Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
This was, I assumed, precisely why my mother didn’t want people talking about, and certainly not knowing about, her predicament.
Because once talk started, it had a tendency to spread.
“I’ll send them regardless,” Liam told me. “Should you change your mind.”
“What vials?” Cassius repeated.
But G’Liam was bowing to me, to the prince, then he turned and walked from the room.
When the door closed behind him, it was me who was turned, and as I was learning that Cassius was wont to do, this was not of my volition.
But I didn’t have it in me to protest when the front of me was pressed to the front of him.
I tipped my head back.
“What vials, Elena?” he demanded.
“It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. If he even sends them, I’ll be disposing of them.”
“If it doesn’t matter, then you shouldn’t have any issue with telling me what they are.”
“It doesn’t matter so it isn’t worth wasting time talking about it.”
“If your husband wishes to know something, you should tell him.”
I was losing patience.
“First, Cassius, you are not my husband…yet. But when you are, if you wish to know something I wish to keep to myself, as my husband, you should allow me to do that.”
“This does not make a healthy marriage.”
He would know. From reports, he’d had a very healthy one.
And it ended in anguish.
Therefore, I gentled my voice when I replied, “I intend to cause no harm when I say that you should be aware and come into it from the very beginning understanding that our marriage will not be like your last.”
He replied instantly.
“You are fair, she was red. You are tall and trim, she was petite and plump. You ride like the wind, she was afraid of horses. She found delight in the flight of a sparrow, you’d probably shoot it out of the sky at two hundred feet.”
I was deeply offended.
“I would not kill a sparrow,” I snapped.
He shook his head once at the same time his arm tightened, and he shook me.
“I think you understand my meaning.”
I did.
I was still offended.
“I don’t even eat meat,” I informed him.
His head jerked in surprise. “You don’t eat meat?”
“You sat beside me at dinner the other night, Cassius. Did I eat the roast?”
“I thought your appetite was off due to your sister’s mischiefs.”
“No. Most Nadirii don’t eat meat. Though, I will note my sister is one of the ones who does.”
“This is preposterous,” he declared.
“Why?”
“Because the body needs meat.”
“It does not for I’ve never in my life eaten meat and as you can see I’m just fine.”
He seemed to be considering that knowledge at the same time finding it fascinating.
I did not have time for him to be fascinated.
I also did not have time to enjoy watching him be fascinated.
I had things to do.
These being dallying in a bath with my lieutenants and my fellow Sisters of the Beast, this while my ill mother was negotiating whatever she was negotiating with four countries we didn’t get along with terribly well, one we warred with constantly, and one we barely knew at all.
I did not know Airen to have Firenz-style baths.
And Cassius had asked me to teach his soldiers my stretches.
But I feared a lifetime yawned in front of me where the things I did to fill my days that had meaning and purpose were gone and such as dawdling in baths (or the like) was my future.
Thus, I told him, “You may release me. I’m to meet the others at the baths.”
“I know you are not her.”
The way he stated that, firm, but pensive, made me focus on his face.
“You need to understand that, Elena. She was lost years ago. I will not pretend I didn’t pine for her. I will not pretend that she isn’t in my thoughts the many times she comes to me and will in the future. But she is gone. I am not. You are my destiny. My daughter needs a mother. Your ward needs a father. It is how it was meant to be, and we must find a way to move forward in that.”
“Do you mind if, perhaps, we take longer than a day to find the manner in which we’ll do that?” I requested.
His lips quirked.
“No. I do not mind,” he allowed, and then said, “You can have today and tomorrow too.”
And really.
Did he also have to be amusing?
I glared at him.
His lips quirked again.
They stopped quirking when he asked, “Why was your sister in Firenz garments?”
It was then I stared at him.
“I did not see her,” he carried on. “But my man did, and he said she was regaled in the finest of be-spangled, female Firenz attire.”
I could not picture this.
I couldn’t even fathom it.
“Serena?” I asked breathily.
He nodded. “Undoubtedly. She’s rather notable, especially wearing the sheers and brassiere of a Firenz.”
Heavens.
“Do you think, your, uh…person, is…?”