Page 33 of Married By Treachery

Raquel spotted a bucket of rotten root vegetables, grabbed an armful, and dumped it before Vizzi.

Vizzi stomped a foot.

“It’s not my favorite either,” Raquel continued, “but it’s better than nothing, and you need to eat.”

Vizzi snorted at the bucket.

“Well, you can take that up with your master.”

Vizzi whinnied.

“Yes, I know he’s a pompous ass.”

Jake cleared his throat.

Raquel looked up, startled, and that gorgeous color splotched her cheeks.

“Now, is that any way to speak of your betrothed?” Jake drawled.

Raquel snatched the bucket off the ground with a huff. “If mybetrothedexpects to be praised, he might consider behaving in a way that’s praiseworthy.”

“Oh, you mean like valiantly running after his beloved and saving her from being ripped to shreds by Depraved?”

Raquel strode to the water tap, set the bucket upon the ground, and pumped water into the empty pail. “Don’t pretend that had”—pump— “anythingto do with valor. You only saved my life because you”—another pump— “need me to stop whatever is plaguing your land. Not out of the goodness of”—yet another pump—“a heart you don’t have.”

Jake grinned. He couldn’t seem to help it when he was around her. “That’s quite enough water, my beloved. You’re going to drown poor old Vizzi.”

Raquel stopped pumping and looked at Jake. Her hands still gripped the lever, her cheeks were pink with exertion, and her blue eyes shone as clear and brilliant as the sky. Tendrils of hair curled about her face, dirt stained her hem and hands, and Jake had never seen a sight more lovely.

The pain in his chest nearly doubled him over.

“Andyou’regoing to kill him if you keep running him like this,” she snapped. “For one who prizeslivingabove all else, I would expect you’d take better care of your possessions.”

Jake regarded her. “You’re right. Next time, I’ll board up your windows.”

Raquel’s nostrils flared, and she went back to pumping water. Jake flitted two fingers, and the lever started pumping on its own accord.

Raquel fought with the lever, but to no avail. “Would you stop?”

“I’m trying to help you, beloved.”

“I don’t…want your…help. And stop calling me beloved!” Raquel finally let go, flustered and arms akimbo as the lever pumped autonomously, slowly filling the bucket. “Let me do this!”

“Why, when magik can do the work?”

“But Iwantto do the work!”

Jake scoffed. “No onewants to work.”

Raquel stomped toward him and stood right in his personal space, making him feel a sudden onslaught of very powerful things he could not identify. “That’s the problem with you. Withallyour kind. So puffed-up on your magik. As if it makes you so much better and wiser than the rest of ussimple mortalsand ourpathetic ideals. And look what all your magik has gotten you: a rotten land full of monsters and bleeding trees. So forgive me if I trust the work of my own hands over all the magik of a people who couldn’t even use it to save their own kingdom.”

Jake leaned in close, their faces mere inches apart. Her freckles were darker when she was angry. Or maybe they just stood out more against her angry flush, and he felt the sudden urge to continue what he’d started last night, though he was very aware of Rian—and now Banon—watching them. “Careful, my beloved.” Truthfully, he didn’t know if the warning was for her or for himself.

“Or what?” Her blue eyes stormed with conviction.

Jake couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a storm. A real, actual storm with brooding clouds and booming thunder, but he thought that if a storm could ever manifest itself as a person, it would come as Raquel. It would defy nature with its fury, inspire awe with its brilliance.

Destroy everything he had so carefully constructed.

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