Chapter 2 #3
“You know nothing of Aureum! Of my kingship! Of Trisia! What could some foreign seductress ever understand besides how and when to spread her legs?” he taunted.
Every ugly feeling bubbled up through Aurora’s veins.
“More than you could ever comprehend! I know what happens for the next three thousand years. I know that the evil you’ve set loose on Trisia will wreak death and destruction for millennia to come unless I can stop you.
When you’re nothing but a story, they will dig up the bones of the Aurean damned—people who died because of what you’ve done! ”
He blinked in shock, swallowing.
“Have you gone mad?” he asked, bewildered, backing away from her.
Aurora advanced.
“Do you know what you’ll be remembered for, Your Majesty?”
“Stop this right now,” he warned her.
But she was too angry to back down now. Too lost to the ugliness filling every crack in her broken heart to heed sense.
“The tragic king, punished for his hubris and pride.”
“Enough!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
“I know when you die, King Theron of Aureum! Do you want to know your epithet? Do you want to know the fate of your kingdom? Ask me, I dare you!”
“Lies!”
“If you believe that, then why are you afraid? Why don’t you ask me of your fate?”
“You’re angry and you’re trying to unsettle me. Nothing you say can be trusted.”
Aurora laughed.
“You’ll be known as Theron, the La—”
He covered her mouth with his palm and wrestled her to the ground. She fought him to no avail, screamed to no avail.
“I’ve had enough of this sick game of yours,” he growled.
Grabbing a silk napkin from the nearby table, he gagged her, tying it behind her head.
With her hands pinned, she had no hope of dislodging it.
He unstrapped his belt and bound her hands behind her back to her indignant, muffled shrieks.
When he was done, he sighed and turned her around to face him.
“This is how things will be this evening. You will remain in this tent with me. If you attempt to run, I will tie you to the bed. You will act in a civil manner. If you can prove you won’t scream, bite, or generally act like a rabid animal, I will unbind you.
Test me, and you’ll spend the night trussed up, hungry, and stinking of loper and sweat.
You have until the end of my bath to decide how the rest of your evening will go. ”
No matter her gag, Aurora hurled every insult, invective, and curse she knew at him as he turned away from her, calling on the Triad to strike him down where he stood.
As she struggled against her bonds, hatred lit a fire in her chest. She would stab that self-righteous, loathsome bastard in his sleep, just as he deserved.
How dare he treat her like this? How dare he call her a rabid animal when it was he who had committed atrociously violent acts in front of her not moments before.
How dare he speak of acting civilly when he’d bound her just for speaking against him.
But then he began stripping out of his clothes. His eyes locked on hers. She forced herself to look away. As if she would fall for the same scheme twice. He’d seduced her once and she wouldn’t give him a second chance.
Theron chuckled.
“Suddenly my temptress is shy?”
Her hackles rose. This hypocritical bastard.
She almost turned to glare at him. Almost. This was what he wanted.
Her anger. Her attention. Her lust. She’d seen it last night.
He wanted to be the centre of her world, to have her wrapped around his finger, to have her passions, be they good or ill.
He’d been at his most angry, his most frustrated, when she’d followed Orithyia’s advice and refused to look at him or give him the reactions he sought.
So she refused to react, no matter the hot coal of anger in her chest, no matter what outrageous incitements he tossed her way.
Aurora shuffled as best she could, hauling herself up into a seated position and turned away from him, her eyes on the tent’s exit.
If she ran now, she’d have no hope of escaping him, bound and gagged as she was.
She needed a destination. Somewhere she could go that he wouldn’t cause mayhem.
Perhaps his aunt? She may be as much of a liar as her nephew, but surely she would lose face if Aurora begged for protection and she refused to grant it?
Aurora had seen the tent not far from this one as she’d been slung over the king’s back.
She could make it, if she were quick and the bastard distracted.
Until then, she had to appear to play this game he’d laid out for her.
He took his sweet time in the bath, sighing and splashing about. Maybe she’d get lucky and he’d slip as he exited and break his thick neck.
“It’s adorable, this cold shoulder of yours. But I can see your ears twitch every time I make a sound. I know every part of you is focused on me.”
Don’t give into his taunts. My ears are not twitching!
“Which is why I know that you’ll hear me when I say this,” he continued.
“The day we wed, I sent a letter off to my cousin ordering her to destroy her serpents. When we arrive and you see their rotting carcasses for yourself, I expect you to dismiss this horde of Viridian scum back to their capital, and for you to sever your ties with Flora. When you come to realize your Drakon was never amongst my cousin’s beasts, I expect you to beg properly for my forgiveness.
Whether you ever earn back my trust will be another matter entirely. ”
More lies. More of his unbridled ego. As if she wanted his forgiveness or trust after everything he’d done.
It seemed she would have to wait until they arrived in Aureum to call him on his latest bluff, which was likely the point.
He would have his armies then and no need to keep up this charade.
And that was supposing he didn’t do something to her on the way there.
What she needed was control of her magic, even if she couldn’t control her visions.
If she could stop his time, or speed up her own, she could easily escape him whenever she liked.
It was her rotten luck that the only one who’d had a chance at teaching her—Hyllus—had run off with Epicasta and hadn’t taken Aurora with him.
Suddenly, she wished she’d spent her short time in his company training her magic rather than dealing with an ancient king, court intrigues, preparing the paladins for Drakon, and learning about the ancient past. Foolishly, she’d thought she had more time.
All she had was Silvanus’ sole tutorial. Would it be enough?
The king left the bath, padding around the spacious tent. She could hear the sound of the rough towel he used to dry off, the glide of softer fabric he must have donned, then the clank of cutlery. His attendants had been lightning-fast, no doubt using their wild magic to hasten their preparations.
At her back once more, he leaned down and caught her around her waist, pulling her to her feet. Putting a hand on her shoulder, he pushed her towards the table. He sat her down and slipped in across from her. She refused to meet his glare, focusing instead on the table.
“I’m going to remove the gag now. If so much as one threat, obscenity, or another lie about the future leaves your lips, it goes back on, and you’ll sleep tied up on the floor.”
He wanted her surrender now? Fine. Let him think he’d won. It would be all the sweeter when she’d eaten his food, bathed herself, and then left him to sleep alone.
As the gag came off, she kept every venomous insult to herself. Barely.
“And my hands?” she asked.
“Will stay bound. I’m not about to allow you to wield anything approaching a weapon, utensils included.”
“If you expect me to eat like an animal from a trough, you might as well put the gag back on,” she said, her voice remarkably calm given the heat of her anger.
“Unlike some, I’m not a barbarian. I’ll feed you.”
“Did you poison it?”
He laughed, a not especially jovial sound.
“No, but on the off chance your allies managed to, I think it only fitting you act as my poison taster.”
She hoped if they had, it was slow acting enough that he ingested copious amounts of it. He speared a vegetable and held it up just before her lips.
“Eat,” he ordered.
She obeyed. He went through small portions of the full meal, feeding her a taste of everything.
When she didn’t collapse or begin frothing at the mouth, he fed himself, occasionally giving her more.
They dined in silence, one as thick and oppressive as the heat of the brazier in the humid damp.
As he finished the meal, he left his seat and approached hers.
“If I untie you, will you choose to take a bath, or will you make me tie you to a post?”
As if between the two of them, she were the one married to violence itself.
“I’ll take a bath, as long as you keep your gaze averted.”
“I’ve seen all of you, Aurora. Don’t feign modesty now,” he scoffed.
“It’s different now. I don’t belong to you anymore, Your Majesty.”
He gripped her jaw and forced her to look at him.
“You married me before Passion. You will always be mine.”
“I choose who I belong to. And I can change my mind whenever I please.”
He released her with a scowl.
“Yes, and what a fickle woman you’ve proven yourself to be. I’m sure someone as changeable as you can find her way to figuring how to bathe in front of me.” He removed the belt that bound her wrists and pushed her towards the bath.
Aurora rubbed her wrists and stood straight.
“No. You don’t deserve to touch me, or to look at me unclothed. The days of me sharing my body with you are over. Unless you plan to force me.” She cut him a withering glare.
Anger suffused his features.
“I’m not a monster!”
“Then stop acting like one!” she shouted back.
He growled and turned, his dismissive wave sharp and irritated.
“Fine. But the moment you step out of line I’ll—”
“Yes, yes, tie me to a post. You’ve made yourself obnoxiously clear on that point.”