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)
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 heavy 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.