Page 48 of What Fury Brings
There was another door on the opposite wall, so Sanos went to it.
He opened it to find yet another bedroom. Another door. Another made bed and warm rug before the hearth. Bedroom after bedroom after bedroom. After the tenth one, he finally realized what this was.
It was for her harem.
Sanos wasn’t sure if he was horrified or pleased that she’d been telling the truth about him being the only man in her life. He kept going,wondering just how many rooms there could possibly be. How many men did a woman of her status really need?
Fifty, it would seem.
He counted fifty rooms before the final door let him out into a hallway he did not recognize. Better yet, there didn’t seem to be any guards in sight.
Goodbye, Princess.
Sanos traversed the hallway slowly, listening for any telltale sounds of approaching feet. He didn’t like that he was in unfamiliar territory, but right now the most important thing was to get away from her. With her ridiculous notions and her box of phalluses and the way she gasped when she came. He wanted none of it.
He would go home, think of some lie that was less humiliating than the truth to tell his family, and get on with his life.
Without Blanchette’s, he thought with despair.
The hallway let out into yet a bigger one with long columns holding up the ceiling. Torches flickered in their sconces, and Sanos hid behind one when he heard the chinking of armor. Women in red bearing spears marched by, and he waited long after they were gone before carrying on.
At the next curve in the hall, he saw a woman standing guard, her back to him. Clearly the Amarran guards were more concerned with people entering, rather than leaving, this place. He snuck up behind her, ready to clobber her on the back of the head with his elbow, before he remembered one of the first things he’d been taught about this place.
To make a woman bleed was a death sentence.
At the last moment, he switched tactics, instead wrapping one arm around her throat, the other covering her mouth and nose. From this angle, she couldn’t dislodge him, and she eventually passed out from the lack of oxygen.
He let her slump to the floor and stared at her spear for a momentbefore deciding to leave it behind. The weapon was too large. It would make him easier to spot.
As he rounded the next corner, he was brought up short.
She was there.
Olerra.
Fully dressed, arms crossed, weapons sheathed at her side, a pleasant smile on her face.
“I expected you over an hour ago,” she said.
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“What took you so long?” she asked.
“I didn’t realize I was expected.”
“I took off your manacles for the first time, and you didn’t think I would test you? Just what kind of wife do you think I am?”
He gritted his teeth. “We are not married.”
“Yet.”
Sanos looked around the hallway, his eyes catching on a door off to the side. Olerra blocked the path ahead, but this door was equidistant to the two of them, on the right side of the hall. He could probably beat her to it, but what if the path was a dead end? She would give chase, and he had no idea what she’d do if she caught him.
“No entourage?” he asked, gesturing around her. “Last time you had a herd of eunuchs carting me about the place.”
“I don’t need them to keep you in line. Would you rather deal with them than me?”
He didn’t like the question. Mostly because he didn’t know the answer.
