Page 116 of A Pact of Blood

Great God help me, I can’t conceal a flinch.

My husband nips the sensitive skin he’s just mauled and lifts his head to peer down at me with a smile that’s just shy of a sneer. “Do you have some objection to demonstrating our love in front of our friends, wife?”

If he calls this love, I’d shudder to think what he’d consider hate.

I dip my head in what I hope looks like modesty. “I’m sorry. You know how eagerly I welcome your attentions. Butthere are certain intimacies I thought we’d keep just between us. It feels more special that way.”

At the edge of my vision, I can see Bianca watching us with widened eyes. My gut clenches with the thought that she might provide an alternate explanation—a figure that might have diverted my interest.

Thank all that’s holy, her mouth remains tightly shut.

I know my excuse was flimsy, but something shifts in Marclinus’s expression. If anything, his grin gets sharper. “My poor modest empress. We’ll need to cure you of that bashfulness. But I suppose I could allow you to ease into this sort of fun so it’ll be all the more enjoyable later.”

He glances around the room, his eyes as hard and glittering as the crystal fixtures overhead. “Why don’t we start with just an audience of those who are almost family? Come along, my foster brothers. You can be honored as our first spectators.”

He sweeps me off the table into his arms without missing a beat. I spot Bastien by the end of the table, frozen in a rigid stance. When Marclinus jerks his head toward the doorway, the prince of Cotea shoves to his feet.

My husband strides out the doorway with only a brusque, “You too. All of you.” My stomach sinks farther at the glimpse of white-blond hair as another figure springs up.

He’s dragging even Neven into this horrible spectacle.

Marclinus carries me down the hall. I tuck my head against his chest as if out of shyness, but mostly it’s an attempt to steady myself.

Nausea bubbles at the base of my throat. Where is he going to conduct this “fun”?

I don’t dare say a word to try to guide him. It seems more likely he’ll do the opposite of what I suggest than listen.

The princes tramp along behind us, silent other than the creak of the floor beneath their feet.

Imagining what they must be thinking floods me with a sickly heat, shame and fear mixed together in a noxious stew.

I don’t know whether it’ll be easier or harder for them to control their instinctive protectiveness when we’re away from the rest of the court. They still can’t attack Marclinus without the worst of consequences. His guards and mine are trailing farther behind our entourage.

When Marclinus pushes through another doorway, my glance around brings the first whisper of relief.

He’s taken us into his own bedroom in the waystation. A couple of his trunks sit at the foot of the four-poster bed.

The guards will wait outside the door like they always do. We have no witnesses except the princes he’s forced to observe.

Marclinus glances over his shoulder. “Enjoy the show,brothers.” The sneer in his voice makes a mockery of the last word.

He all but tosses me onto the bed. I flick my thumb across my ring as I reach for him and brush my fingers against the side of his neck.

As Marclinus clambers over me, he hauls my dress right off. The princes remain four motionless figures by the wall at the edge of my vision, but even there, I can see Raul’s hands ball into fists, Bastien’s shoulders stiffen.

They don’t know exactly how I’ve handled my husband in the past. They don’t know for sure that I’m already handling him now. If they leap to my defense…

I flick my fingers by Marclinus’s side in a couple of hasty gestures.I’m okay. Wait.

I don’t dare look at my lovers. I try not to even think of them as more shame curdles in my gut.

Marclinus paws his hand down my side. “You are mine,” he says, just shy of a snarl. “Everyone should know it.Everyone should see it. You don’t get to say when or how I take you.”

The lies scrape across my tongue like dull blades. “I’m yours. I’ll keep doing my best to serve you however you need.”

“That’s right.” He wrenches off my chemise and bites the tip of my breast harshly enough that I gasp in pain.

Either he takes the sound as pleasure instead, or he was going for pain in the first place. He mouths my other breast just as roughly and shoves his hand between my legs over my drawers.

---