Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“There is some truth to the couch being taboo. No one but you has ever sat on it. It’s forbidden, even for the staff. It’s always been yours, waiting for the day you might be here with me. Every decoration in this room, I chose while thinking of you. Every flower.” Soft smile on that devious mouth, he petted me, setting me back to lounge on his fine couch. “The little mythologies made up by the recruits will change. They will see you sitting on it, and the story will grow. Just as the stories grew from my academy years. The workings of academy culture are fluid and ultimately such a short tenure of our lives. In fifty years, current recruits will have forgotten there was even a white couch in this room.”
Grim, I grew stiff. “And what of the other places in the room?”
“We make new memories there, change the story in your head.” His purred a little harder, stroked less for comfort and more for enticement.
Voice small, I asked, “The floor?”
A husky tone warmed my ear. “I’ll give you such pleasure on the floor you’ll beg me to hold you down and give you more.”
I didn’t know how I would survive it.
Pulling back to wipe my tears, he offered a soft smile. “You must be thirsty.”
I nodded, watching him rise so he might fetch me water from a supply cabinet near his desk.
A pretty glass was pressed into my hand, just like the one I had broken weeks ago in that very room.
Cold water tasted brand-new, fresh, and lively as it filled my stomach. Food followed, a plate organized with pretty, flared fruits.
Pampered as I sat on that white couch, I was watered and fed, my shoulders rubbed until the weight on my chest released.
He even smoothed my hair and fixed several of the pins holding my bun tight to my skull.
And I knew this was what it was to be a mated female.
Something cherished but utterly captive.
Relegated to uniting the opposing concepts into one inescapable existence.
14
The white couch—the death couch—was soft beneath me. Supportive, luxurious, and a place I now knew no one but me was allowed to use. Ever.
Because Cyderial acquired it for me.
The man having no idea of its reputation or why it made me so nervous before.
I had been placed on it in his attempt to comfort me the night he killed the redheaded boy. I heard stories that all those asked to sit down on it never returned. The academy was bursting with mythology that felt far too real.
But it was my couch. A pristine, pure seat designed for hybrid females to cuddle on.
And the thoughtfulness of this manic gesture touched me a little once explained. Same with the abundance of flowers, the colors of the rocks, the soft lighting. All of it had been selected with me in mind.
The male happy to preen and show off all he prepared.
While I blinked and said nothing.
But I did sit on the couch. I let him spoil me.
I ate the plate of fruits he arranged.
And sipped cool water.
So he might observe me, stare at me, think thoughts I didn’t want to know.
He’d raped me in this room, right there on the floor.
“Take another bite.” He knew why I was so cagy. Why I worried at my collar and fought for more than shallow breaths.
This was where I had to meet with Maeve. This was where I would be expected to spend my time when I was not training the children to kill vorec.
Forever.
Finally speaking more than nonsense, I set aside my plate. “I’d like to save the rest of the fruit for Maeve. She’s probably never tried anything like it.”
The warning look he gave me spoke volumes. “Thayer might not appreciate losing the opportunity to give his mate her first taste of unprocessed food.”
As if it were some male rite of passage to watch their victim eat something other than cubed meat or pressed vegetation for the first time.
The liberties men thought they were due….
But the huge golden male needed every opportunity to make Maeve happy, so I relinquished the plate with a frown.
Focusing on inequality was not the point of this meeting. Everything was riding on my getting Maeve to agree.
I’d had time to collect myself, to straighten the foreign instructor uniform and wash my face. I looked every bit the military female I’d been born and raised to become.
Give me a sword and splash me with vorec blood, and I could be the poster girl for academy bullshit.
“Are you ready? Maeve will be here any moment.”
No. “Yes.”
A knock came, Cyderial moving behind his desk, just as terrifying and imposing as ever.
Maeve was admitted, walking forward with perfect posture, a flawless gait, as she came to stand before my mate. At stiff attention, she waited in customary silence.