Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“Where…where are you taking me?” I croaked, my voice hoarse from sobbing.
“Back where you came from—L’Crist,” he answered, keeping his gaze on the ship’s viewscreen. “You’re lucky, you know—the penalty for breaking the vows you took in the temple is usually death.”
“Death?” I stared at him in horror. “For making one mistake?”
“It’s a pretty big mistake, breaking the vow you took to conceive the next Chieftain’s heir,” he said, his face stony. “It’s an insult to his manhood. Not to mention a big ‘fuck you’ to the entire Clan.”
“But I never meant it to be anything like that!” I protested. “I would never, ever—”
“But you did,” Rive said bluntly. “You’re just lucky my boss is being merciful—I think he really loved you, you know?”
There it was again—the past tense. It was like a stab in my heart every time I heard it.
“Please,” I begged him. “You can talk to him—please just tell him I’m sorry! Tell him I love him! Tell him—”
“He’s already forbidden me to ever speak your name again,” Rive said. “So I can’t tell him anything.”
And that was that.
I didn’t say another word until we landed in the courtyard of the palace. When he opened the ship’s passenger door to help me out, I couldn’t put it off any longer.
“What about The Need?” I asked in a low voice, not meeting his eyes. My cheeks were flaming as I spoke—I didn’t want to have this discussion with anyone but Slade but I was apparently never going to talk to him again. “If he leaves me here with no way to…to deal with it, I’ll die. I’ve already had Need Fever once, if it comes on me again and Slade isn’t here to help me—”
“The Boss thought of that. Here.” Rive swung me down from the ship and shoved a small brown box into my hands. “Don’t open it until you’re alone,” he advised me.
Then he went around and climbed into the driver’s side of the ship. I was left standing there, holding the box and watching as he flew away… and with him, all my hopes for the future.
45
AURORA
The next few weeks were torture—there’s no other way to describe it.
Of course I ran to my room and tore open the box as soon as I could, hoping for a note from Slade or anything at all to let me know he still cared. What I found instead was a small, fake phallus with smear of gold on its tip. Clearly it was one of the kind that he’d told me widows used after the death of their Brute husbands. It would stave off The Need and keep me healthy—physically at least—but it was no substitute for Slade himself.
I stayed in my room crying for days—I hadn’t grieved so hard since my father died. Poor Patsy was beside herself. I couldn’t bear to tell her what had happened—how the baby-stopper pills she’d given me had ended my marriage. So she hovered around me, not knowing the details, but worried sick about my apparent collapse.
I tried everything to pull myself out of the hole I was in. I told myself I was being ridiculous—Slade and I had only been together a week. There was no way I should be so upset about ending such a short relationship. But there was no denying the emotions I felt for him. They became deeper and more vivid with every passing day until missing him was like a physical ache in my chest. It literally hurt whenever I thought of him…and yet I couldn’t stop thinking of the big Brute, no matter how hard I tried.
Eventually I had to come out of my room…and then I wished that I hadn’t. I felt like everyone at Court was staring at me and whispering behind their hands and I knew why. I was now a fallen woman with a failed marriage—a marriage to a Brute, no less—one of the “Tainted Ones.” I was a disgrace—a blot on the face of the Royal Court.
To everyone around me, it appeared that Slade had used and then discarded me. It would be useless to tell them I was still technically a virgin—not that I could broach such a delicate subject in good company. None of them would believe me, even if I swore it in the middle of the Chapel of the Goddess of Mercy herself. I was lower than dirt and seeing me made them ill at ease and disgusted.
At night, I used the small widow-phallus that Slade had left for me. It in no way satisfied me—not that I was in the mood to be satisfied—but it kept The Need in check. Though I longed for Slade’s arms around me, I didn’t go into Need Fever again. Instead, I just drifted around the palace like a ghost, feeling alienated from everyone I knew and wishing for a merciful end to my existence.