Page 65 of Fated to the Frost King

He sighed, then blinked twice before a muscle twitched in his jaw.

My next step was even slower. By the time I made it into the room, my husband was practically fuming, but I at least had found a small slice of reprieve in making him suffer. Until I scanned the room.

Singular. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, except that Draven had chosen this inn, seemed to be familiar with it, and some part of me thought they would have suites reserved for their king.

Or hoped, anyway. But this was just an average sized room for a smallish inn. Warm, clean... and cozy.

Far too cozy.

A fire roared in the hearth, and thick rugs covered the floor. A copper kettle hissed gently near the flames. And in the center, taking up most of the space, sat one average-sized bed.

Just one.

Shards damn everything.

The innkeeper shuffled awkwardly, his gaze flitting back and forth between us as he explained where we could find the thingswe needed. He cleared his throat, then swept from the room with a muttered comment about returning with dinner.

Leaving me alone with my husband. And the single bed lying in wait in the middle of the room like a frostbeast unto itself.

The silence pressed in. I deposited Batty onto a table next to a tray of winterberries that had been set out for us. She let out an excited squeak before skittering over to snack. I took a few for myself before looking around to realize I had exactly nothing productive to do. Finally, I turned to face my husband.

“Did you get a second room for yourself?” I asked, far more casually than I felt.

He blinked like I was an idiot. “Yes, because nothing keeps the people from gossip like knowing their royals can’t share a room.”

I stopped just short of reminding him that we didn’t share a room at the palace. There was a door between our quarters, so it wasn’t as though the people knew where we were spending our nights.

Not that I gave a single damn what they thought when he was likely to revisit the idea of execution once he realized that I did, in fact, have no mana. But of course, there was no convincing him of that.

“So you’re sleeping on the floor then?” I attempted, knowing full well it was in vain.

Sure enough, he scoffed outright. “No, and neither are you, for that matter.”

I opened my mouth to disagree, but he shook his head sharply.

“Mirelda might know to hold her tongue, but the same can’t be said for the servants here. They’ll be in and out to attend to us, so I’m afraid you won’t have the chance to martyr yourself for the noble cause of refusing to share a bed with your husband.”His tone left no room for argument, not that I wasn’t happy to try.

But I was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired, period. Any argument would only lead us back to here.

To us both sleeping in that shards-forsaken bed.

My heartbeat pounded in my chest with something darker than fear and far more potent. He had been given every opportunity to touch me, but he never had. He sure as hells wasn’t going to now that he knew we might create a little Hollow heir together.

Which was a relief. A comfort.

Still, a shiver crept up my spine, and Draven honed in on the motion, his eyes raking over me from head to toe.

“Still afraid of me, Morta Mea?” He stalked closer to me, effectively sucking out all of the air from the room.

He really did have a perfect face. A jaw cut from ice, eyes born of the aurora itself. Apparently, our marriage bond didn’t care that he was carting me back to my very worst nightmare. It reached for him with tendrils of longing I had to forcibly wrangle under control.

I licked my lips that were suddenly dry, from the blistering cold outside, no doubt.

“No,” I lied. “I lean closer to loathing these days.”

The smallest smirk tilted his full lips, and he stepped backward.

“You really should work on that lying habit.”

---