Page 9 of Fragile Oath

“Did you say something to her?” I practically growled, my breaths billowing out in the frosty air like clouds of smoke.

There was an arsenal of personal history between us. Sordid and damning, and exactly the sort of fuel Fiona could use to set fire to my relationship with Galina if she had truly wanted to.

She tsked, shaking her head as if my accusation disappointed her.

“Honestly, Davin, if she left you, that is entirely on you,” she said coolly. “Besides, it would be terribly gauche for me to kiss and tell, don’t you think?”

I considered her words, wondering whether or not she was telling the truth. Fiona rarely missed an opportunity to gloat, and this would have been a prime opportunity for her to do so.

Sighing, I clenched my fists, torn somewhere between relief and anger. Would it have been better to have Fiona to blame? Was it worse knowing that I couldn’t?

My heart pounded with uncertainty as I stepped into the waiting carriage, leaving Fiona and all the information she shouldn't have behind in the shadows. The last thing I needed was another enigma in this already maddening puzzle.

ChapterFive

GALINA

True to his word,Alexei didn’t touch me again. At least, not intimately.

He was still quick to stop my hands if I fidgeted, or roughly grip my chin to force my attention back to his if I dared let it wander. But every night, he turned his back while I bathed and changed and left me to my silence while I ate the food he ordered me.

I had never been more grateful for the Lochlannian gowns that allowed me to undo my corset with ease, an impossible feat in a Socairan one.

None of it was a true relief, though, not with our wedding day looming closer with each turn of the carriage wheels, each mile that carried me farther from Lithlinglau Estate.

It didn’t help that we hadn’t rested for long. Not that I could have slept well, regardless, but there were nights where we didn’t stop except to swap out the horses and occasionally our carriage.

Gone were the smells of the festival. In their place, the scent of Alexei’s aftershave became more potent and cloying, especially when he insisted on pulling me closer to rest against him whenever I nodded off in the carriage. He would pull me against his arm or shift to the side of his carriage so my head lay on his leg. Never improper, always cushioned by one of the furs while he covered me with another.

I might never understand his warped sense of honor. Though I supposed I had a lifetime now to figure it out.

Whenever we stopped at inns for a few precious hours of sleep, I would lay awake, waiting for the steady sound of his breathing while debating the relative merits of murdering him in his sleep.

Could I do it? Even if his death wouldn’t result in my parents’ deaths, could I bring myself to slide a knife between a sleeping man’s ribs, the same man who hurt me and shielded me in equal turn? My parents would be safe once we were married and back in Socair. Could I wait to poison him then, as I suspected Jocelyn had done to her first husband?

Or would he have broken me so thoroughly by then that I wouldn't even have the nerve to try?

I could only distract myself with those thoughts for so long before thoughts of Davin crept in, as I knew they would. It was easier to keep them at bay in the carriage, but at night, with Alexei’s breaths too harsh and too loud, his body too large and too heavy, the wrongness of it seeped through to my bones.

All I could see was what Davin’s face must have looked like when he walked into my empty room. The way his eyes would have scanned his surroundings, his brilliant brain working to put the pieces together. His deft fingers running through his hair.

Was he worried? Furious? Resigned?

Hurt, definitely. Even if I hadn’t just promised to marry him, my leaving had put him at risk of losing his home, not to mention the reputation he had worked so hard to salvage. He must hate me now.

I swallowed a lump in my throat, reminding myself what this was all for.

He was alive. So were my parents. And that would have to be enough. Someday, he would move on and marry another, have a relationship with someone who could love him in an uncomplicated way, like Gracie MacBay.

And I would be…with Alexei.

Something dark unfurled inside of me, clawing at my insides and threatening to burst through my skin. Perhaps I was capable of murder, after all.

Perhaps it wouldn’t take very much at all to push me over that edge.

* * *

Tendrils of exhaustionwrapped themselves around me. Every step felt heavier than the last and the lack of sleep was catching up to me.

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