Chapter 18 #2
“Try me.”
“You don’t … view things the same way I do.”
“Try me.”
“Messer, you’ve never…” I trail off, not wanting to hurt his feelings. Been in love. Felt the insistent pull of a Matching Bond. Experienced a broken heart.
“B,” he says, grabbing my elbow. Not in a punishing way, but hard enough to hold my attention. “Try me.”
The streets are mostly empty, but I cut through an alleyway for some added privacy. “I saw something through the Bond one time,” I say. “Acker. Irina…” I’m not even sure I’m making sense. The words are so hard for me to find and spit out.
“But the stones…” he says.
I’ve explained the Bond to Messer before, how the tether forces me into my Match’s presence without my permission if I don’t wear the mangi stones.
I didn’t always need them. In the time after I accepted the Matching Bond, it was as if the Bond was satisfied to let us be.
But once we were apart for too long, it surprised me by being less forgiving.
“I had to remove them during battle.” I finger the exposed stones at my neck, the full extent of the gyve hidden under my clothes. “But that wasn’t the first time,” I say, eyes flicking up to meet his.
I don’t need to delve into the specifics for the realization and subsequent horror to settle over his features.
The memory of Acker’s eyes flashing to mine is vivid in my mind.
Irina was straddling his lap, her back to me as she kissed up his neck, dress pristine white.
He had smirked at me when I appeared in his room.
The tilt of it was such a foreign sight.
The expression of a man I realized could never have possibly loved me.
His gaze had held mine as he opened his mouth in invitation to Irina, letting me see the way her tongue dipped in to taste him.
The delight in his eyes was cruel as he glided a hand over the curve of her spine, under the hem of her dress to what awaited underneath.
I watched, not just because I couldn’t look away, but because back in my room in Maile Beau was desperately searching for more stones.
It was the first notion I had that a single strand of mangi wasn’t strong enough to withstand the tether’s pull if Acker wasn’t wearing any to block his end of the Bond.
I was forced to witness the man I loved allow his new wife to shift sensually on his lap.
It was their wedding night.
“Sometimes I make myself sick,” Messer says, breaking me out of my depressing thoughts. “Over the thought of Aurora and Kai.” He laughs without humor. “My fucking childhood best friend.”
Aurora had been Messer’s intended, but when he met with Kai upon his return to land, he discovered the two of them had married. At their parents’ directive, I’m sure, but Messer has refused to speak about it since.
“I don’t know what I would do if I had to watch it,” he says. “Gods, I’m sorry, B.”
“I had no idea you cared for Aurora so deeply.”
He tucks his hands into his pockets and shakes his head. “No one did. Not even Kai. If my father knew, he would have leveraged her against me. I knew the only way to ensure our arranged marriage went ahead was to pretend like it was the worst thing he could do to me.”
And it worked.
But then Messer followed me when I left Alaha …
“Messer.”
“This is why I never mentioned it,” he says, pulling me to a halt at the end of the alley. “I don’t want you to feel any more guilt than you already do. I didn’t tell you to make you feel bad, but so you know that I get it.” His eyes look hollow in the shadows. “Even if I wish I didn’t.”
I step closer and wrap my arms around his middle, burying my face in his chest so he can’t see the sympathy in my eyes, knowing he’d hate it. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too,” I say.
He squeezes me once before releasing me. “It helps,” he says, looking up at the sky. “Being with someone else. At least for a little while.”
I give him a dubious look before shoving him away.
But maybe Messer has a point. Given the lack of information I can find on breaking a Matching Bond, I need to consider the possibility I may never get rid of the tether.
I might have to accept the fact that the stones around my neck and body are permanent accessories.
Even if I were to ever be intimate with another.
I can’t think of anything worse than Acker witnessing me with someone else. To know he was there would overshadow anything pleasurable about the experience.
“It’s not like I have suitors lining up at my door,” I joke.
He pulls me in with an arm around my neck, jostling me as we continue toward the palace. “I don’t know, B. Drake seemed pretty open about his interest back at the tavern.”
Even if Drake was being earnest, which I don’t believe for a single second, I wouldn’t muddy waters by getting involved with the commander of Maile’s entire naval armada.
The rest of the walk home is quiet, and Messer drops me off at the front door of the palace with a mischievous grin.
I shake my head at him, knowing he’s eager to meet Drake at Catuxa’s.
I tell him if he wakes up to anything strange going on with his nether regions after tonight that he can find a healer all by himself, regardless of how much he’s suffering.
He winks as he walks backward in the brothel’s direction. “I appreciate you looking out for me, B.”
Iona informs me that my mother left honey biscuits in the kitchen, and I swing by to snag a couple before heading up toward my room.
Beau’s door is shut, and she’s likely already down for the night.
I expected as much, given her level of frustration and subsequent alcohol consumption at the tavern.
She had insisted on coming even though I had told her that she wasn’t needed.
When she stumbles from her room in the morning hungover, my sympathies will be minimal.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s hard for her to turn off the sense of duty she has toward the people she loves, or if it’s her guilt of betraying her brother.
While our attempted coup didn’t go the way we wanted, I’d do it all again even if it only meant finally getting her out from under her father’s heel, so that she’s no longer forced to do things she despises.
Putting people in cages. Collaring the gifted.
I light a lamp and draw a bath, adding a selection of calming oils as it fills.
One of the hardest parts of being stationed at the border was being without this, I think, as I sink into the water.
I soak until I’m pruned, then wrap myself in a robe and sit at my desk to try to decide which text I’m going to tackle next.
I’m nibbling on a piece of biscuit when there’s a knock at my door.
I check the timepiece I keep nearby and it’s nearing three in the morning. While Messer will occasionally use the palace as a place to crash, what with it being closer to Catuxa’s than his flat by the gulf, it’s not typically until sunrise when I see his face at my door.
When I open the door, I am instantly taken aback by the sight of Drake standing on the landing. I hurry to make sure I’m fully covered, pulling the collar of my robe more tightly closed.
“Drake,” I choke out. “Hi. Is everything okay?”
“Everything is great,” he replies, face unreadable.
I let out a breath, relieved, before asking. “How’d you get up here?” Iona would never allow him in without approval first.
“Messer told me you requested me,” he explains, shifting on his feet. “To service you.”
Unease begins to trickle into my nervous system. “Service me?”
He doesn’t look away as he dips his chin in a nod. “Messer told me you requested me … specifically,” he says, eyes holding a touch of heat in them, and I gasp at the realization.
And, for the second time today, I blush. “I’m going to kill him.”
Drake’s eyes narrow. “I—did you not?”
“No!” I all but yell, absolutely mortified. “And you can tell Messer that I’m issuing a warrant for his arrest, so he better flee the city before dawn if he wants to keep his head.”
Then I slam the door in his face.