Her eyes again narrowed. “You cannot know what True and I had.”
“I know he never had his hand between your legs.”
She gasped, and her cheeks flushed.
He had not known that. Not with certainty.
But he knew it then.
And he was absurdly gratified knowing it.
Thus, Cassius wasn’t finished. “That is solely mine and will be solely mine forever.”
“You may leave now,” she hissed.
“Has he had his tongue in your mouth?” he demanded.
She stared at him in disbelief before declaring, “You cannot possibly be jealous.”
“You know naught of men. Real men. You cannot know what I am, or I am not,” he retorted. “Now answer me, has he had your mouth?”
She turned from him, muttering, “I’m not participating in this conversation.”
“You bloody are,” he contradicted.
She whirled again to him. “Is that why you carried me bodily from the fray not like I am what I am, trained warrior, but like I’m some damsel in distress who needs a man to keep her safe? Because you were jealous True and I were battling side by side?”
“You aren’t answering my question, Elena.”
“You aren’t answering mine,” she returned.
“You can’t know of me and not know precisely why I carried you out of harm’s way,” he told her.
“You can’t know of me and not know I do not need you to carry me out of harm’s way.” She took a step toward him. “We have not met in battle, Cassius, but by the goddess, you must know that I don’t dither in my treehome making wicker baskets. I patrol. I don’t use my bow only for parade. I don’t use my staff simply to keep my arms trim. There isn’t a single patrol where I don’t clash with brigand or sorcerer attempting to breach The Enchantments. And this might not often be hand to hand, but it is certainly often sword to sword.”
Cassius felt a tightening in his chest.
And it was painful.
A pain he had to stop.
“Cease speaking,” he growled.
She did not cease speaking
“You don’t know women like me and I’ll warn you now and urge you heed this warning. You need to have a care in dealing with a woman like me. It is all well and good, and I not only applaud your efforts, I shall champion them in the progress you desire to make for the females of your realm. But I am not one of them.”
She was not.
But she would be.
“That will be your last battle, Elena,” he decreed.
At that, her eyes grew enormous.
“And I’ll repeat what I’ve informed you of before. You will significantly limit any time you spend with True. This being you spend time with him only when I’m with you,” he concluded.
“You cannot tell me who I can spend time with.”
“I just did.”
She studied him a long moment before she whispered, “Are you mad?”
“I am not. I am Prince Regent. I will be king. But for you, most importantly, I will be husband.”
Elena was still whispering when she said, “You are mad.”
Cassius didn’t deign to respond.
He was marrying a Nadirii.
He knew that.
But she was marrying an Airenzian.
She knew that too.
They would make compromises in their life together.
However, these would not be among them.
Her voice was vibrating with fury when she declared, “You need to leave now.”
“No True,” he stated. “And you will hang up your bow unless you use it for parade or to teach our daughters how to string theirs for interest and the fullness of their education. That is all. But in the now, you will kit yourself out, however that needs to be, while I wait, and we will walk together to join the procession.”
“Get out,” she demanded.
“Get sorted,” he returned.
“Get out or I’ll force you out.”
“You couldn’t manage that,” he scoffed.
Her voice was chilling when she replied, “You do not wish to try that.”
Cassius held his arms out to the side. “Again, you cannot know that.”
She didn’t hesitate.
She attacked.
Her attack was a surprise, even if it was not.
What was truly a surprise was that, in no time, she had him down on a knee and almost had his arm up his back in a way it would be difficult, and painful, to extricate himself.
And might even break a bone.
Or at the very least dislocate his shoulder.
Therefore, he had no choice but to use her hold on him to swing her around.
This took her off her feet, but before she hit ground, he surged up and caught her in his arms.
He then tossed her to the bed.
She bounced up instantly with grace borne of knowing every inch of her body and how to use it. She thus gained her feet on the mattress and launched herself back at him, front to front.
He caught her again, and she used her arms and legs around his torso to wrench him into a painful twist.
Thus, he was forced to move with the rotation, and he did. After, he backed toward her bed, dropped to it, and rolled onto her.
“Enough,” he clipped when he’d subdued her.
She bucked under him at the same time she tried to find purchase on his hair.
And this meant he had to catch both her wrists and hold them to the bed over her head.
Gods bloody damn it, she felt good under him.
And her smell…
“Enough,” he barked in her face. “You cannot possibly win hand to hand which is my bloody point.”
“Get your broadsword and we’ll see about your bloody point,” she retorted, breathing heavily from exertion and fury, which did not make it any easier to lie atop her and not grow hard, something he was struggling mightily with already.
“We’ll continue to discuss this later when you’ve calmed the fuck down,” he growled.
“We won’t be discussing anything at any time. We’re done, Cassius. You are Regent. You will be king. You can do anything with your realm. Including allowing your daughter to assume your throne. You need no heir. You have an heir. I will be your wife. We will battle the Beast. And then I will live in my treehome in The Enchantments with Dora and carry on with my life as I wish, and you will do whatever you will, just without me.”
His chest did not feel tight with her declaration.
It burned.
“We’ve already made our bargain, my warrior,” he reminded her.
“No, you made your decree. Heed this, my warrior, you may be able to best me hand to hand, but you will never cow me to your whim.”
“Do you wish to test that?” he asked.
“I think that question is better asked of you,” she retorted.
He dipped closer and whispered, “I can smell your excitement.”
Her chin dipped into her neck and he saw the truth of his statement flash fleetingly in her eyes.
Cassius did not relent.
“You like sparring, verbally, physically. You like my weight. You want my mouth on you. You want my hands on you. You yearn for it, Elena. I can feel it. I can smell it.”
“That’s absurd,” she hissed, but her breath was coming even faster.
“So you wish to test that.”
“Get off me,” she snapped.
“I see,” he murmured, studying her mouth. “You don’t wish to test it for you know I’m right.”
“Get off me, Cassius.”
He looked to her eyes. “Has True had your mouth?”
“Yes,” she bit.
“Liar,” he whispered.
She turned her head to the side and he watched her swallow.
It looked painful.
He didn’t like that for her.
Therefore, it was then he relented.
He kept hold on her wrist
s, but he did it using his thumbs to stroke the apples of her palms.
She swallowed again, for a different reason this time, and he spoke.
“Not even a stolen kiss, my lamb?” he asked gently.
“I am not your lamb.”
Oh, but she was.
Playful and frisky in sparring.
Soft, innocent and dewy-eyed after climax.
Skittish and stubborn pretending she didn’t want him as badly as he did her.
“Yes, you are.”
She shook her head, still turned away. “Please, get off me.”
“True is a gentleman.”
“And you are not.”
He didn’t need to be.
He would be her husband.
“True was not meant to be,” he told her quietly. “If he was, he would have had you. And you would have had him. We barely know one another, my princess, but we cannot keep our hands off each other. There is a reason for that. There is a reason you feel as you feel right now with my weight upon you. What I feel, with the softness of you under me, the smell of you in my nose. We were meant to be. This means you are mine, Elena. Do you not see that?”
She did not look at him when she stated, “I will not be cowed.”
“I cannot believe you can even begin to think I wish to cow you, my warrior,” he whispered, and her head turned, her eyes coming to his. “I cannot believe you can even begin to think I’d wish to take away any part of what makes you.”
“And you reconcile this how, Cassius?” she demanded. “Catching me up and throwing me bodily from the fray. That is taking a very large part of me away, my prince.”
She wished this?
She would have it as well.
“My dead wife was warrior,” he returned, his voice gritty.
Elena went completely still beneath him.
“There are different kinds, my princess,” he shared. “And she battled mightily. In a manner, she won. She gave me our daughter. They both did not perish to the fight. She fought, she did it bravely, and she succeeded in her goal. She also died doing it. And she did that happily. I know this because the last thing she did on this earth was smile at me as I held Aelia in my hands but moments after she slipped from her mother’s womb. Now, ponder this, Elena. Do you think I tossed you bodily from the fray because I did not trust in your capabilities? Or do you think in a million millennia that I wish to lose another warrior to a battle beyond my control?”
“Cassius,” she breathed, her face having softened, her eyes having warmed.
And there was his lamb.
But it was too late.
He might not have won the argument, but he won his point.
However, in forcing him to win it, she’d drawn blood.
And she had to learn that was no way to win between lovers.
Thus he pushed up at her wrists, angling from her and taking his feet.
She got up to her elbows but took one look at his face as he scowled down at her, and she made no other movement and said no further words.
“I shall meet you at our horses,” he declared.
“Of course,” she whispered, knowing she’d wounded her opponent, and conceding graciously. “I’ll be down directly.”
With that, he turned and left her chambers.
He had no desire to join a procession that would lead to witnessing torture and execution, this before he had to prepare to join the masses and watch his friend take his marital chain and give his new wife hers.
He wanted whiskey, an orgasm and sleep.
In that order.
All with Elena.
Even after their episode.
Which meant perhaps she was correct.
He was mad.
But that was what he wished.
However, he did not have a choice.
Instead he had torture, death, marriage and a stubborn bride on his hands who was born warrior who he did not want to die warrior.
No one was mentioning it, but the last quake that occurred but hours before shared explicitly the Beast was not only closer to the surface, it was angry.
And Cassius feared he was not going to convince Elena to use naught but her formidable magic as her part in quelling it.
So his chest was tight again and his heart felt heavy as he took the steps that would lead him to the front of the palace in order for him to mount his steed and await his bride.
He took these steps thinking of the tarot card he’d turned the morning before.
The warrior card he’d turned had had his head bowed.
His armor was intact. His body not bloodied.
But he’d tasted defeat all the same.
Cassius knew that taste.
It was vile.
And he would not experience it again.
Unless he had no choice.
He was now bloody Regent.
Even so, it seemed he still lived a life of limited choices.
A life marked with profound loss.
Both that of the past.
And as the warrior card was swept from his memory, and the vision he saw charging into the conflict but hours before of Elena under a raised sword filled his brain…
He knew it was a real possibility loss would scrape deep through his future.
Queen Ha-Lah
Guest Suite, Second Floor, East Corridor, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
“I go with you.”
“You do not.”
“My king, I would go with you,” I beseeched.
“You will not,” he denied.
“We will surely be protected.”
“It matters not.”
“I know it might be difficult to witness, but I would be at your side through this.”
“I do not need you at my side, Ha-Lah.”
“Aramus,” I whispered.
“Xi and Nis will stay behind, both in this room, where you will remain, wife.”
After he issued that order, he started to move to the door.
I followed him.
Swiftly.
“I would wish to help you in your grief,” I told my husband, reaching out, nearly touching his back.
But my hand fell when he spun around and pinned me with a glower so ferocious, I felt my breath catch in my throat.
“And how would you do that, my queen?” he asked caustically. He then tipped his head to the side, his black eyes flashing with derision. “Ah yes. I forget. You know me so well. You knew Cat so well. With all the interest you take in me. My men. These months of our marriage. These weeks when you sailed with me. With us. With them. With him. Traveled with me. Us. Them. Him. They kept you guarded and safe. You have come to know us all so very well?”
“That isn’t fair, Aramus, and you know it,” I replied softly.
Though, uncomfortably, I had to admit, he had a point.
“It isn’t?” he asked, his brows rising. “You spent a good deal of energy spouting your defense of whales and dolphins, how do you feel about the loss of the life of men?”
He was right.
I did spend that energy in defense of my friends.
But that was even less fair.
And he had to know that too.
I chanced a step closer, considering putting my hand on his chest in a conciliatory matter.
I decided against it and simply said, “I’m very, very sorry you lost your friend, my husband.”
“I am as well,” he replied. “He will have no wife. He will have no children. He will have no grandchild carry anything of his from home to home just to keep him close, even if they had never met him but they knew of him and they knew he was beloved. He will be but a memory for me, Tint, Bond, Oreti, Xi, Nis, Nav, and when we are gone, he will be gone, for there will be no heart that bears him any longer.”
I nodded, feeling my eyes prickle and wishing fruitlessly I had come to know this man at the same time deciding from that point on to make a concerted effort to get to know the others.
“You loved him a great deal,” I whispered, and I loved this a great deal, this capacity for emotion my husband was demonstrating.
Even if the occasion for which he was demonstrating it rent my heart.
“He was my brother,” Aramus confirmed. “And now he will be shrouded, borne through this bloody heat, rotting along the way—”
“Don’t say that,” I urged gently. “Don’t even think of that.”
He continued as if I didn’t speak.
“Taken aboard a ship and carried home, only to have the black rocks of Mar-el piled upon what’s left of him without his brothers at his side for we’re traipsing across Triton attending fucking weddings.”
He was in pain.
Such pain.
“Would you please let me come to you?” I asked, even if there was but a few feet of space between us, it felt like miles.
“Do you think I need your comfort?” he queried with contempt.
I blinked at his tone.
But he did not stop there.
Alas, my husband did not stop.
“You have given me nothing in this marriage. Not a thing, Ha-Lah. What little I have you made me earn. The barest scrap of your attention, your history, any part of you. I should likely praise Triton and Medusa both that you did not make me scrape and beg for morsels of you. But I fear I’m in no mood to praise our gods right now, my queen. There are ankles to noose and throats to slit.”
I winced.
“Absolutely,” he spat decisively when he caught my reaction. “You don’t have the stomach to be queen.” He leaned toward me. “In all this change, my wife, that I will bear on my realm after this bloody ludicrous journey is through, there will be one more. When I get my heir, he will not be saddled with the greatest beauty of the land. He will pick who he wishes. She can be ugly of visage as long as she’s kind of heart and lustful for his cock and desirous of his company and supportive of his thoughts. What he will not have is he will not be burdened with a queen the likes of you.”
At that, I flinched and took a step away.
It looked as if his lip would curl as he watched me do this, but he caught it before he did.
And instead, he dealt his mortal blow.
“We will battle this fucking Beast. I do not know of destiny, of the supposed power of these unions of man and wife, except it seems naught but nonsense. But when it is done, we will sever ties, you and me. And then I will find a queen that suits me. A queen that suits Mar-el. And she will give me an heir. Then I will change the laws of our land so my son will know nothing but happiness.”
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