Chapter 3 #2
“Your hand.” The words were hardly out of the High Priestess’s mouth before Ariadne presented her hand, palm up, for the wizened Caersan to draw her blade across. It swept over her perfect, unmarred skin, tainting it with a thin ribbon of blood.
“With this blood,” Ariadne repeated the words fed to her by the Priestess as her blood dripped into the obsidian bowl, “I give unto thee my body, soul, and heart until my dying night and beyond.”
Before Loren could so much as react, the High Priestess took hold of his wrist in an oddly firm grip and turned his hand before drawing the knife across his palm.
He repeated the same words, letting his blood mix with Ariadne’s at the top of the column of stone, anxious to reach the next part of the ceremony.
“Intertwine your fingers.”
As they did so, Ariadne looked up at him, her face barely visible beneath the veil as the High Priestess wound a cloth around their hands, fastening them together. His blood heated at the sudden attention. Yes, he enjoyed her eyes on him. The eyes of his wife.
His wife.
“These wounds,” the High Priestess continued, “were created together and will heal together. They bind your body as one in the eyes of the gods and to all those who witness you tonight. The blood you spilled together now mingles in harmony.”
From another satchel came a tiny cup that the Priestess dipped into their pool of shared blood. It dripped red, a small stream of it running down the side of her hand and wrist, as she lifted it high so all the ceremony guests could see it clearly.
It was then that Ariadne finally used her free hand to lift the veil, revealing all her queenly beauty.
Draping it back over the diadem atop her head, he reveled in the way those blue eyes searched his face, and her red lips parted ever so slightly.
Oh, he could not wait to part them more later.
Maybe in the carriage on the way to the reception…
“This first taste of your life together shall bind you as one.” The High Priestess passed the tiny chalice to Ariadne first. She lifted the cup to her lips, never taking her eyes off him, and tilted the blood into her mouth.
Something sparked there as she indulged, and it sent an anticipatory shock through his system.
“As you move forward into the next stage of your life together, do not forget: what happens to one shall impact the other. As of the moment the blood touches your lips, your bond shall never be broken.”
Precisely what Loren needed to hear. An unbreakable bond between them. This was how that bastard entrapped her. Now she will be free of the half-breed’s thrall and forever be bound to him.
The small chalice dipped into their blood again, and Loren took it, divulging in their unique mixture of flavors with gusto. Her blood swept across his tongue in a glaze of sweet, floral honey—just as he always imagined she would taste. Perfection.
“We have now arrived,” the High Priestess said as she snatched back the cup, “at the end of our ceremony. We close with the witnessing of the first feed.”
Unraveling the cloth, they each took back their now-healed hands.
Loren waited with thin patience for the High Priestess to move forward so he could finally—finally—sink his teeth into that pale skin.
Without hesitation, Ariadne held her arm back out to him, and he mirrored her. He took it, poised and ready to strike.
At last, the High Priestess began the final words that he had been ready to hear since the start of the ceremony. “As you partake for the first time, remember this: you are now one being, and to each vein, you shall be faithful.”
All around them, the Caersans repeated those final words. “And to each vein you shall be faithful.”
And Loren struck.
Ariadne stepped into the carriage, unwinding the salted cloth at her wrist as she went. Four puncture scars, two more fresh and pink than the other, gleamed back at her in the low light provided by their small lanterns. She sat, running her thumb over them as her stomach knotted in disgust.
“Follow behind,” Loren’s command answered the question from Nikolai that Ariadne did not care to hear.
There had never been a time in Ariadne’s life that she believed Nikolai to be her good friend, though she had held a certain reverence for him as her Elit.
Seeing him now, as Loren’s glorified watchdog—a term she recalled her new husband using to describe Azriel when he was still a guard—she could summon nothing more than pitiful revulsion for him.
Nikolai had always followed Loren like a stray puppy longing for a home.
Now he found one at the heels of his master.
Loren appeared at the carriage door, accepting his congratulations from the nearest Lords and Ladies, before pulling himself in across from her and closing the door.
The voices muffled, and a moment later, the horses at the front started forward.
Ariadne jostled in her seat, her knees knocking against Loren’s.
Heart pounding, she swallowed hard. This was her first moment alone with him since the night he nearly broke her wrist. She glanced at the scars on her arm again, taking comfort in the sight of the remnant of Azriel’s punctures.
“I must apologize,” Loren said, leaning forward and taking her bared wrist in his.
She sucked in a sharp breath. Was he truly going to say he was sorry for hurting her? Did he believe that would make right all his transgressions against her? Perhaps he already thought himself forgiven and merely wished to voice the words to solidify it.
“Your Majesty?” Her voice was more hoarse than she anticipated. Husky, almost. Gods, he would likely take that the wrong way.
“I lost control of myself.”
She bit back her sneer. Here it was. Instead, she said, “Of what do you speak?”
“I meant to rid you of those nasty scars.” Loren brushed his fingers over those given to her by Azriel, a crease forming between his brows. “But in my excitement, I missed my mark.”
It took every ounce of self-control for Ariadne to not reel back her fist and slam it into his smug face. Particularly as he looked back up at her with heady eyes, giving her arm a gentle but insistent tug to bring her closer. She allowed the minor shift, leaning forward to be a breath from him.
“Never fear, my pet,” he murmured, drawing the backs of his fingers down her jaw. “We shall have plenty of time to correct my mistake. I will make you forget ever being touched by another.”
Were she almost any other woman of the Society, his words would have thrilled her.
Had this been her marriage as planned all those months ago, they would have done just that.
With those few words, Ariadne would have climbed her way onto his lap and given herself to him as the High Priestess demanded.
Now his declaration only made her skin crawl and his gentle touch had her fighting back the urge to recoil from him.
“Are you safe?” Almandine’s voice made Ariadne jump.
“My pet?” Loren frowned again.
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” Ariadne breathed, doing her best to relax back into his hand before responding silently to her bondheart, “Yes. The ceremony is done. Not much longer now.”
Humming with satisfaction, Loren splayed his fingers across her jaw and slid his hand back behind her neck. Another more assertive tug had Ariadne pulling back enough to avoid his mouth on hers.
“My makeup,” she choked out, latching on to the first excuse she could summon.
Burying her now-shaking hands into her skirts, Ariadne detached herself from Loren’s hold and shifted back in her seat again.
He tracked her with an icy gaze. “Camilla worked so hard to make it perfect… I would hate for it to be ruined before morning.”
Loren’s lips curled, but rather than take the very obvious hint that she did not want to be touched just yet, he laid his palms on her knees. Sliding his hands up her thighs, he brought the skirt higher and higher. “We would not want that, now would we, my pet?”
Ariadne swallowed back a scream and resisted the urge to look at the carriage door. The latch was within reach. All it would take was a slip of her hand, and she could tumble out into the mud.
But then what? She was in the middle of Laeton at midnight, wearing a wedding dress and heeled shoes. With no cloak and no way of knowing which direction to run, Loren would track her down and drag her back to him with far less kindness than when he found her on the side of the highway.
Not for the first time, Ariadne hated herself and her brash decision-making. She should have let Edira go speak with the soldiers. Pol could have hidden the entrance to the tomb beyond the first cave. They could have waited to get the book until after they defeated Loren.
Except…they could not wait. Not if they planned to march on Laeton. Her family home could very well be lost amidst the fires of battle, and then what? They would never be able to uphold the promise she had given to the dhemon clans. This could very well be their only chance at getting the ritual.
“Loren, please,” she whispered, pushing her dress back down to hide her very exposed thighs. He had already succeeded in seeing more of her body than she ever wished to grant him. “I want to wait until we are home.”
Eyes narrowing, Loren pushed back. “You cannot expect me to wait all that time to get just a taste of you.”
“Please,” she repeated, firmer this time. “The anticipation is what makes it so great.”
The corner of his mouth ticked up, and this time, he took her skirt nearly to her hips. “Mmm, my pet. You know how much I love to hear you beg. Perhaps I should keep going just to hear you utter that pretty word a little more.”
“Loren…”
That awful smirk broadened, a wicked gleam in his sapphire eyes. “I like the way you say my name. I want to hear you scream it.”
Oh, she would scream, alright.