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All I needed was Dora to feel that way.
Clearly agreeing with me, Hera threw an arm around Dora and pulled her into a sideways hug.
I expended the effort to control my emotions before saying softly, “Come here, my lovely. I want an embrace before I attend dinner.”
She made a show of being annoyed she had to climb off the bed and she made another show of how difficult it was to trudge the six feet to me.
But when she wrapped her arms around my hips, she did it tight.
I bent and said into her hair, “Love you, Moonshine.”
She tipped her head back. “He’s Moonshine.”
I blinked down at her.
She kept speaking.
“You have to call me something else,” she ordered. “I saw him on the podium, watching you. And he’s dark. Like the night. So he’s Moonshine. You’re Sunshine. And that means he’s really your fairytale prince because you can’t have the sun without the moon and everyone knows, with every hero and heroine of a fairytale, it’s about destiny. And there’s no greater destiny than the sun leading to the moon and the moon leading right back.”
I twirled a lock of her hair around my gloved finger and asked, “When did you get so clever?”
“When I was three,” she answered cheekily.
I smiled down at her. “Well, smarty, be clever and good for Hera and Jazz. Eat all your dinner and go to sleep on time. Am I heard?”
She rolled her eyes.
“That isn’t a response, Dora,” I told her firmly, but I did it now fighting my smile.
“I’m always good.”
She was not.
But I was late so I couldn’t argue.
I bent again, gave her a kiss on her forehead which she tried to duck unsuccessfully. This left a rosy stain which I had to rub away with my gloved thumb, something she also tried to get away from.
“Okay, now you’re twenty minutes late,” Hera announced.
I looked to her.
She looked sympathetic.
She (and Jasmine) knew how badly I did not want to go to this dinner.
And why.
She still said, “You best get down there, Ellie.”
I nodded, tousled Dora’s hair (something she also tried to avoid), shot my friends a smile I hoped looked confident and brave, bid my goodnights and walked out.
I wanted to drag my feet, but I couldn’t. I was late (apparently, preparing for dinner like a woman not Nadirii took a great deal of time—how did all the Firenz, Airenzian and Dellish do it?).
I was also getting later by the second. And worse, it would already appear I was because I was avoiding this. If I was any later, it’d appear my wish was to avoid it altogether.
I was Nadirii.
I regularly clashed with brigands and highwaymen and sorcerers and Airenzian masters in search of their escaped wives (or lovers, servants, etcetera), and the like, all attempting to breach The Enchantments for nefarious purposes.
This could get perilous.
And Jazz, Hera and I always bested it.
Therefore, I could face a dinner with a man who did not want me, but had to wed me, doing this being scrutinized by kings, queens, princes and priests.
On my way down the stairs, I squared my shoulders, and I was ready by the time I turned left and made my way along the hall to where we were to meet for before-dinner beverages.
I moved into the room that had a low din of conversation and an overabundance of bodies, and at once, I longed for the forest.
There were a goodly number of Nadirii.
But we had a lot of space.
Regardless, if you were up in your tree, surrounded by green, you could fancy yourself the only woman in the world.
I did not look for him when I entered.
Instead, I searched for my touchstone, and found her.
My mother, standing covered in a golden tunic that went down to her ankles, but was slashed up each side to her knees. It had radiant coral beading from short sleeve to short sleeve across the split collar. She was talking with Queen Elpis and Silence’s mother, Vanka Mattson.
Her hair was also up.
It was nice to know I made the right decision with that.
I moved farther into the room and stopped when a young boy asked, “Bere, principessa?”
“Scintille, per favore,” I ordered sparkles to drink.
The boy moved away.
I felt attention, turned my head cautiously, and saw my sister staring at me from across the room.
She had a curl in her lip.
The instant she caught my eyes, hers dropped to my hem, then came back up, and the curl deepened.
“Elena?”
I looked to my side at the call.
And up.
Directly into True’s beautiful green eyes.
And immediately had the thought that I wished I’d at least kissed him before our dream turned to ash.
True was a gentleman to his bones. He would not take a kiss from a woman who did not offer that any sooner than he’d cut off his own arm.
Thus, I should have found the courage to offer.
Or stolen one myself.
All right.
Maybe I couldn’t make it through this dinner.
“True,” I whispered.
“By the gods,” his eyes were moving down my body and he did it very much without a curl in his lip. They came back to my face. “You look lovely, Ellie.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, wondering if that boy would take very long with my drink.
This was difficult and awkward and definitely impossible without a glass of sparkles.
I sensed True go alert, and when he did, I focused on him again to see he was looking over my shoulder.
At the exact same moment, my elbow was seized.
Yes.
It was seized.
What on…?
I started to turn my head to see who had a hold on me.
“True,” I heard growled.
I froze at the sound.
“Cassius,” True returned, his face going hard.
I then found myself being marched right back out of the room with that hand tight on my elbow.
Once in the hall, I looked up at the stony face of my intended.
I had the side not inked.
It was still fascinating.
However, I could not dwell on that considering I was being towed not of my volition down a hall.
How was this happening?
I opened my mouth to speak at the same time I was going to pull my arm from his grip.
However, it was also the time he turned us, opened a door, tugged me inside, closed the door (or more accurately, slammed it), and he did not carry on pulling me into the room.
He shoved me to the side, against the wall by the door, stepped in so I had no choice but to retreat—this being nowhere as my back hit the wall—and he pinned me in with his body and his hands to the wall on either side of me.
“Did that…did you…did that just—?” I stammered angrily to his throat.
But I stopped speaking when I lifted my eyes to his furious face.
“And now that I have you to myself, we shall talk,” he rumbled.
I was breathing heavily and wondering how appropriate it would be—during ceremonial events in royal palaces that marked historical happenings that were designed to save our continent and ally all nations—to attack my future husband.
The corset and long skirt would be hindrances.
But the strength of my determination to make a point would be an advantage.
I was deciding my strategy when his eyes dropped to my chest.
And suddenly, all manner of him changed.
Entirely.
His sky-blue eyes stared at my heaving cleavage and the anger blinked out of his expression as something else overtook it. That something else was so strong, it invaded the room. It felt like it seeped into my very skin. And I found it even more difficult to breath
e in a manner that had nothing to do with my corset.
And his face was so very close, I could study his tattoos. The thick arches and curls and slashes and diamonds.
I knew of the Airenzian ink. How it told a story. How they used symbols of ancient runes to share tales of boon and loss, study and achievement, venture and defeat and victory.
It seemed in his life he had much story to tell.
And not even knowing what the symbols meant, I found all of it fascinating.
So fascinating, unconsciously, my hand was drifting up toward his face, and so deep in his study of my breasts was he, I’d almost touched his temple before he caught my movement and jerked his head away like my touch would burn.
My stomach dropped.
As did my hand.
At that moment, the door opened and we both looked that way.
Serena strolled in wearing her long purple tunic (though, unlike Mother’s, the side slashes went up to her hips) that had coral beading across the neckline.
She shut the door behind her.
“Commendable, Cassius,” she purred. “The pin-to-the-wall maneuver. Often quite effective, and apparently that’s proved true for you. You obviously don’t let grass grow.”
“This is a private discussion,” Cassius returned low.
It had been private.
But there had been little discussion.
“Oh, of course,” Serena replied, not leaving but instead coming farther into the room.
It was then Cassius did something curious.
He took his hands from the wall and turned to my sister, but did it close to my person with his back mostly to me like he was…
Protecting me.
A Nadirii.
How strange.
“Though I’m a big sister. It’s hard to get out of the habit,” she went on. “And how you manhandled her out of the room, I hope you forgive me if I felt the need to ascertain if she’s all right.”
First, there were very few situations where I could not make myself all right (though, to the truth, this one seemed to be one of them), and Serena knew this.
Second, my sister never cared if I was all right.
“As you can see, she’s fine,” Cassius returned.
She bent slightly to the side to take me in.
“Very fine,” she murmured. “Quite the becoming blush, sister.”
“Serena—” I moved to round the prince.
But I stopped when his arm came out in front of me, wrapped around my belly, his hand curling around my hip to stay me.
Also protective.
And something that again made my breath uneasy.
Serena’s gaze took in his arm and I saw the hardness form at the backs of her eyes before they went again to Cassius.
“Now how is this going to go, exactly?” she asked. She tipped her head to the side and finished cattily. “The widower and the virgin?”
I caught my breath.
Cassius’s fingers dug deeper into my hip.
Well then, that awkward discussion no longer had to happen.
My future husband now knew I was untried.
Brilliant.
“The mingling of families,” she carried on. “His daughter.” She looked to me. “Your daughter.” Her attention went back to the prince. “Though not her blood daughter, obviously.”
“If you don’t mind, Elena and I have things to say to each other,” Cassius gritted out.
“Do you know of Theodora?” she asked with a faux curious tilt of her head.
“I know I’d like any further knowledge of my future wife to come from my future wife,” Cassius replied tersely.
“Serena, really, it would be most—” I started.
My sister spoke over me.
“Sweet girl. So sad. Her mother falling in battle to Airen.”
I closed my eyes.
Cassius’s arm dropped.
I opened my eyes only to see he’d ceased touching me only to position more fully in front of me.
“You can leave, or we shall,” he told my sister.
“Which one was it?” she asked oddly. “Of course, I know, as all know, how covetous your brother was of, well…” she tossed a hand his way, “just about everything that’s you.”
“Really—” I tried again, moving to get out from behind the prince only to have him shift to keep me blocked.
“Your skill on the field,” she kept talking. “The sweetness and beauty of your dead wife.”
Oh goddess.
She had to stop.
But before I could do aught about it, she carried on relentlessly.
“And the closeness you share with your guard.”
Cassius started to turn to me, murmuring, “This is enough.”
I absolutely agreed.
I shifted to move with him.
“It was Nero, wasn’t it?” she asked, and Cassius’s head whipped her way in a manner that made me freeze solid. “Trajan coveted your guard so deeply, he ordered his father to assign them to him. And he got what he wanted, of a sort. That sort being the charming way your father does things. He gave him just one. To be selected by you.”
She shrugged, took a step deeper into the room and then turned back to us.
“Not easy, I would assume. Though it’s heard, as is your way, you gave them their leave. They decided amongst themselves. Drew straws, was it?”
“It’s clear you need to make your point and intend to make it,” Cassius stated with resignation. “Therefore, cease the play and simply do that.”
Serena didn’t hesitate.
“It was Nero who struck the mortal blow to Tiana,” she announced.
Oh, by the goddess, no.
No.
My throat closed, and I took a step back.
Cassius shot a dark glance at me before returning his focus on Serena, doing this with narrowed eyes.
“Oh yes, you don’t know who Tiana is,” Serena began helpfully. “Or was. She was Elena’s dearest friend. Thick as thieves they were, mentoring together at Melisse’s knee. Tiana was also Theodora’s mother.”
That was when I saw Cassius’s entire frame freeze.
“We do that,” Serena shared. “Those of us who have daughters and go to battle. We make arrangements, if we should fall. She fell. To Nero’s blade. Fortunately for her, Elena had vowed to raise her daughter as her own. Though unfortunate in the now, as she’s here. Dora. In this very palace. Right now. With the only mother she’ll ever know. And also here, the man who killed her blood.”
A sick smile curled her lips when she concluded.
“So I dealt the death blow to your brother, your brother not of your blood dealt the death blow to the sister my sister wished was blood. I am here. And Nero is here. This alliance, already interesting, just became more so. Don’t you think?”
“Are you finished?” Cassius ground out.
She pretended to consider it and then said, “I believe I am.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind taking your leave,” Cassius suggested darkly.
“I think I’ll do just that,” she replied breezily. “It’s almost time for dinner and I’m famished.”
And after aiming a contented smile to Cassius, shifting it to me, she sauntered to the door and through it.
The instant it closed behind her, Cassius turned to me.
“Elena—”
I looked him right in his eyes and declared, “We will have a son.”
He shut his mouth and his bearded chin jerked into his neck.
“I will give you that,” I told him. “And you will give me a daughter.”
His voice was much changed, lower, softer, when he took a step toward me and said, “Elena.”
I took a step to the side.
He stopped.
I did as well.
“If you have to close your eyes and picture someone else, that will be fine. I will endure,” I announced.
Those eyes he would have to close narrowed again with his heav
y brows drawing together over them before he whispered in a sinister manner, “Endure?”
I could imagine many found that expression (and his sinister whisper) most fearsome.
However, I had been trained not to find much fearsome.
And regardless, in that moment, I had to finish what I had to say, somehow manage to get through dinner sitting at his side, and then find a way to get through the next day, and the next, and the next.
Until he had his son.
I had my daughter.
And we were done.
“This will be our bargain, Prince Cassius of Airen,” I proclaimed. “I will be your princess and when the time comes, I will do my duties as your queen. I’ll provide you an heir and you’ll provide me a daughter. I will love and nurture both with all my heart, as I hope you will as well. But we will live separate lives in your black citadel, separate in all things, except where it pertains to our family.”
Feeling I stated my case, I started to move to leave when his words came.
“I don’t agree to this bargain.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I retorted, turned to the door, but again found my elbow seized, my body moving not of its volition, my back against the door, and Cassius’s visage all I could see.
Of all the bloody…
Did all men act in this manner?
I didn’t get the chance to ask.
“You will give me a son,” he growled. “And I will give you a daughter. You will be mother to my motherless daughter and I will be father to your fatherless ward. Then you will give me more sons and I will give you more daughters, however they come to us. You will sit at my side as I reign. You will sleep at my side as I sleep. You will move under me as we make our family. And when you do I will not…” his face got nearer, “close…my…eyes.”
Oh my.
He was not yet finished.
He got even nearer and the whisper he then gave me was a different kind of sinister.
“Also when you do, Elena, you will not endure. I’ll make you enjoy every fucking second of it.”
Oh my.
And still, he was not finished.
But fortunately, he moved away to say his next.
That was, he moved away…minutely.
“Together, we will force the dark out of that bleak place that is night even when it’s day and we’ll do this with the halls ringing with our children’s laughter. We will not live separate lives, Elena. We will be prince and princess then king and queen. And we will be husband and wife in all ways we can be. That is our bargain. And on that, you have no choice.”