Bonds: A Cursed Six novel (The Cursed Six Book 1)

by Clarrisa R. Smithe

  "It's hard for me to get a handful. I'm glad my hands aren't growing in proportion to my chest. I'd be like a beast!"

  This smile he felt like a phantom ghosting his profile. He sat forward and beckoned her to him.

  She stalked forward and like the tease that she was, bit down upon her lower lip while looking at him beneath those delicate fair lashes.

  At once his arm came around the small of her back, resting at her waist. She was surprisingly cool, her skin like that of silk, flawless, especially the bountiful breast he cupped in his other hand as he looked up into the eyes that'd tempted him from the start. "You cannot get a handful because you're small and it would seem your breasts were made for my hands and not yours."

  A truth seen by the soft mound spilled perfectly into the palm of his hand, and though he had not been looking, he could not recall the Father's niece's bosom to be as destined. But then, she had been wearing more clothing than one ought in a summer's heat.

  "I'm not pushing them out, I swear." The statement emerged mingled with heavier breaths that pressed them back and forth into his palm, the applied pressure having done strange things to her voice. "I think they'll grow some more before and after the baby comes. My poor back will suffer for it but at least someone will enjoy them."

  The smile then revealed teeth, but it was soon wiped away as he considered what she would be made to endure while in that heavy state. He was not so sure either of them would be enjoying her form.

  Releasing her, he reached beside him for the robe atop the chaise and held it open for her to don herself within.

  She extended both arms and slid between the offered fabric. "I like your teeth. They look so pleasant against your beard."

  "As they should," he said as he tucked her further into the protective garment, tying its belt at her small waist. When she stood before him, her features not as starkly pale as they had been before, he leaned back in the seat and expelled a breath. Then, "Go retrieve the leather cahier atop my bed. Leave the text there."

  She nodded as a servant would and hurried in her usual dainty little steps towards the other room, before she returned to him with the desired object moments later. A small smile came with her handing it to him before she awaited further instruction.

  Taking the binding from her hand, he gazed about the space, but saw that the bath's ledge was too hard and the chaise was occupied. What did it matter? He pointed to his leg. "Sit."

  Again, another nod before she perched upon the assigned seat. She sat rather stiffly for a moment, before she shuffled into a more comfortable position and extended an arm to wrap around his shoulders.

  She hesitated before completing the movement. "May I?"

  Rather than consent, for no other reason than his wanting her to pay attention and not get distracted—and he knew she would—in the jumble of curls at her leisure, he shook his head. Then, shifting her further up, he guided her hands to her lap. "Life inside of the castle can prove compromising of our goals for you," he explained. "The women are not the best influences; my sisters are prime examples. The festivity may prove distracting and my mother, bless her heart, tends to be too overbearing. She does not know what's best for you like I do."

  She looked deep into his gaze and was silent for a few seconds before her brows furrowed. "Are you sending me away?"

  He took in a breath of patience and decided she was oblivious after all, and that it would be best for him to guide her through his plans. Tristian nodded toward the binding in his hand. "Upon visiting the bank, I had records pulled of plots of land for purchase around the castle. I would have a home for you and our child built without delay, for this would be both sanctuary and a home for your purification." His gaze drifted to the heap of towels on the marble, pensive. "I wouldn't consider it sending you away. Look at it as moving forward to the next chapter in your life. Here, have a look."

  He flipped open the cahier to the seven architectural sketches afforded him, those of the preferred acres and distance from the castle. "I doubt there will be time to tour the plots today, or the upcoming days." Not with his suddenly filled timetable. "But soon I would have us visit each plot and as I've taken under great consideration, I will allow you to choose which I purchase."

  She was glancing at the sketches when she gasped, before she turned to him as if she could not believe her ears. "You would have me choose? Are you sure this is not going to be very expensive?"

  He felt a fire threaten, his eyes hardening. "You do not question my generosity. You express gratitude, or was I wrong in allowing you a choice in the matter?"

  She was quick to shake her head. "No, I am very grateful, but I know, as your... soon-to-be-wife, that I need to think about household accounts and proper management of domestic expenses. Perhaps I was thinking too far ahead."

  "Perhaps you were." He snapped the binding closed and stared across the seemingly much smaller space. The rain had yet to recede, rather it flourished in a misty grey riot, obscuring all beyond the balcony's glass doors.

  If the girl who hardly weighed a thing, physically and in matters of the kingdom's welfare, expressed concerned over his finances, what must those native and intimately meandering around the courts think? The financial standings weren't open to the public, but rumours spread and this was not the mere start of the state of things.

  Refraining from shutting his eyes and sinking far from the insistent predicament, he instead released a heavy sigh. He shouldn't be in this mess to begin with. And the female sidled up to him, small and vaguely detached from the court and familiar things of his life, she should have been in her cold, barren lands, marrying that lord.

  Which reminded him. "What response did the lord you were betrothed to have upon discovering your unfortunate state?"

  Her face contorted into a wide-eyed straight-lipped grimace. "It was about as p-pretty as you could expect. Father had to agree to the payment of the dowry still, as compensation. And more. T-they might want Edgar to marry into them."

  Edgar, presumably another member of that ever-growing lot of hers.

  Tristian sat up straighter, the hand clutched to the binder moving to set it upon the ledge of the bath, his arm then snaking around her waist. His other hand moved to grip her chin, eyes narrowed. "Open your mouth."

  Her lips opened as if they were on a hinge, though her eyes remained as big as before. Her tongue rested behind a line of neat little teeth, her depths pink, the dangling flesh at the entrance of her throat in no way abnormal to the typical anatomy he had been witness to, mostly out of iniquitous means. As she waited for him to make his move, his finger clipped onto her bottom row of teeth, as though to beckon her mouth wider still.

  He found nothing.

  Then again, he knew not what he was looking for, only that the jumble and skip of select words on her tongue pushed him back into that irritable place in his head.

  He closed her mouth, but didn't release her chin as he asked with open accusation, "How closely related is your king and queen?"

  "Mother and Father are cousins."

  His jaws tightened. "How. Close? First? Second?"

  "My grandparents were all siblings. My parents' grandparents, there were only two."

  Where did it start? Where did such a vile origin take place? How did they discern one from the other and by God.. what had he lain with? Slowly, his hand fell away, and an aghast whisper was planted upon his lips. "You are truly a disgusting creature, Princess Astrid." Lady Constance did not know what grave mountain she was beset to climb with this one.

  She did not appear surprised by the comment, merely slightly embarrassed if the tinge to her cheeks was any indication.

  "I know."

  He could not banish it away, this feeling of guilt and revulsion with himself as he looked upon the innocent, celestial shell whose insides were all in twisted up shambles. "You know," he scoffed, voice light as air. "You know and yet you had nothing but resolve, to see yourself lie in my bed, knowing we were not equal. K
nowing you were a disease waiting to spread."

  "You made me feel like a normal girl and I'd never felt like that before in my life. And there's no disease. The baby will be fine. You will be fine."

  "You do not know that!" How could she? How could darkness know any light when it'd been born of the obscure terrain? "Already you exhibit these faulty signs and should the child be born while you're still afflicted with them, so too shall he be. A son born of a heathen or not, he will still be the heir to my father's throne. And I'll not permit a defective heir."

  He witnessed the pale eyes turn to hard, cool stones, void of warmth and their usual lustre when beholding his person.

  "Our. Baby. Is. Not. Defective."

  He jerked her head towards him with little to no warning, fingers burying into the plump grounds of her cheeks. "Do not dare speak to me in such a tone when it is you who'll have ruined the child. You are still a little girl with her head full of wicked nonsense. You know nothing of what you speak, Astrid. Nothing."

  She grunted against his fingers. "You can at least hope I perish in childbirth. Or just push me from the balcony if you are so keen to be rid of me and the baby. If I make it through, you're likely to outlive me so you can move onto your next little girl!"

  Of course he struck her, a force great enough to rise to the roar of the pounding rain, his palm stinging, and just as a dam whose border was set to burst, the concerns of the day came flooding into him all at once. His palm struck again, this time blonde wisps falling into her profile as he yanked her by the chin again. To look at him. To understand that his word was law and if she wished to succumb to a fit of assertion, dominion, hysterics, she had bets do it when he was not of a similar urge.

  "Do you believe you can speak freely of my life and habits? The girl who is pregnant in a land not her own? A girl broken the way you are? Tell me, Astrid, what possesses you to think such an insane thing?"

  She panted and shuddered against him, the hardened look she previously wore replaced by something much more exhausted, slightly pained, but nowhere near the submissive look he wanted. Resigned was perhaps a better evaluation.

  "Just do it."

  His lip curled briefly as he looked her up and down. The audacity of her was scathing, but this request that he push her to her death was entirely absurd, particularly when he'd come to terms on their union and may have even begun to look forward to it. There was no point in lashing her again, beating something that, in that moment, was too broken to comprehend why the pain was administered.

  And in truth, the ire was still riding in his blood, the need to dismiss or punish, but the mere thought of it—of leaving her in the self-depreciating state where she might go and do something horrible with herself... he found he could not bear the thought of it. Especially when he had caused it.

  He traced a thumb over the red swelter upon her cheek, watching her through a lidded gaze. The duration of which they'd been seated like this had gathered up an envelope of heat, to where he was all too aware of her meek, fragile frame, the damp, drying strands of hair that smelled of rain.

  Words of endorsement for his status and standing, tumbled back on his tongue. Rather of schooling the female in how she was to speak with him, he swallowed down his fury and said instead, "You've not had your breakfast. Surely that must be it."

  "That's not the reason," she said through a series of sniffles, a sure sign along with her quivering lower lip that she was on the verge of tears. "You'd laugh at me if I told you the real reason behind me telling you to do what you want to do with me."

  She'd never told him that precisely, but he decided to evoke her anyway, for he was a man who laughed very, very rarely. "I'll do my best to take it seriously."

  "If I make you so unhappy, if you are disgusted, then see me to my end as you desire. It pains me to see you suffering because of me. I would rather you be happy."

  "Have better regard of your words and tone and I will not be unhappy. Even so, to wish death is rather..." Dramatic. Though he couldn't bring himself to say so, knowing his own resentment of the word when passed around the royal family's dining table. "Extensive."

  She pouted, then coughed out a small sob. "You'll never feel the same way about me as I do about you."

  He took a pause to think, then he supposed she was correct. A point he wouldn't dare cede aloud. He settled for swiping her cheek once more. "You cannot speak for the future."

  "Do you know what I'm trying to say?" Her voice was soft, little over a whisper as she looked at him from the corner of her eye. The warmth had returned to those icy pools and any sense of insolence had vanished.

  He knew precisely what she was aiming for, though took no delight in it. So he diverted, a lazing finger trailing down her neckline to feather over the accessory. "You still wear this, I see."

  "Rarely do I take it off. I sleep in it too. Each night I'd kiss it, as if bidding you good night." While her voice remained delicate and small, she spoke with no hesitation nor bumbling bashfulness. "It is my most treasured possession."

  "How pitiful," he said, but he never wished for her to go without it.

  "I don't think so. It makes me very happy. The design is so beautiful, but it is second to knowing you gave it to me."

  He sat back then, eyes slipping closed, heels tapping as a means of steady consciousness. Though he had slept hours long at the inn, each second had been fitful and filled with fevered dreams. But here, the rain carrying on its symphony, the female perched upon his knee, redolent of the diamond bird upon her neck, he could too easily retreat into a moment of rest. So long as nothing changed, no messenger coming to knock upon his door and remind him of the many tasks ahead.

  And truly, he was well on his way to submitting to the desire, his breathing having slowed, his muscles having slipped into tensionless cords.

  And so what, was the princess to wait longer for breakfast then? Was she to sit as she had in the rain, waiting while the chill settled into her health and slowly dismantled it?

  The prince sat up abruptly, running a hand through his hair and instructing, "You are to change into your clothing for the day and we will see about the morning's meal and your preventive soup. And if you are not too irksome, you can join me for the day's activities. How does that sound?"

  She stumbled slightly, having been jolted from his lap, though her smile was wide and bright as he remembered it. "Prince Tristian, that sounds lovely."

  With that, it seemed the former dispute had crumpled and wilted, and he thought with a vague hopefulness that perhaps the remainder of the day would be as easy.

  24

  ~ ASTRID ~

  The temptation to rush was resisted in favour of safer, more dignified steps. She had dressed with a sense of urgency, for she most certainly did not wish to see him wait long for her return. Each dress she had worn since her arrival in Redthorn appeared to get tighter still and she wondered, when, rather than if, one would split at the seams due to her changing figure. Regardless of the slight strain in the fabric around her middle, she rather liked the gentle grey against her skin which kept a flush that seemed to be natural having spent time with the prince, along with the ache in her cheek from where he had struck her.

  She returned to his door with only her dress changed and a fresh pair of shoes upon her feet. Her hair remained loose and slightly wild around her, which she determined must be a style Prince Tristian favoured, for he had left it so following his kind help drying her.

  Perhaps such moments made her weak and blind to some of the cruel things he did to her, said to her. She would have told him the entire truth about her affections if he had not discouraged familiarity. It may have been an unwise move. If he was to reject or belittle her, it may hurt more than if she had not told him at all.

  She sighed as she lifted her fist to rap against his door. "Prince Tristian, it's me." Of course it was her. The comment was a stupid one for he was expecting her. Though, come to think of it, what else was she to say? "Astrid.
" As if the voice would belong to anyone else. Her stupidity was frequently and easily cursed.

  The door swung open almost immediately, the prince filling the doorway. He, too, had changed from his damp clothing into that which brought to question whether he were getting ready for the night or the day. His scrutinising golden gaze started from her feet and decidedly stopped on her eyes. He stepped aside for her entrance.

  She nodded her thanks before she entered. From where she stood at his side their height difference was as obvious as it had been when they met, which elicited a chuckle from her. The memory of her comparison that seemed to drive him wild played within her ears, the teasing both on matters of height and age. She decided against employing it now as she feared causing his mood to turn sour as it had done a few times previously that evening.

  Instead she looked up and grinned. "Are you sure you aren't wearing big boots?"

  He glanced down at his bare feet, then back at her. "I'm certain."

  She had followed his gaze to his feet and continued to smile when she noted that there was something quite charming about his feet, though she could not quite determine where that charm derived from. Perhaps because it was part of him, or he was so casual before her that he was not yet wearing any form of covering. She wondered if he twitched his toes as he walked, as if the five digits were doing their own little sort of dance. The urge to ask, or to simply see for herself, whether he was ticklish came to mind, but she was fairly certain she was not to move to touch him without his say so. Going straight for bare skin, especially upon his feet would likely be a grave error, though she longed for a day when it might not be.

  "And my shoes have a heel of about an inch. I hope your neck does not hurt from looking down at me."

  "Quite used to it," he murmured, casting his gaze about the bedchamber. There were no candles lit at this time, the room bathed in muggy dark and grey shadows from the windows. The only real source of lighting seemed to be that of the hearthside, where a reddish circle of firelight bloomed from the fireplace. Set beside the faintly charring wood, which she was only now beginning to smell, was a crimson clothed table that had not been present before.