Page 25 of Soul Forge

She scowled at him but didn’t push it. “I have no idea,” she answered truthfully. “Every man I meet, bar Horthan, speaks to me with respect but still manages to treat me like I’m a porcelain doll. A mindless trinket to hang on their arm. You, on the other hand, are outwardly disrespectful,andyou think I’m a fool.”

“And that’s a fact, is it?” He turned those red eyes on her, and the response lodged in her throat. “I don’t think you’re a fool. Anuisance? Definitely. But not a fool.”

“I don’t want to be a nuisance. I just want to help my people.” Something in her soft response made him sigh. His dark brows knit together, a hint of sadness turning down the corners of his mouth.

“I know, Princess.” He looked back at his clenched fist resting on the tabletop, forcing his fingers to relax. “Let’s just get through the banquet, alright?”

“Alright.” He nodded, folding his arms across his chest. The fabric of his smart jacket strained over his biceps. Elda looked back at Irileth quickly, ignoring yet another wayward squeeze of her heart.

“How long do we have to stay here?” Sypher grumbled.

“Until sunset, Your Grace,” Reiner put in, hearing his question when she approached the dais. “After that, you can leave without it being impolite. You’ll need to leave anyway to see your new living quarters.”

“What’s wrong with my current ones?” Elda asked, alarmed.

The captain’s brow puckered. “Your father didn’t explain it to you?”

“Married monarchs stay in the royal suites, Princess,” Sypher said, leaning back in his chair. “You and I are roommates.”

Elda stared around the royal suite in horror. It was beautiful,astoundinglyso, with its high ceilings, large windows, and gilded furniture. Everything was perfectly placed, from the elegant sitting room right down to the huge four poster bed in the next room. Theonlybed in the next room.

“You’ve gone green. Are you going to be sick?” Sypher was leaning against the wooden dresser with his hands in his pockets, watching her flit from one room to another in a panic.

“No!” She looked again at the bed dominating the sleeping quarters, and her heart began to pound, pulsing in her ears. Her mother’s warnings about laying with a man bounced around her mind – talks of blood and pain and losing something precious.Just lie still until it’s over.Elda had tried to forget those awful conversations, locking them away in a cage in the back of her mind. Seeing that huge bed busted the lock and blew the bars wide open, letting them run rampant through her thoughts.

“No amount of staring at it will make it disappear.” Sypher’s voice was like kindling to the fire, sending her thrumming heart into a frenzy.

“This isn’t funny!”

“Of course it is.” He pushed away from his perch and sauntered towards the bedroom, taking hold of the fabric of her skirt and tugging her along with him.Do what he says. It will hurt less.“It’s a bed. It won’t bite.”

“I’m not afraid of thebed!" she yelled, yanking herself out of his hold and scrambling backwards. There was no time for rational thought, no time to reassess whether her fear was justified. There was only the racing of her pulse and her mother’s voice dripping poison in her ears.

He studied her face, eyes narrowing dangerously. “Oh, I know, Princess.” He stalked forwards, backing her up until her shoulder blades touched the bedpost. The fire in his eyes flattened out until barely any red remained, his face an inch from hers. Even though he didn’t touch her, she wasterrified.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked, her knees threatening to fold.

“I saved your ass in that hallway,” he growled. “I saved you again at the engagement banquet. My whole existencerevolvesaround keeping you alive and safe.” Her heart tapped so hard against her ribs that she was surprised it didn’t burst through them. The edges of her vision were starting to darken. “If I wanted to live up to your low expectations of me,I would, and who would stop me?”

“Nobody,” she whispered, struggling to take a full breath. The walls began moving in around her again. Her mother was right; she was his property. She was at his mercy.

“Exactly. Let me tell you a secret.” He put his lips next to her ear, and every one of her muscles locked up. “I don’twantyou, wielder.”

He straightened up and stepped back into the shadows, leaving her alone in her new room. She slid down the bedpost and curled up, drawing her knees up to her chest. It took timefor the panic to stop clawing at her, the adrenaline fading slowly. Her hands trembled, and when she finally stood and tried to take a step, her legs threatened to buckle. Rather than risk landing face-first on the floor, she dropped onto the mattress and crooked an arm over her face, tears pricking her eyes.

She’d never felt fear like that. Fear that her saviour might end up being the one who hurt her the most. And she’d never felt more shame than she did after he disappeared, realising how it must have looked to him. He hadn’t laid a finger on her, hadn’t evenhintedat anything of that nature, but she acted like he’d spent the day undressing her with his eyes.

Maybe her fear was justified. She was a sheltered princess with very little experience of the world beyond what she’d learned on her excursions to the forest. But the things she told herself to ease her guilt didn’t erase the look in his eyes before he left her there.

She waited until the moon was almost at its apex, but he didn’t return. She changed into a nightgown, draping her wedding dress over a chair in the corner, and unpinned her hair. She kept the enchanted lamp lit on her bedside table, waiting for him to come back until her heavy eyelids betrayed her.

“Rise and shine, Princess.” Elda flinched at the loud voice and shut her eyes against the low sunlight streaming in through the crack in the curtains. The intruder responded by flinging them wide open, bathing the bed in an early morning glow.

“I didn’t ask for a wake-up call,” she muttered, sleep clinging to her too tightly to be embarrassed about being seen in her nightwear. She put her face back into the soft pillow.

“You have three seconds to get your royal ass out of bed before I kick it out,” Sypher warned, sounding bored.

“Go away.”

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