Page 49 of Seized to Sacrifice
He glanced at his bed to find Leia lounging there. He gave her a slow perusal. He’d been taking her to his bed for months. Had that blinded him to her true nature? As he looked at her now, he found that he was no longer interested in what lay between her thighs.
‘Yes,’ he said, leaving it at that.
‘Will you not join me?’ she asked, letting her legs fall open.
He didn’t look at her. ‘No.’
She got up slowly from the bed, seemingly undeterred, letting her dress fall to the floor in front of him and getting on her knees. ‘I could—'
‘No,’ he said, glaring down at her and slapping her hands away when they began unlacing his breeches.
The look on his face made her pause and her eyes widened in artful innocence. ‘I don’t know what the slave and your friend have been saying, but it was simply a misunderstanding. I’m sure that we can—’
‘No. We can’t,’ he said coldly.
‘Why are you protecting her?’ Leia said sharply. ‘All the servants know she did something to Eruk. Somethingunnatural. We know what she is.’
She stood up, boldly staring Rye in the face. ‘It would beterribleif someone from Evesmere was to hear that you were harboring a witch here,’ she hissed. ‘With the way everything is at the moment, the townsfolk would likely burn this entire keep to the ground before even speaking to you about it lest your witch curse them further.’
Suddenly furious, he grabbed Leia by the throat and picked her up so that her toes were just touching the floor.
She struggled in his grasp, scratching at his hands, and he enjoyed the terror that alit in her countenance.
‘You have the gal to threatenme?’ His lip curled into a sneer. ‘You’re a spiteful woman, Leia, and I let you continue with your silly manipulations because it made no odds to me. In truth, you amused me at first, but you play at games you don’t understand,’ he ground out. ‘We had some enjoyable times, but if you think forone momentthat I would stomach any threats from you, or that I would take your word above either of my Brothers’ then you’re more of a fool than I thought.’
He let her go and she fell to the ground, wheezing, He turned away, not sparing her another glance, half-afraid he’d work a conjure and do something awful to her in his anger.
‘Nyx has dismissed you. Now, here’s my promise and I suggest you take it much more seriously than I did your little threats. You and Rosalie had better be gone frommykeep by the morning, never to return, or I will take you to Evesmere myself and sell you both to the nastiest looking slavers heading into the breach that I can find. It’s your choice.’
Leia got to her feet, hatred and fear twisting her face. She grabbed her dress from the floor and left the room without another word.
Rye sighed. Finishing it with Leia was a weight off his shoulders that he hadn’t known was there. Their dalliance had been finished for some time, he realized. He just hadn’t noticed that he felt nothing for her at all … until he’d brought Elle here.
He thought about her in Nyx’s room, sated and well-pleasured. He should be angry at Nyx, but all he could drum up was envy that the most he'd been able to do was hurt her, while Nyx, from the scent of her that permeated his chamber, had spent the entire afternoon making her shake with bliss.
He imagined doing the same, the things he would do, the play that he would keep up for hours until she’d come so many times that it rendered her insensible.
He was trying to hold onto his hatred, but it was dissipating. How he could begin to forgive so suddenly after all this time, he didn’t know, but he was.
CHAPTER7
NYX
Nyx spent the rest of the day altering some of his clothes for Elle so that she would have something to wear for their journey besides the chemise that Rye had found for her.
He slept next to her that night in the bed and, with her curled up next to him, it was the most restful sleep he’d had in this realm. It felt comfortable and the lonely void inside of himself that he’d felt for so long didn’t seem so vast.
But in the middle of the night when everything was dark, the keep began to shake. Both of them opened their eyes at the same moment.
Elle sat upright with a gasp. ‘What’s happening?’
‘A quake,’ he said. ‘They happen every few days.’
‘Are we safe?’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Rye put ancient wards in place long ago. It’ll take more than a little shaking to destroy this keep.’
She clutched her chest, making a sound of distress.
