Maari sat next to her brother again and met his gaze through a tear-filled one of her own. She watched as Jaarod took another breath, and she could practically see him rethinking his approach. Grasping for an angle that would calm her down and bring her back into the fold. That would make her his ally, here in Loborough, even if there was only this one thing she could do for him. For the kingdom.
He lacked Orlann’s ability to think on the spot, or at least to do it subtly. But he was a politician. A negotiator by trade.
“In the entire history of Stead Delayne there has only been one person—one patriot—who made a larger sacrifice for our people than the one you're making. Obviously, that was Gareth, and the last thing our brother did before Jude removed his head from his body was ask you to do what you can as well. This is what you can do for us. This is all you can do for us, now. And no one else in the world can do it. There’s only you. You’re all we have.”
“But I can’t. Jaarod, it's impossible. Geneva’s going to kill any child I give birth to. She's going to have them smothered in their crib."
“That's bullshit. Jude would never let that happen. None of the Camdens would.”
“They can't stop her!” Maari’s eyes widened and she stood again, anxiety firing through her like sparks spewed from a bonfire. Rushing through her veins too fast to allow her to sit. She had to move. “You men may have all the power in big things, but you have no idea about the little things. About the day-to-day. You don't know how things are run. You have no clue how many opportunities there are every fucking day to send in a loyal servant. In the middle of the night. While I'm in the bathroom. While I’m eating. Or while one of them has me pinned down in the bedroom. She only needs ninety seconds, Jaarod. That's all it would take to kill my child, and I can't watch a baby all the time. No one could. Not even Jude. If she wants my child dead, she will find a way. And I can't let that happen. I'm not going to bring a baby into this world just so she can kill it.”
Her brother took a deep, slow breath, and something horrible settled behind his eyes. Something cold and starkly brutal. “I think you have to. And as difficult as this is going to be for you to hear—as difficult as it will be for Jude to hear if he's listening—it doesn't really matter whether or not Geneva kills your child. Or whether your child even makes it to term. Not to Stead Delayne.”
“What the hell are you saying?" Maari’s voice echoed with dread.
“I'm saying that this is bigger than any one person. Bigger than you. Bigger, even, than your hypothetical child. All that really matters here is that you do not default on your obligation. As long as you do what you agreed to, the council will not approve an allied invasion of Bannon, and Jude’s hands will be tied. There are official terms in play. All twelve kingdoms signed the peace accord, and those terms were negotiated very carefully. They require you conceive a child by one of the Camden princes. That child is not required to live. You're not even required to deliver it, technically. You just have to get pregnant.”
“Gods below…” A chill settled into the pit of Maari’s belly, spreading steadily up her torso and down her limbs, until gooseflesh rose on her arms and legs. “Jude knows this? Of course he knows this. He signed the accord, right?”
“Yes.”
“But he wants me to have children. He’s designed an entire nursery. He talks about it all the time.”
“What he wants and what is required by the accord are two different things. As long as you get pregnant, the council will not grant an allied force for an invasion of our kingdom, because the bloodlines will have been merged. Whether or not the child lives.”
Maari blinked at her brother, struggling to process what she was hearing. “So, you want me to get pregnant, only to end my pregnancy? Or to give birth and resign myself to the very real probability that Geneva will kill my child? How am I supposed to do that?” How would such a horrible thing even be possible?
Jaarod shrugged. “I don't claim to be an expert in women's matters. Maybe you could just…harden your heart to the entire event. Don't think of it as a child. Think of it as a tumor you hope to have removed. That way if it lives, you will have a pleasant surprise, and if it doesn't, you’ve already prepared yourself for the worst-case scenario.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she snapped. “How can I feel my child moving inside me for months and just accept the fact that I won’t get to keep it?”
Another shrug. “Not every woman wants children, so that must be possible.”
“I am not those women! I do want children; I just don’t want them under these circumstances. And I don’t know how to work around that. I don't know how to make my body ovulate if I don't want to conceive! I’ve already told you that!”
“Okay. I see the problem.”
Maari scowled at him. “I don’t care whether or not you see the problem. My problems do not get easier to deal with just because you finally understand them!”
Jaarod’s expression softened, almost imperceptibly. “This one might. If you truly have a reliable way of preventing conception—”
“At this point, I don’t know how to stop preventing it.”
“—there may be a way to keep Stead Delayne safe without risking the death or miscarriage of your child.”
“How?” She didn’t dare believe him. She couldn’t allow herself that much hope.
“There’s a time limit. They can’t just hold you here indefinitely, with no result. They only have nine more months. They don't want you to know that, but it's true.”
Maari swiped her cheeks with both hands, but tears still clung to her lashes, magnifying the world unevenly. “What are you talking about?"
“They only have a year, from the day they took you; that's one of the terms of the peace accord. They have one year to get you pregnant, and more than three months of that have already elapsed.”
Hope blossomed inside her, like a delicate bloom opening in weak sunlight. “What happens after a year, if they can’t get me pregnant?”
Jaarod shrugged. “As far as the council’s concerned, they’ll have taken Gareth’s head and your body, and peace will have been earned. The price paid. At the end of that year, if you've given them a child or gotten pregnant, they get to keep you. If not, you return—albeit ruined—to Stead Delayne.”
“Merciful gods…” No wonder Jude seemed so desperate. If he couldn’t get her pregnant, he had to give her up, and he’d been on a deadline the whole time! “The bastards never told me!”
“Of course not. They were under no obligation to.”
“May the gods curse them all!” How could she trust any kindness from any of them, when they’d been lying to her—or at least withholding the truth—the whole time? Even Orlann and Jude, who’d seemed to pride themselves on not misleading her, as Malac tended to.
“So, maybe we should think of this as a temporary sentence for you,” Jaarod said. “Rather than the beginning of a new life. Nine more months, and you may actually get to come home…”
Maari started to smile. She could feel the corners of her mouth turning up, the apples of her cheeks bunching at the lower edges of her vision. Relief shone like a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel her soul had become—
Then that light died, plunging her back into the infinite darkness she’d been mired in since the moment she’d woken up in Loborough.
Jaarod frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“It won’t work,” she whispered. “It can’t. He says that if I intentionally refuse to conceive, he’ll consider that a breach of my obligation, and he’ll march across Bannon. He says the council will support that. Is he right?”
“Fuck.” Jaarod looked like he really wished he were holding a glass of whiskey. “If they know you’re preventing conception on purpose, then yes. You agreed to be bred. We all signed on for those terms.”
Maari resisted the urge to point out that she hadn’t signed anything.
“Being unable to conceive
is one thing, but refusing to—using an inherited gift to thwart your obligation…”
“And he’s heard all of this,” she whispered, her gaze rising to the ceiling, where the cameras were presumably hidden. “So he knows, now, that I have no reason to want to conceive.”
“Yes, if he brings that complaint to the council before his year is up, they may very well give him his allied army.” Jaarod swiped one hand through his dark hair, and Maari could practically see her brother grasping at straws. Trying to find a loophole or an exception. “But what would that do for him?” he asked at last, and she couldn’t be sure whether he was speaking to himself or to her. “What would Jude get out of razing Bannon? He’s already won the war. Does he really need to destroy our entire kingdom, just because he can?”
Maari sighed, as understanding finally settled into her soul. “I don’t think it has anything to do with Bannon. Or with avenging his father’s death. I think it may be more personal, for him.” She heaved another long, slow exhalation, and this one seemed to empty her entire body. “If he destroys my home, I’ll have nowhere else to go, even if he can’t get me pregnant.”
15
Jude
Jude threw Maari’s front doors open again, and she practically leapt off the couch, leaving her brother—the rival king—alone on the center cushion. She stood with her hands clasped in front of her, eyes wide with surprise, and he could practically hear her heart pounding as she took in his anger.
Jaarod turned, but he made no move to stand or otherwise acknowledge his host’s arrival.
Unacceptable! Jude struggled to control his temper, despite having vented—raged—at Malac, all the way to his concubine’s suite. She was his. His! Stead Delayne gave her up fair and square, and her brother had no right to conspire with her now, for her freedom. To undercut the peace accord and deprive Jude of what he’d damn well earned.
The king of Stead Camden marched into his concubine’s suite as if he owned the place. Which, of course, he did. Malac remained in the doorway behind him, eyeing the small security contingent from Stead Delayne as he backed up his brother. “Well, I hope you've had a nice talk,” Jude said, his tone leaving no doubt that the visit had reached its end.
And finally, Jaarod stood, acknowledging that fact. “We have.”
“Malac will escort you back to the guest suite, where I’m sure your sister-in-law is growing weary of her solitude. Please extend my apologies for the fact that we have no one to keep her company, with Geneva feeling under the weather and my sisters at school.”
“I want to see her.” Maari’s hands were clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone pale, her gaze trained on Jude while she tried, blatantly, to assess his mood. “I’ve changed my mind. I want to see her."
“I'm sure she'll be glad to hear that," Jude said. “Jaarod, will you please let Clare know that I will send someone for her in an hour, to bring her to see Maari."
"Of course," Jaarod said.
“Why not now?" Maari looked from Jude to Malac and back. “I'm ready now."
“One hour," Jude reiterated.
Maari frowned, but held her tongue.
“Before I go…” Jaarod reached into his jacket pocket, and Malac stormed into the room, his hand on the pistol at his waist, despite the fact that the visiting king had already been scanned for weapons, multiple times. The two Delayne soldiers rushed in after him, and for one blistering second, as tension gripped the room, Jude expected shots to be fired. He started to shove Maari behind him, already mentally preparing to explain this international incident—the rekindling of the flames of war—to the council.
Then Jaarod produced a small, leather-covered box from his pocket and held it out to his sister, as if he hadn’t noticed the anxiety his sudden motion had triggered. “I brought you something.” Maari gave him a curious look as she accepted the box and opened it. “It was our mother’s. Do you remember it?”
Even to Jude, the answer seemed obvious from her stunned expression.
"She was wearing it when she died.” Tears filled Maari’s eyes as she stared down at the delicate silver ring in the box, its green stone shining brightly in the light. “I thought they buried it with her.”
Jaarod shrugged, and it was obvious he didn’t have the same memory of his mother’s jewelry, even though he’d been older when she’d died. “Evidently, she intended for it to go to you, as a wedding gift. The royal estate executor brought it to me when you didn't return from Saintton. When he found out you would no longer be marrying Elan Edgar.” Jaarod cleared his throat and leveled an accusatory glance at Jude before turning back to his sister. As if he’d had nothing to do with keeping Maari in Loborough. “Clare and I thought you should have it anyway.”
Jude snorted. He had little doubt that Clare, alone, had made that suggestion, but Maari seemed to need to believe that her brother truly wanted her to have the token. That he’d intended to provide comfort, with the reminder of their mother.
Jude’s scowl deepened as he watched his concubine stare tearfully at the ring—at a gift he had not given her. Maybe he should remove it from her possession. She seemed convinced that when her brother and sister-in-law left, she would suffer the fresh loss intensely. Her mental state could be worsened with a reminder of her mother—of her childhood—so close at hand, and further emotional stress would not help her conceive.
But he could make that decision later. After he’d dealt with the immediate issue.
“Thank you.” Maari snapped the box closed and threw her arms around her brother, an action that set Jude’s teeth on edge. She hated Jaarod; he knew that for a fact. Yet one small ring from her brother was enough to earn her forgiveness, when Jude couldn’t even pull a simple smile from her, after giving her everything—every single thing—he could think of.
When he cleared his throat conspicuously, his concubine released her brother, who didn’t truly seem to know how to respond to the embrace. “Thank you for coming. And for bringing this,” she said, clutching the ring box.
“Close the door on your way out,” Jude added without looking back at either his brother or hers, as the Defense Commander ushered the visiting king toward the hallway.
“See you soon, princess,” Malac promised their concubine as he closed the double doors. He was not smiling.
“You're mad,” Maari said, as she turned to Jude. “Both of you.”
“Yes, we are.” He took a step toward her, and an angry thrill shot down his spine when she backed away from him.
“Because Jaarod told me about the deadline?"
“Because you plan to wield that against me like a weapon,” he growled, taking another step. “Because you and your brother were conspiring to deprive me of the concubine that the council gave me fair and square.”
“We weren't conspiring,” she insisted, retreating another step. “He was just giving me advice. He's still my brother, you know.”
“He's my political rival, which makes him your political rival—”
“No.”
“—because you belong to me." Why was that so fucking hard for her to understand?
Maari blinked at him, and he could see the silent struggle being waged behind her eyes. She was angry too, but she seemed to be weighing the pros and cons of airing that anger, in the face of his own. “Why didn't you tell me about the deadline?” she asked at last.
“I am under no obligation to tell you anything. And the deadline isn’t relevant. A year may as well be a decade, for all it matters to you, because you will be pregnant within the next nine months.” Jude stalked toward her, his eyes flashing with a vicious need that was more than just lust. More than just possessive intent, though that was certainly part of it.
Maari backed away from him, her eyes wide and worried. “I want to see Clare.”
“In an hour."
“I want to see her now." She backed around the sofa, flinching when she grazed her knee on the coffee table.
“You are not in charge
.” Jude stalked steadily toward her. “Come here."
“No! You lied to me, and I want—”
His temper flared, sharpening his tone. “I never lied to you."
“—to see Clare. You withheld the truth. That's the same thing as lying."
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
She glanced over her shoulder, then she backed into the dining area, her arms held out at her sides in a defensive posture, the ring box still clutched in her fist. “What if I want to argue? What if I want to yell at you? What if I want to punch you right in the balls for what you did? For not telling me the truth?”
“You're welcome to try.” He followed her past the sitting area, his fingers itching to seize handfuls of her flesh, his cock an aching length trapped against his zipper. "Do not make me chase you, Maari.”
She glanced out the glass door into the garden, as if she really wanted to flee into it. To slam the door on him and hold it shut. But Jude would easily be able to force the door open, and then she would be cornered in the walled-in space, and his cock hardened even further as he watched her come to that conclusion.
Wisely, Maari edged along the glass wall, skimming it with her fingers as she backed toward the staircase. “Jude…” Her voice held an edge of warning, which he ignored entirely. She was the one in the wrong here, conspiring against him in his own home! A mistake she would have to pay for.
A lesson she must learn…
Finally, Maari spun around and raced for the second floor. Pulse pounding in exhilaration, Jude chased her up the steps and caught her around the waist on the landing, effortlessly lifting her from her feet while she shrieked. Holding her against his body, so that she could feel the threat—the promise—of his hard length against her.
“You don't belong to Stead Delayne anymore,” he growled into her hair, while she fought his grip. While he pried the ring box from her hand. “You're mine. Part of Stead Camden. A member of this household. And you will not conspire with your brother—or with any other member of any other stead—against me.”
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