Page 55 of The Traitor's Curse
“You truly prefer death to a bond with me?” My voice shook with hurt that I couldn’t even try to suppress. “I wouldn’t use it against you. I’m sure you don’t believe me, and maybe—maybe you don’t have reason to, but I give you my word I wouldn’t! I don’t even know how to use it to control you. Or your magic. I don’t have any magic!”
“You wouldn’t need any. You’d be sharing mine. It’s not about how you’d use it against me. I won’t—”
“Your Grace! General Rathenas!” Pounding footsteps approached, and two men burst out of the trees: Captain Venet and another of Benedict’s handpicked men.
“We’ve found them!” Venet’s companion called out, and more voices acknowledged him a moment before a whole contingent of the palace guard spilled out all around us.
Help at last, and thank the gods, because I couldn’t keep Benedict upright much longer—although they could have waited for him to finish his sentence, damn them.
“Your Grace, my Lord General,” Venet said, sheathing his sword and already coming to Benedict’s other side to prop him up. “What’s happened? How severe are your wounds? Sergeant! Back to the palace, find Doctor Serrano. Have him in the general’s rooms waiting.”
“We’re not wounded, but Lord Benedict’s been poisoned,” I said. “The doctor can’t help. There’s another solution. Help us back to the palace, and—”
“There isn’t another solution, I’ve told you—”
“Benedict, shut up!” Every single soldier stopped and stared, mouths hanging open. Well, perhaps they needed toget used to seeing Benedict treated like a man and my vassal instead of some untouchable god. “Get us back to the palace,” I repeated, shooting Benedict a glare of death. He’d live. He had no choice, damn him. “There are dead and wounded men at the old gatehouse, do you know where I mean? Arrest the wounded ones. And Lord Clothurn’s about somewhere. Find and arrest him, too.”
Venet nodded. “Lord Clothurn’s the one who directed us there, Your Grace. With a little persuasion. I kept him in custody. Glad to know you’re not displeased. He seemed guilty as sin. Caught him trying to sneak out the east gate, in fact.”
“He is guilty as sin, and keep him bloody well locked up, good work,” I said, and earned my first smile from Captain Venet. “Have the wounded men seen to once you have them secure. And my—cousin, Lord Tavius, is among the dead. Have him taken to the temple and laid out as befits his rank.”
His supposed rank, anyway. I had no idea if anyone else knew the truth, or if Clothurn would keep his mouth shut, but I wouldn’t be publicly mourning Tavius as my brother.
Privately…that would be another matter.
And a problem for tomorrow. First, I had to see to it that Benedict had a tomorrow, whether he liked it or not.
The two men Captain Venet had told off to help Benedict back to the palace laid him down on his bed and stepped back, looking as worried as I felt. Benedict had passed out for a moment on the way here, and though he’d come around again quickly he seemed to be losing strength at an alarming rate.
Not all of him, though. I couldn’t help my glance down Benedict’s body. The potion had done its work thoroughly. Even halfway to unconsciousness, his eyes open to slits with only a gleam of silvery gray visible under his long lashes, Benedict hadan erection that strained the front of his pants.
The soldiers had been doing their pointed best to ignore it, but I knew all kinds of rumors would be running wild through the barracks within the hour. They’d already known Benedict was fucking me. Now they’d have some vivid details to fill out the story.
“You can go, and thank you for your care,” I said. “Tell Captain Venet I’ll want to see him later tonight. But I don’t want anyone to disturb us unless I call.”
They bowed, gave me a chorus of, “Yes, Your Grace,” and clumped out of the room. The door from Benedict’s sitting room to the corridor shut with a click, and the thumps of their heavy boots retreated.
The moment they were gone, Bendict convulsed and curled onto his side, letting out a low, rasping groan. He shook, his teeth starting to chatter, clearly racked with agony, and I hovered over him in my own agony of indecision and panic, afraid to touch him, afraid not to touch him, and wondering with sick misery if he even wanted me to.
Gods, I’d never seen Benedict weak before. Possibly no one had. And I’d never realized until this moment what a cornerstone it had been of my universe that he could always be depended on—although I’d never have admitted it except in the greatest of extremities, such as the murder of my valet in my own bedroom.
And now, while he moaned and shook and twitched, I felt the way I had during those two years he’d been gone: adrift and infinitely alone.
My desperation to comfort him won out over my diffidence, and I sat on the edge of the bed, my hip pressed against his leg, and stroked his hair back from his sweaty forehead.
My eyes traced his thick, dark brows, the hectic flushpainted on his cheekbones, and the strong lines of his nose and jaw before dropping to his parted lips. How many years had I watched him flirt with and smile at and seduce everyone but me? How many other men had he kissed and pleased with that wicked mouth while I lay alone in my bed night after night, set apart by my rank and too cowardly to cross the intangible barriers that divided me from anyone who might have made me happy?
I’d despised those other men. And I’d convinced myself it was because they had too little self-respect to resist Benedict’s crude, practiced charms.
For all those years, he’d never once practiced on me. Never pressed me up against a wall in a shadowy corner of a ballroom, never whispered lewd compliments in my ear as he passed me in the corridor.
Never kissed me, even though I’d dreamed about it once or twice, fleeting and quickly fading visions that left me aching and bewildered and yearning.
Until I’d gone to him and begged, and he didn’t have anyone else available to kiss. Before that, he’d never pursued me. He probably only desired me because he’d fuck anything half-attractive that moved.
He certainly didn’t want to be tied to me with his magic for the rest of our lives—his reaction to my mention of a marriage proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. A marriage wouldn’t be nearly as inescapably permanent as this bond. Ennolu’s temple granted divorces, and spouses could be physically separated even without one. But if we bonded he’d be beholden to me, unable to leave my side for more than a day, with even that incurring a risk that something would keep us apart for too long.
“Benedict,” I said, helplessly, and ran my fingers through his hair again.
