15. Chapter 15 #2
Something icy slipped in my veins, and the summer sweat covering my back made me shiver, turning me cold and clammy. “He wouldn’t do that.” Why would he do that? He loved his sister. Why would he want her death covered up?
“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.”
“He has no loyalty to the king. There is no reason for him to cover this up.”
“They also say he’s King Ulric’s bastard.” She slowly started backing away. “I am sorry.”
Cold dread covered my skin in dampness. Every thread stuck to me. Hair matted to the back of my neck.
“Are you alright, witch-woman?” Arthur asked. “Ye’ve gone deadly pale.”
Dear Goddess, no.
A golden perforated paravent separated the baptismal from the eager audience sitting in the dark nave, all holding lit candles in front of them.
On the other side was a tub filled with red liquid, and on the altar stood the pulpit where the exarch would stand to perform the rites.
The entire thing was beyond mechanical in spirit.
Witch rituals varied, but they were all lively, filled with spontaneity, inventiveness, intimacy above all.
We didn’t have spectators, only participants.
Each person who stood to observe contributed to the success of the rituals. Energy was shared, chaos was shared.
“It’s not blood, just water and a red stain,” Logan said from the other side of the paravent when I hesitated at the foot of the tub.
I nodded quickly even though he probably couldn’t see me. Shedding my chemise—the last item of clothing on my body—I dipped my legs into the deep tub and sank down in the warm red liquid. When I made sure I was submerged far enough to cover my breasts, I said, “You can come now.”
His sleeves were folded back up to his elbows. Both his hands were gathered in tight fists, and I could see every thick vein bulging against his skin. Chest rising fast, he got on his knees at the other end of the tub and lifted a hand in my direction. “Come here.”
I worked a hard swallow, nearly cutting my own breath. Slowly, on still-shivering legs, I pushed forward until I stood at the edge, keeping as much of a distance from him as I could. And I knew he’d noticed it.
The exarch came to stand on the pulpit, placing a book on a wooden lectern and lifting a hand in our direction.
A glint of satisfaction shone on his face.
Before he started, he sent a content smirk in my husband’s direction—as if he’d finally gotten the upper hand on him.
“Those who were unfortunate to not be reborn from the Ewer of Life, were also fortunate enough to be granted the mercy of our Saint Immortal Nestor, He Who Brings Life. To be reborn by his word for which he speaks through me.”
I never looked away from him. Nor did he look away from me. And as the exarch’s religious babble slowly seeped into the background, my cluttered mind tested how many thoughts it could produce per minute.
Why would he help the king cover up their deaths, his sister’s included?
Had Ulric threatened him with Piper? It had to be.
Did he know what I was here to do? Had he always known?
But…why would he agree to let me investigate it?
Goddess. Maybe he knew I wouldn’t find anything. Maybe he was sure he’d buried everything too deep for me to find out anything at all.
Had Agnes known about his involvement from the start? Maybe that’s why she’d picked me to marry him in the first place. But if she had known about his involvement, why wouldn’t she warn me? Why had she sent me into his arms unprepared?
No. Gerda had to be wrong. Right? Right?
I blinked when he brought his thumb to my nose, pressing on the blood dripping into the red bath. “You want to run for it?”
“It’s too late,” I whispered. Too late to run from you. My body and mind were now accustomed to finding him comforting, to find safety in him, that I’d forgotten how to fear him, how to doubt him. Had that been his intention from the start? Learn to disarm me without having to kill me?
“It’s not.” His bloodied thumb traced the shape of my lip back and forth, slowly, carefully, as if he wanted to learn it. “It’s never too late.”
The exarch went on and on, his words echoing through the Basilica and drowning every other noise, even the raging thunder outside. Just not the voice screaming against the walls of my cranium.
Logan’s voice was much softer, surrendered, tormented as he murmured, “If you ever want to leave this marriage, I want you to tell me first. Give me a head start, won’t you?”
The red water rippled from the uncontrollable shake that had taken over my limbs. “You’d let me go?”
“Not far, but I would.”
My trembling lip slid between my teeth. “That’s a horrible promise.”
“I’m a horrible man.”
He pulled back when the exarch turned his attention on us, and I watched him slip his thumb in his mouth, sucking my blood clean off his skin. His head tipped back and his eyes drew shut as he drew in a deep, controlled breath.
My nails dug against the tub edge as I pulled myself closer to the ceramic wall until my aching nipples were pressed up against the cold surface.
My unfeeling, half-dead corpse of a body felt alive, choking on the desire to breathe near him alone.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It couldn’t be like this.
But the possibility was right there, only a foot away from me.
To know and to feel desire. I wanted him.
And I’d lied. I wanted him to want me back.
Why did it have to be him?
It couldn’t be him.
Right?
The exarch handed Logan a silver bowl and diamond-adorned knife.
I flinched back when my husband dragged the blade across his palm and let his blood fill the bowl.
My eyes remained on his bleeding hand as he dipped it in the water, the back of his fingers skimming the length of my arm before he dragged it back out completely healed.
He dipped his thumb into the blood and brought it to my forehead, dragging it down between my brows.
He brushed it across my mouth, and I saw his chest rise faster when I let my lips part, tasting his blood on my tongue.
He stilled for a moment, inhaling slowly in and out, and then dragged his bloodied thumb down my throat.
The back of his fingers gently brushed over my pulse before he went to drag his bloodied thumb between my breasts and down to my heart.
His hand briefly vanished down the red water as it grazed the length of my stomach down to my hips, dragging an unsettling amount of want deep in my belly.
Theodora had explained the ceremonial marks in her own tacit way. She had a tendency to start steaming and turning red at the mention of anything too uncomfortable. But she had failed to mention how sacred they’d feel when he looked at me as he marked me with his blood.
The exarch lowered a golden cup between us, and Logan let a few drops of his blood drip into the red concoction.
I watched him watch me over the rim of the cup as I slowly drank it all, his throat working down a hard swallow while the gold in his eyes vanished entirely in a pool of black.
“What now?” I asked, licking my lips. “Do we sacrifice him on the altar?”
“I hold him down, and you do the cutting.”
I didn’t hold my smile back. “That’s because you think your witch can’t hold him down.”
“I think my witch can do whatever she strings her fingers around. Especially when it comes to blowing things to pieces.”
“It was one thing.”
He lifted an amused brow. “One big thing.”
“His head was awfully small. And I know because I’ve sawed through my fair share of heads.”
So many questions were sitting at the tip of my tongue.
Would he get rid of me, too, if his king ordered it?
“You can have this one,” he said, dipping both his hands in the red water to wrap them around my waist as he hauled me out.
He pulled me against his chest and lifted me out of the tub, not caring that I was dripping red water all over him.
His arm was still banded around my naked waist as he threw a towel around my shoulder, only pulling back when all of me was covered.
“Get dressed,” he said, sticking a cigarette between his lips as he ran a tense hand over his eyes, slowly breathing in and out as he backed away from me. “If you still want a chance at seeing those tunnels.”
I could hear my heart beating a mile a minute, and probably so could he, considering how he ran his tongue over his fangs before hurrying out of the Basilica.
Did the thought of feeding on a witch disgust him so badly? Why didn’t it bother me at all? How could it not bother me at all?
The fabric of the dress stuck in all the wrong ways against my skin. Or maybe it was just my skin that felt unbearable against my bones.
I’d barely made it out of the narthex when Arthur barrelled through the gardens in my direction.
“Yer not going to like this,” he murmured under his breath, breathing hard.
Henry joined our side a moment later.
Arthur sent a look at the exarch who Logan had dragged as far away from us as possible, just as we’d planned.
“They’ve set a fire to the tunnels. I don’t think it happened that long ago either.
The air is filled with smoke; it could fucking choke you, that’s how bad it was.
The ground was covered in pulpy soot,” he said, stomping his dirty boots on the ground.
“They were trying to bury something down there with it. There’s nothing. Nothing but soot.”
Bending down, I picked some of the gunk on his boots off on my napkin and folded it.
He stumbled away. “What are ye doing, witch-woman?”
“Whatever they’ve burned is here,” I said, showing him the napkin. “What did it smell like down there?” I asked, leaning close to sniff his shirt.
My husband chose that very moment to show up. His hands gathered in fists at his side as he glanced between me and his friend.
“Logan,” Arthur carefully started, taking one small step back. “There’s nothing—”