Page 28 of The Traitor's Curse
Benedict stared down at me for a startled instant, and I knew the footmen were pricking up their ears and holding their breath, eager to catch every word. While we’d both done a fair job of pretending to cordiality and respect in public, everyone at court knew there was no love lost. And whispers would already be spreading after Benedict’s uncharacteristic appearance by my throne today.
These two footmen would be able to trade their story for drinks from the palace kitchens to the servants’ quarters of every lord’s and lady’s residence in the city. By morning, they’d be drunker than even Benedict usually managed.
Benedict pulled his arm away and dropped into his own chair across from me, brows drawn together, eyes fixed on me intently.
“You can go,” he said to the footmen, and I had to smother a laugh at a quickly suppressed sound of disappointment from one of them. But I couldn’t look at them; I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Benedict’s smoldering gaze. “I’ll pour and carve.”
“Yes, my lord,” and “Very good, my lord,” and they were leaving, the doorknob rattling—which gave me only a moment to really drive it home.
“If you would be so kind, Lord Benedict,” I said, “serve me generously.” I leaned back in my chair, settling myself luxuriously, imagining that I was one of those sybarites Benedict consorted with in Calatria’s most expensive dens of sin. Perhaps they all regularly wore silk dressing gowns to supper. They’d probably know how to make the stupid garment look alluring rather than simply wrinkled. “I spend too much of my time attending to matters of state. I think tonight I’d like to…indulge my more pleasurable appetites.”
The furrow between Benedict’s brows deepened, and his eyes held a dangerous gleam. “As you wish, Your Grace,” he said, and the low timbre of his voice promised more danger still. I shivered, clenching my hand in a fold of my dressing gown to hide it. “You know I serve at your pleasure at all times.”
The door swung shut behind the departing footmen with a light thud and a click. They were gone. No more audience. I blew out a long, shaky breath, slumping down further into my chair.
Benedict cocked his head, his brow smoothing out at last. But when he spoke, his voice had a cold, hard tone to it that seemed to cut right through me. “Ah. So that little farce wasn’t for my benefit. For a moment I thought you’d really—you’d lost your mind.”
“Then why did you play along?” I demanded.
Benedict reached for the carving knife and fork, his knuckles white where he gripped them. “What else was I supposed to do? Explain to the servants that you’re selling yourself to me for protection from your enemies? Tell them what I did to you this afternoon, and this morning?” He stabbed the fork into the joint, juices spurting, and I couldn’t help flinching. Benedict smiled sourly, with no humor at all, and began to cut with jerky motions. “Very clever, Lucian. I applaud you.” He didn’t sound the slightest bit appreciative. “When the court gossips realize we’re sharing a bed, as they’re bound to do sooner or later, they won’t guess the truth. They’ll probably think you’re manipulating me, keeping me sex-addled so that I won’t plot against you.”
He dropped a slice of beef onto my plate and began cutting another for himself. He’d said he’d pour the wine, but gods, I needed to be drunk—and quickly. Without anyone here to observe, I didn’t need to stand on my rank and wait to be served. I sloshed a large measure into my goblet, took a petty pleasure in setting the decanter down with a thump without pouring any for him, and picked up the glass.
Only for Benedict to drop the knife with a clatter and lean over and snatch the glass out of my hand before I could get it to my mouth.
“Have you forgotten why I’m here?” His voice snapped like a whip. “What you really want me for? You don’t eat or drink before I make sure it’s safe.”
I could only nod, throat tight, as he inspected everythingin turn: the meat, the wine, the bread, the butter, the vegetables. He took his gods-damned time, cocking his head and gently touching every dish and every implement. My father hadn’t had a court mage for years before he died, too paranoid to trust anyone whose power he couldn’t control. Of course, if he’d had one, maybe he wouldn’t have died at all—but I’d come to realize people like my father usually ended up hoist with their own petard.
His blind spot regarding Benedict had extended to tolerating the potential threat of his less mundane abilities, but Benedict had still, probably out of self-protective tact, refrained from using them very much at court. And so I hadn’t witnessed a lot of magic in my life, much less than usual for a man of my rank.
Perhaps that was why this small display of power held me spellbound. Even my impatience and my twisting, growling stomach didn’t overwhelm my wonder.Magic, a godly attribute bestowed on the humans Dromos found worthy of it at their birth—and even tainted by Ennolu’s anger, as in Benedict’s case, such an extraordinary gift.
Beautiful, even at second hand. A lightening of the air, a glimmer in the edges of my soul. How did it look and feel to him? As he touched the slightest tip of his finger to the wine’s surface, his eyes half-closed, glossy black hair falling around his face as he tipped his chin down in thought?
Benedictwas beautiful like this: poised for action, a thrumming tension singing through every muscle of his powerful body, as if using his magic was the same to him as taking up his sword and facing the enemy. It struck me all at once, as if everything in the world had shifted very slightly to another angle and left me reeling from the new perspective.
Beautiful, and irresistible, and how the ever-loving fuckhadI overlooked him for so long? I’d been so intent on despisinghim, on fearing him, on being jealous of the effortless way he inspired admiration and loyalty in soldiers and lovers and the common people of Calatria alike, that I hadn’t even truly sat down and thought about why they felt that way.
At last he sat back in his chair, shook his hair out of his face, and blinked twice slowly, as if he had to transition back to the world around us from whatever he’d been experiencing.
“No poison,” he said, and frowned.
I cleared my throat, shook my head to try to rid myself of the haze that had fallen over me. But it didn’t work. Benedict was still beautiful. Even if he sounded disappointed that no one had tried to kill me tonight.
Oh, this was very very bad. A cold, hard lump had formed in my chest, sitting so heavily I didn’t know if I’d be able to force down my longed-for supper after all.
“So give me back my wine,” I managed, voice husky and betraying.
He handed it back, our fingers brushing, the sparking heat of his touch nearly making me drop the goblet. Wine splashed onto my plate and down over my fingers.
Fuck it. I didn’t even bother trying to dry my hand, simply taking a long, long drink, knowing I’d be intoxicated absurdly quickly given my empty stomach.
When I set the half-empty glass down with a clumsy thump, my head already spinning, I found Benedict regarding me with one eyebrow raised.
“I see it’s going to be that kind of night,” he said. “All right. I don’t need to tell you that I’m as happy to drink too much as the next man.” He filled his own glass, raised it in a mock salute, and drained it in one draught.
Yes. Apparently it would be that kind of night. I finished my own wine before I picked up my fork and knife, and nodded at Benedict as he refilled my glass to the brim.
