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)
Mars didn’t say anything for there was nothing to say and Lorenz knew it.
This was why he had the false ones watched.
“I want to play with his priest,” Lorenz shared.
“You only need Nyx’s permission for that,” Mars told him.
Lorenz curled out of his lounge, leaning forward, elbows to his knees, eyes on his king.
“I want to play with him, Mars,” Lorenz growled.
“Will I have troubles with Go’Doan ambassadors with how you play?”
“Maybe.”
Mars stared into his warrior’s eyes.
“Play,” he granted.
Lorenz smiled a smile Mars liked, Nyx would like more, this Go’Doan might not like at all (then again, he might), and his warrior pushed out of his seat.
He started to leave the room, but Mars caught him by calling his name, and he turned back.
“The Go’Doan are here to tend our sick and teach our children. They do not have immunity. I wish these acolytes to be watched closely. If there’s another split lip or even a fucking bruise, Lorenz, I want the priest behind it brought forward on charges. And if the Go’Doan send an angry pack of envoys to argue their ways and that they should be allowed to practice them, even in foreign lands, I’ll have an excuse to expel the lot.”
“It’s done,” Lorenz returned.
“Gratitude, my brother.”
Lorenz left.
Mars stared at the door.
Then he picked up his silver pen, dipped the quill into the ink, and struck out a variety of numbers written on the missive, changing their quantities greatly.
10
The Dowry
Lady Silence Mattson
Throne Room, West Corridor, State Wing, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
“This is impossible to believe,” my father hissed.
“Please be quiet, Johan,” my mother whispered.
“I-I-I don’t understand,” my king stammered. “You have the fullness of the dowry you demanded when no dowry should have been demanded for I offer you my very own niece to quell the Beast.”
“I do believe I changed the quantities,” the King of Firenze noted calmly, completely ignoring my uncle’s assertion a dowry shouldn’t have been requested, considering I wouldn’t be there if not for the fact that he and I somehow were meant to save the world.
This dowry situation, by the by, did not best please my father.
No, it did not.
Mostly considering my uncle expected my father to offer the lot of it.
And the lot of it was a lot.
I felt True shift, and he was so close to me, standing in a protective manner at my side and partly to my front (my much beloved cousin), that his arm brushed my shoulder.
I really wanted to look upon the woman with the lush exotic features, eyes that shown like topaz, and such finery on her body (but it was so strange, I couldn’t believe).
The woman destined for my dear cousin.
The woman sitting on a pile of cushions at the king’s side farthest from me.
But since entering the throne room of the Catrame Palace ten minutes before, a part of my uncle’s somewhat large entourage (considering we were greeted solely by the Firenz King and True’s intended), I could barely take my eyes off the brute sitting his throne.
Red, collarless, long-sleeved shirt, a black jacket that I would suspect, if he rose from his ruby embedded gold throne (something he did not do when we entered), would fall to his ankles, and it had no sleeves. Loose black trousers.
And bare feet.
This was interesting, as these were not the clothes of the males of my country (and no one in Wodell went in bare feet—and what feet! By the gods, who in all the lands had attractive feet? I’ll tell you who—King Mars of Firenze!).
But truly, it was the rest of him.
The hair (so much hair).
The beard (such a full beard, and it came down to a point).
The eyes (so very black—pitch…or tar).
The piercings (everywhere!).
The slim scar the ran from his right cheekbone over the bridge of his nose.
The other one that ran under the swell of his left cheekbone.
And the sheer volume of his gargantuan frame, all of it made up of muscle.
He was the single most extraordinary being I’d ever seen in…my…life.
I could…
Well, I could gaze on him for centuries.
Sadly, it would seem, he could not do the same with me.
For when we arrived, and I was presented to my intended, he barely looked me top to toe before he turned his attention to my uncle. Though as was my way, I knew, even if his gaze rested on King Wilmer, his mind was attuned to True.
This would, of course, be smart.
Although my uncle had a guard in this very room that equaled sixteen in number, and another fifty stood outside the palace, I still would guess the only real threat was True (who I knew, because I heard, but I’d also seen him perform in the games, that he was a very good soldier, and he was renown as the best horseman in all of Wodell).