Page 108 of What Fury Brings
“Of course. We could even eat with the troops this morning if you’d prefer?”
He nodded.
“Great, I’ll return in a few minutes.”
Olerra shut herself within her room and sat on the edge of her bed. She didn’t know what to do. He’d told her what he wanted. But that still didn’t work. She wasn’t sure what she was doing wrong. He had no problem becoming aroused. The problem wasn’t his body’s enthusiasm, that was for sure. It must be something in the mind.
And then a horrible thought struck her.
Had someone hurt him?
Abused him sexually?
Fiery anger propelled her to her feet, and she began to pace. Of course.Of course.Andrastus wouldn’t be able to help when he was triggered. And he wasn’t ready to talk about it. He probablycouldn’ttalk about it.
Olerra wanted a name. She wanted the person responsible taken to the pit. She would lower the guillotine herself. Better yet, she’d take a fucking ax to them. She wouldn’t just take the cock. She’d take all of it. Balls and hands while she was at it. Let the coward responsible be a mewling mess.
When she finally calmed down, she put her focus back on the matter at hand. Andrastus needed to go slow. He needed her to be patient. He needed her to make him feel safe.
She would do all of that. She would do whatever he needed. No one would hurt him again.
She vowed it.
There was no word fouler than his brother’s name, Sanos decided.
He spent the next week talking with Olerra as much as possible. If they were talking, then they weren’t being physical. If they weren’t being physical, then he wouldn’t have to hear fucking Andrastus’s name called out in ecstasy in place of his.
It was torture.
He enjoyed the time they spent together. He enjoyed hearing her stories and telling her his. He enjoyed hearing her opinions on the way the world worked and how she would change it once she was in a position to do so. She was an incredible conversationalist. He felt bland by comparison, yet she seemed enchanted by him.
Twice he caught her reaching out as if to touch him and then pulling back. He pretended not to notice.
And he suffered.
One evening, when it was just the two of them having a quiet dinner in the seating area of her rooms, he asked, “Have you ever tried to kill her? Glen?”
The question didn’t seem to hold any judgment, only curiosity, which interested Olerra. “No. Not once.”
“Why not?”
“One, because it’s a poor queen who has to take out her only competition in order to win a throne. And two—”
She hesitated, wondering what he would make of the next part if she told him the truth.
“I still remember her as a child. We grew up together. As close as Ydra and I are now.”
Andrastus took this all in with a patience she’d never seen from him before. “What changed? How did you go from sisters to rivals?”
She couldn’t help but ask, “Do you really find this interesting?”
He nodded.
“My parents both died when I was four. Glen declared I was her sister now. She would be my family. Though her mother, my aunt by marriage, kept me at a distance, she permitted the closeness we came to share. Glen was kind. She genuinely loved me. Though even back then she had a manipulative personality. She would ask me to do things for her.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Little things at first. I was stronger. So she’d ask me to open a jar or be the soldier in our games where she played the princess. As we got older, she became a little more brazen. Asking me to run errands for her or deal with noblewomen who displeased her.”
