Page 111 of A Pact of Blood

Marclinus hums and stops our current dance to lean in to kiss me. The feel of his lips leaves me cold, but I can’t help noticing that he’s taking the same gentler approach he did a couple of nights ago rather than shoving his tongue down my throat.

Now that he’s put me in my place, is this new, lessaggressive version of passion supposed to make up for all his other violence?

I don’t need to say anything else. At the end of the song, Marclinus twines his fingers with mine and leads me out of the ballroom. I match his smooth strides through the hallways, glad that I held off on imbibing the fertility potion tonight.

I’d rather not have to deal with any unwelcome desire inside me when I’m with a man who’s done so little to earn it.

As we push past my bedroom door, the little ball of black-and-brown-striped fur I adopted yesterday bounds over to meet us with a mew of greeting. I bend down to give the tabby kitten a quick scratch along her jaw.

Marclinus considers the animal with bemusement. “You didn’t have enough company already?”

“A pet is a different sort of company.” I lift my arms to loop them around his neck, letting my ring graze the skin at the nape. I want my drug taking hold of his mind as quickly as possible tonight. “But not the sort of company I’m looking for when my husband is here with me.”

His grin comes back. He walks me over to the bed, tugging up the skirt of my dress as he does, massaging my bare thigh beneath it. “I’ll see that my wife is left wanting for nothing, then.”

He busies himself with more kisses, working from my mouth down my neck to my chest. Before he’s even bared my breasts, his eyes glaze over with the hallucinatory haze.

We’ve gone through these motions so often that I barely need to think about it now. Put on a bit of a show to direct his delusions, clean him up afterward, and tuck him into bed, tonight with a dose of sedative.

When I walk across the room to my trunks, the kittentrundles along beside me. I sink down on the floor and let her hop onto my lap.

“You’ll help me with him too,” I tell her in a hushed voice. “We’ll see what we can brew together.”

If I’m going to be inciting some wild animal against him, I’ll need a test subject for my potions. I can hardly go experimenting on anyone else’s pets without raising questions.

We’ll start small. I don’t want to hurt this sweet creature.

I let her snuggle in my lap for several minutes, contemplating different names I could give her, and then scoop her up to set her on the rumpled blanket she’s claimed as her bed.

The fertility potion goes down easier the second time, in part because I’m taking a smaller dose. I didn’t like how much it affected my self-control last time.

If I need to make another batch next month, I’ll have to focus my gift away from the aphrodisiac implications of my purpose.

At the bell for the twelfth hour, I give the kitten one last pat, cast a glance toward Marclinus to confirm he’s slumbering as deeply as I expected, and head out into the garden.

I pad along the path through the cooling air, even more cautious than last time. Every sound that reaches my ears makes my heartbeat stutter. But I catch no sign that anyone beyond a few birds has ventured into the private inner garden.

I ease close to the dividing wall, knowing Raul won’t want to extend his shadowy powers very far into the imperial area. I warned the princes that the guards might wander the gardens away from their employer sometimes.

No reassuring voice carries into my head, but apurposeful gust of breeze whisks around my torso. That’s my cue to prepare for the larger force.

I brace myself with a giddy hitch of my pulse. The air rushes up beneath me like it did the other night, propelling me up above the wall as if I’m flying.

I glide down on the other side even more gracefully than before. Bastien lowers his arms with my descent and then steps forward to wrap those arms around me.

He’s standing in the small clearing by the wall alone. As I hug him back, an anxious pang resonates through my nerves. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” he says hastily. “As much as it ever is. Lorenzo and Raul are fine.”

He pauses, drawing back a few inches. In the dimness, a blush darkens his pale cheeks. “You’ve stolen moments with both of them when it was just the two of you. You and I have never really had that. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I wanted this time to be just us. They’re keeping watch farther off in the garden, making sure no one stumbles on this spot.”

A different sort of pang echoes through my chest at the uncertainty in his tone. Some part of him is still afraid he isn’t enough for me. That what we share isn’t just as treasured as the love I’ve found with his foster brothers.

I cup his cheek, beaming up at him. “I don’t think it’s selfish at all. I only wish I could have all the time in the world to spend with each of you, on our own and all together, without having to worry.”

Bastien dips his head closer to mine again, his breath grazing the side of my face with its heat. “If we can see through everything we mean to, then someday… I used to imagine after the empire fell, I’d travel around the continent in honor of my godlen, spreading the truth about the horrors Dariu dealt out and sharing stories from the countries who’ve been under their thumb for so long. To be that free…”

When he trails off, I tip my face to nuzzle his jaw. “You used to? Not anymore?”

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