Page 69 of Rise of a Fallen Man

“Is sex the only thing that matters?”

He leaned even closer, staring me down.

“At this moment,” he hissed through his teeth with force, “for this marriage to be valid, yes, sex is the most important thing that needs to happen.”

I kept my back straight, refusing to cower, but my composure wavered in the face of his aggression. Alarm stirred my anxiety, urging me to flee, but I forced myself not to move.

Anger seemed like a perfect weapon to combat fear. I could let it loose and lash out, but I reined it in. Taking a deep breath in, I clasped my hands and counted my heartbeats until their pounding in my head subsided.

“You married me out of fear of your mother, Leafar, and to please your aunt,” I said calmly. “Both are very wrong reasons to tie your life to a stranger.”

He huffed in my face.

“What were your reasons for marrying me, Your Highness?”

A white-hot whip of anger slashed through me, but his question was valid.

Morally, I held no higher ground over Leafar. My reasons for marrying gave me no right to look down at him. I married togain a political advantage for Rorrim and to grow my power in council.

“Why did you even propose to me if you refuse to have me now?” His bottom lip slipped out in that spoiled kid expression that I found rather irritating.

But Leafar was right, I had proposed to him. I’d chosen him over every other man in this world to be my husband. And within days, our marriage was already unraveling.

Guilt twisted painfully in my chest. I had to put more effort into making this work.

Swallowing my anger and irritation, I attempted a peace offering. “I... I can find a few minutes this afternoon. Would you like to have tea with me? I’ll have it served on the main patio downstairs. It’s a lovely day. You can finally meet my dog. Ria. She’s the cutest.”

I smiled. If only he would smile back at me to complete this thin, shaky bridge of a connection I tried to construct between us.

Sadly, his sulky expression deepened.

“The place where you should meet me is in my bedroom.” He turned away from me and opened the window of the carriage, which effectively ended our conversation, since with the window open, everyone outside the carriage could hear us.

The smile slowly died on my lips.

Leafar felt scared, and he blamed me for it. By rejecting my every attempt at reconciliation, he thought he was punishing me for not letting him have his way. It was childish from him. But Leafar hadn’t been an adult for that long yet. In this relationship, I was the mature one.

My frustration with Leafar bubbled into anger against his family. They had molded him into a shape that suited them, and they never stopped pressuring and intimidating him even now when he was a married man.

The urge to turn this carriage around and march into the grand duchess’s room right now to demand she stop intimidating her nephew burned through me. The only thing that stopped me was Leafar’s plea not to antagonize his aunt. He knew her better than I did and had a better idea about how far her vindictiveness could go. I couldn’t risk her delaying her departure for Olalrez. No one would win from that.

I had to think of a diplomatic approach to deal with the duchess, one that wouldn’t inadvertently hurt Leafar or deteriorate our relationship with Olakrez to the point of war.

A part of me wished I could just go to his bedroom tonight, take his clothes off, and do what everyone wanted me to do, even if all of them watched if they so wished.

But even if I were capable of such an action, any intimacy between Leafar and me felt unthinkable now. The pressure had grown into coercion and manipulation, killing whatever feelings I could’ve had for him as a man and a partner. If I attempted sex with him now, I feared I’d break down again, like I did that night with Salas. Except that this time, there wouldn’t be the circle of Salas’s supportive arms to help me become whole again. There’d be no safety of his understanding, either.

Fear crushed me at the thought of being vulnerable in front of people who might mock me for my weakness. I had no trust in Leafar and didn’t count on his support. With him, I had to be the strong one. His respect for me depended on my showing no weaknesses. And without his respect, I feared that our marriage would not survive.

In the days since our wedding, I’d hoped Leafar and I would grow closer. I never expected us to drift even further apart. We were no longer strangers. But the more I got to know him, the less I felt connected to him in any way.

THE ROAD TO THE GLADIATORS’Games Arena was decorated with banners hanging from every streetlight along the way. And on every one of those banners was a picture of Salas.

In all the pictures, he was wearing his costume of the fur cape and the crudely constructed helmet with animal horns and thick rivets. The visor of the helmet concealed most of his face, leaving only a feral scowl of white teeth framed by his wild beard. His eyes in the slits of the visor were replaced by a red glow, further making him appear like a wild beast or some manic demon on the loose.

Through the open window of the carriage, the clamor of the people on the road to the arena reached Leafar and me.

Children jumped around one of the streetlight poles, pointing at the picture of the Mountain Bear on the banner.

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