Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
I bite my own tongue to stop myself speaking. What will happen if he repeats those words to Cassan?
Kathras advances on me again. This time, the statue remains, wisely, uninvolved, but I do back painfully into it.
“Something I can never have? I’ve had you.” He takes a step. “You gave yourself to me.” Another step. He towers over me, but he does not touch me. It’s almost worst than being grabbed and roughly handled. “You know, as well as I, that you will never again lie with someone without remembering me inside you.”
My throat sticks shut, and I desperately need to swallow, but I don’t want to show him that his words have had an effect on me. I hold his gaze calmly. “But will you be able to lie with someone without remembering me?”
All of his anger drains from his face, leaving nothing behind but a blank, cold mask. He steps back. “Enjoy your time at court. For however long it lasts.”
His head turns sharply, toward something I don’t sense. Perhaps the whisper of clothing, the click of a footfall too soft for my own ears. But something has alerted him to danger. I glance in the direction of his furrowed gaze.
Utrax, the same piebald minotaur who fucked me in the king’s chambers stands only a few feet away from us. How much has he overheard? Does it matter, when Kathras and I stand so close? Our very proximity indicates guilt.
Kathras’s eyes meet mine. He waves a hand over my face.
I blink, and suddenly I’m somewhere very familiar.
I’m in my bedroom in Luthian’s house, and I’m holding a book. The book that Kathras was reading when I interrupted him.
I open it, expecting to find an erotic novel or a manual of devious pleasures. To my surprise, it’s a journal, the slanting cursive written with a quick hand. I scan the page, intrigued. Descriptions of a ball. I flip to another page and find a list of ladies to invite to a tea party. Why would Kathras have this or wish to read it?
I slam the book shut. Gilt embossing on the leather cover catches my eye. The room spins about me, the floor almost comes out from beneath my feet as I stare at the simple name stamped there:
H.R.M. Queen Parphia.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It’s dangerous for me to be in Luthian’s house. I know that. But after a single night in my new chambers, I am homesick for it. I feel I’ve been away for centuries.
Kathras sent me here for a reason, gave me the diary for a reason. I know instinctively that Arcus does not want me to see inside the pages of this journal, so I cannot take it back to my royal chambers. Neither would I have Luthian know what I possess. I climb into the bed and duck beneath the blankets, leaving only a small gap for light to show through.
At the start, the queen’s journal is a bore. Tea, gowns, who’s sleeping with who and other court gossip. There’s shockingly little dedicated to the depravity of court.
But about halfway in, a name scrawled on the page stops me.
I grow weary of Arcus’s gilded cage. Everyone else at court is allowed pleasure freely. Why should I not have with Luthian what my mate has with the entire court?
My guardian spoke so casually about the former queen’s death, I never suspected he could have been involved in it. But here he is, mentioned in the pages of her journal. It can’t be a coincidence.
I read on.
My heart will never long for Arcus the way it longs for Luthian. He is my true mate, no matter how destiny might separate us. I need him as flowers need sunlight, as crops need water. Every moment we’re apart is a torment crueler than anyone at this wretched court could devise.
There is nothing in the entry about Luthian returning her love. I’m surprised she wrote even this much. It would have incriminated her if anyone found it.
Was that how she’d been caught?
I turn the page.
He was at the ritual tonight. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I found myself jealous of the spell that milked him of his essence. I want to make him come, with my hands and mouth. Seeing his seed shared among so many made me wild with rage. There is no fidelity at this court, but I would keep him all to myself, as Arcus keeps me.
I vividly imagine Luthian bound to the stone, his chest heaving in the firelight, his body spent and yet forced again and again to spill into one of those golden goblets. The picture in my mind would have made it easy to understand the queen’s infatuation if I did not already share it.
The next few pages are short entries. Arcus’s trip to Lua is discussed, and how she is left behind despite desperately wishing to see the city. I grow to loathe him more as I read his late wife’s words.