing but a brute, taking what he wants from me and not asking whether I want to give it.

I find myself coming with both of those thoughts, and the physical reality of having my pussy fucked. I feel shamefully excited being used this way, knowing this is what I am here for, and what he is not shy about using me for.

I take another load of his seed inside me, and receive a few more hand slaps to my ass before he is done with me.

“I wish I could spend all day in bed with you, but I have to get up,” he says when he has finished. “I have a meeting in short order, and I’m afraid last night having been my wedding night does not change the fact.”

I look at him, a feeling of disappointment sinking through me. Somehow he seems to see that in me. He is a very perceptive man.

“The Artifice does not pay much mind to matters of romance,” he says. “And I am needed at work.”

He says the word work as if he is a casual laborer somewhere. But we both know that his work is war. He will not be going to an office. He will be going into government-military buildings, I suppose. Or a palace. Or somewhere. I don’t know anything about the city in which I now dwell. Also, we are essentially in a fortress, so perhaps he works here.

“What am I to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“What is to fill my days now?”

He cocks his head at me, giving me another one of those looks that I cannot quite interpret. “What used to fill your days?”

“Well, I used to walk in the countryside and ride horses, and talk with my mother and sister. Sometimes I would embroider or cross-stitch.”

“I see,” he says. “You have lived a life of leisure. Once you have our first baby, you will be much busier. But for now, you will be able to continue that life in a manner of speaking. I may send you out with one of the servants to shop for clothing. The styles are different here, and you may wish to purchase new attire in order to make an impression socially. I already have invitations for affairs for us both to attend, and as you came with no luggage whatsoever…”

“You will not be shopping with me?”

He gives me a look, somewhat pitying, somewhat amused. “What do you think I do, Mila?”

“I don’t know. War things, I imagine. Though there’s no war here, in this city, so probably writing reports and talking to people and waiting for the Artifice to tell you what to do?”

I see him flinch slightly at the last part of my sentence. He does not like the fact that I just said the Artifice told him what to do. That’s interesting. Our entire situation, the fact that I am here, his, being used by him and bred by him is because the Artifice decreed it. And he just told me how a substance that makes people not believe in the Artifice is being suppressed by the military. He is the military.

He’s conflicted. I wonder what a conflicted general might do.

I wonder if anybody really likes being told what to do, even the most loyal of soldiers. I know I’ve never really liked it. I know that the order imposed by the Artifice is for our own good, but I have to admit, the idea of living in such a way that you make your own rules sounds intriguing. Ridiculous though; how would that even begin to work? It wouldn’t, and that is why we have the Artifice now.

While I mull it, and him, over, Arthur gets up and goes to the bathroom. I hear the shower start to run. A new day is beginning for him. I do not know what it will bring for me. I am naked in a bed full of bits of toast and flakes of bacon and the dried remains of the lust we shared.

I am suddenly aware that my days have the potential to be rather lonely. If he is busy doing whatever terribly important things are required of him in his role, what will I be doing? Even if I were to fall pregnant immediately, it would be months and months before our baby were to be born, and infants are notoriously poor at conversation.

“You said we had invitations to go somewhere. What invitations do we have?”

He emerges from the bathroom, naked aside from a towel wrapped around his waist.

“I have one for tonight,” he says. “If you purchase a gown suitable for the event. It is a soiree hosted by the Good Society, a fundraiser for the poor. It might be a good time and place for you to meet my friends before we host here.”

I’m going to be expected to host, and much more, I realize. My mother and Maraline spent years going over those sorts of things. I was supposed to learn them too, but I never really paid all that much attention.

“Who will shop with me?”

“Lydia will accompany you.”

“Does she know anything about looking fashionable? She’s a soldier through and through.”

“Yes, she is, and she’s going to ensure your safety almost as well as I would. I trust her with your life, and that is to say I would trust her with everything.”

I smile at his sweet concern for my protection, but that doesn’t solve my problem. “I need someone who can tell me what I should buy.”

“Lydia is not just a soldier. She is also a woman,” he reminds me. “She will be useful.”

Lydia is not dressed in her formal uniform when I meet up with her, still wearing the dress I arrived in yesterday. She is wearing pants, though, and long boots that rise up above her knee. She is also wearing a silk blouse that billows dramatically when she moves. She resembles a swashbuckler.

“I need to find dresses for formal engagements,” I explain. “I need to know what is in style, and what is not.”

“Nobody will dare sell you a dress that is out of style,” Lydia says. “It would destroy their reputation as a retailer. You are the wife of one of the most decorated generals in the history of the Artifice. Archon-General Darken is an illustrious figure in this city. You will be treated well wherever you go.”

“Is that right?”

“It is.”

“Then call me Mila,” I say.

Lydia’s eyes narrow a fraction. “I will use your title, as is proper.”

“You’ll do as I say,” I reply. I know I should perhaps avoid the confrontation, but my mother always taught me you need to get the respect of the staff.

Lydia smiles for the first time. Her teeth are sharper than I expected them to be, and the way her eyes flash as she replies gives me some cause for concern. “Will I?”

“Yes,” I say. “Please,” I add.

“You may be the Archon-General’s wife, but you are still a little bitch pup, and I am still a very big dog,” Lydia says, violet eyes glittering with something like threat. “Now, if you will accompany me, Lady Darken, it is time you went shopping.”

It takes me a moment to realize what she just said to me. It is so unspeakably rude that it takes me several minutes to digest it. Lydia’s expression grows increasingly annoyed as I refuse to move the way she wants me to.

“Is there a reason you’re not following me?”

“Are you allowed to speak to me that way? Should I check with my husband to see if he is comfortable with his wife being disrespected?”

“You can run and tell the general whatever you like,” Lydia says. “If that is the sort of bride you intend to be.”

“I’m the kind of bride who won’t be spoken to with that kind of disrespect. I haven’t done anything to you. There’s no reason to call me a…” I can’t even repeat the word. It’s so crude and cruel.

My lower lip starts to tremble. I suck in a deep breath, because I do not want to cry. It would be absolutely humiliating to sob because someone is rude to me.

“Why don’t you like me?” I ask the question with my voice breaking.

Lydia lets out a long sigh. “It is not personal, Lady Darken,” she says. “I am accustomed to speaking harshly to other soldiers. I am not a creature of the city, or of formal situations. I was chosen by the Archon-General to guard you because I served in his personal guard. I forget that you have a more delicate sensibility.”

“I bet you never called Arthur a little bitch,” I complain.

“I did not,” she says, her cheek twitching with amusement. “Now, if you will accompany me, it’s time we got you a nice dress.”

I allow myself to be escorted from the fortress and into the city. New Boston is a gleaming place, full of people and excitement. Lydia and I take the car to a store that has been chosen for me in advance.

Frills and Thrills , the sign declares. It seems very cheerful, which is interesting because I didn’t think that The State did cheerful. I thought it did power and ceremony and war. I suppose it does all that too.

“Ladies! How can I help you!” A very cheery lady with pink curling hair greets us as we step into the boutique.

“This is the Lady Darken,” Lydia says. “She is looking for a formal gown or two.”

“Oh, of course! It would be my pleasure! What a pretty young thing you are, Lady Darken. And such gorgeous coloring. You could wear pink or blue quite easily. Pink is in this season. Perhaps that would be the choice.”

She speaks as though the store contains anything that isn’t pink. I cast a pleading look over at Lydia, in the hopes that she might rescue me, but apparently she is only going to save my life, not my pride. She is standing against the doorway, her eyes roaming the street outside. She is guarding me from danger, and ugly clothes aren’t technically dangerous.

Over the next hour or so, I get festooned with various dresses, none of which feel flattering. There is so much material, and it is all so bulky. I am getting lost in it. The assistant seems to think I want something dramatic to make a scene, but I would be more than happy simply to fit in.

“What is taking so long, Lady Darken?” Lydia eventually notices that this is consuming an inordinate amount of time.

“You’ve taken me to a place that is going to dress me like an overgrown infant,” I complain. “I need something sophisticated to wear!”

“Any dress would make you look young, because you are,” Lydia says. “And most of these dresses are designed to make the wearer look younger than they are, because most of the time women think men like that.”

“Is that it?”

“I have no evidence it is not it,” she says.

“I don’t think that’s the reason… the pink ruffles are too much. The full skirts are too much. The bright fluorescent colors are too much. I want something simple.”

Lydia finally takes pity on me. “The colors of Lord Darken are black and red, so perhaps that is the color scheme we should be looking for.”

“I saw so many stylish and elegant ladies when I left the airport yesterday. They weren’t wearing anything like this.”

“They were wearing street clothes. You are shopping for a formal occasion. The requirements are different.”

“But I’ve never been to a formal occasion here. And nobody I’ve encountered so far is any help.”

I am trying to keep my voice low, so as not to insult the saleslady, who is very excited by her bright pink cacophony of fabric.

“Thank you very much,” I say. “The dresses are all so lovely, I will have to think about which of them best suits.”

Her face falls. She knows what that means. It’s nice to know that some social cues remain the same across our societies.

“Thank you for gracing the store, Lady Darken,” she says.

Lydia leads me out of the place.

“I hope we can find something actually suitable,” I say. “I don’t know why you took me there.”

“I thought you’d look cute in that sort of attire, and you did, but you are right. You would clash with the Archon-General terribly.”

“Are you trying to set me up to fail, Lydia?”

“I’m trying to please you, Lady Darken. You’ve arrived here wearing a beige sack, more or less. I thought anything would be an improvement.”

She really can be quite snotty. Maraline would have a robust argument with her, I am sure. She wouldn’t take any of the snide jibes lying down. She’d probably say something in turn about Lydia’s uniform, or maybe if she was feeling very catty, her eyebrows.

I, on the other hand, have already seen a much more likely shop not a few doors down.

Dark Desires , the sign on the shop reads. The sign is black, and the text is red, and I assume that because it is near the frilly pink dress shop, it’s probably something similar, just with different colors.

“This sounds better,” I say, striding confidently in.

I immediately find myself surrounded by leather garments, which at first seem to have some kind of promise, until I realize that almost all of them have phallic shapes attached to them, some of them in the interior, which makes my mind perform all kinds of gymnastics. There are other accessories too, mostly in the form of handcuffs and clamps and chains.

“How can I help you, princess?” A very tall man with cropped dark hair and an abundance of dark eye makeup approaches me with a grin I can now identify as being lascivious.

“I’m looking for a dress,” I say. “But this… what… hmmm.”

I look over my shoulder for Lydia, but she seems to have evaporated somehow.

“We don’t have a lot of dresses. I do have a latex skirt that would fit you nicely. You have a tight ass and a nice rack.”

I am horrified that someone would speak to me so boldly.

“You want to get started on the Kings Corner, don’t you?” He asks the question in response to my stunned stare.

“What do you mean?”

“Fresh to the city, ready to earn some money selling what nature gave you? You’re pretty. And you look innocent. Don’t worry. You’ll be popular.”

My pre-existing sense of horror deepens. I have never heard of such a thing in all my life. I understand what he is suggesting, and it is disgusting. He is looking at me as though I am nothing more than a piece of meat to be traded.

“I am not for sale!” I say, haughty.

“Oh, are you not?”

“Certainly not! I am an Artifice bride.”

I’ve never used that phrase before, but that’s what I am. I am a woman elevated in status by being chosen by the Artifice itself. There are very few women who can claim that fact.

“So you were sold. You just weren’t paid,” he smirks. He’s unimpressed by my status, but that’s because he doesn’t know who I am. “But that body belongs to a man, doesn’t it?”

“Well, that’s… I don’t think. When you put it that way. I mean… how dare you.”

He laughs, thoroughly amused. He thinks this is funny because he doesn’t know I live inside an armory absolutely filled with soldiers.

“You’d be surprised what I dare, kitten,” he says, speaking far too familiarly.

“Not with me. I am a married, matched woman, and I am not the sort to wear whatever it is you are trying to sell here.”

“Your husband’s mistress will if you won’t,” the awful man says. He seems to enjoy taunting me, which must be very counterintuitive to making money. This is the worst sales pitch I have ever been subjected to.

“My husband is an honorable man! How dare you make such insinuations? I will make you pay for this insolence!”

He laughs at me. “You? With your country accent? How do you think you’ll make me pay?”

“I’ll tell my husband.”

“You go ahead and tell your husband, country mouse, and we’ll see what happens.”

“Yes, we will see what happens,” I say as he looms over me.

“You have a lot to learn about life in this city. You go to the wrong places, annoy the wrong people, you end up in the river.”

“What? Swimming?”

“With the fishes,” he says, as if that’s a threat.

“Maybe I like fish,” I say, confused as to how to continue the argument, but very much wanting to win it. “Maybe I’ll cook some fish. Too late for you, though, mister. Your goose is already cooked. I’m married to…”

At that point, Lydia suddenly appears, claps her hand around my mouth, and bodily hauls me out of the store.

“Don’t throw the Archon-General’s name around casually,” she says. “Especially when arguing with filth-mongers.”

“Are you here to protect me, or to protect his reputation?” I hiss the question once the shock wears off. “You let me go in there, and you didn’t intervene even when he said terrible things to me. He was talking to me like I am a…” I lower my voice, but my scandalized whisper carries anyway. “A prostitute !”

“That will serve as a lesson not to run off without me. I cannot protect you if you make stupid decisions. Besides, it is a good idea for you to learn that this city is not here to cater to you personally. This is a living, breathing entity, and it does not care about you.”

I stare at her, shocked and annoyed. “I want to go home,” I announce.

“We’re not going back until you have something to wear,” she says. “So stop pouting and follow me.”

I know I have no choice. I cannot imagine wearing this dress for a third day, let alone going back to Arthur empty-handed. So I give into Lydia’s demands, and I let her lead me about the town.

I am surprised to discover that I am pleased and nervous to see Arthur again. He emerges from his office as we return. There are two soldiers commandeered by Lydia carrying all the bags. I ended up getting a complete wardrobe.

“Did you girls have fun shopping today?” Arthur asks the question with a knowing, indulgent smile much like the one my father used to wear when my mother and sister would return from the markets. If there is one thing men like to think they know about women, it is that they allegedly like shopping.

“I hope you like what I bought,” I tell him, sidestepping his question.

“Mhm, I am sure I will,” he says. He then looks over my head, his gray gaze finding my bodyguard.

“Why was my innocent bride in a brothel supply shop today, Lydia?”

“She ran into it before I could stop her, sir.”

Arthur gives me a look. I know Lydia is not going to lift a finger to get me out of trouble—if I am in trouble. I’m not sure which one of us is in his bad books, as it were. Then he looks back at Lydia.

“You know that I know there is nothing she could possibly do that you could not stop her from doing,” he says. “I am sure you thought it was very amusing, but you are to guard her mind and her propriety as much as her body. I don’t want to hear about any incidents like that again, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir,” Lydia demurs immediately. She doesn’t argue with my husband. She submits immediately and completely to him. She doesn’t argue with him the way she argued with me, and she certainly doesn’t talk down to him.

He had people watching us the entire time, I realize. Lydia might be my bodyguard, but I doubt there is anywhere in the city I can go that he would not see me.

“Go and get ready, Mila,” he tells me. “We will be departing shortly.”