Chapter
Twenty-Two
Galantia Present day, Deepmarsh Castle
urmurs and snickers followed me down the large staircase and toward the great hall, resonating from occupied stone benches, crowded archways, and wherever else the ladies ofM the court congregated. Clearly, word about my condition had spread.
I ignored it.
Gossip was the least of my worries.
Neither was that sense of dread rising in my chest as I approached the gilded double doors at the end of the corridor to the right. A massive emblem of a metal-cast raven decorated them, its wings spread wide and what had to depict intestines dangling from its claws. The sight alone slowed my steps without my consent. Perhaps my feet had more sense than my brain, urging me to reconsider.
Well, I didn’t have that luxury.
For four days, I’d sulked into Sebian’s pillow, drowning in self-pity as if I could afford such nonsense. As a noblewoman captured, abandoned, and recently deflowered, I needed to take matters into my own hands to keep myself out of the whorehouse or, alternatively, an unmarked grave. Who
else would do it for me?
Not my parents.
And what nobleman, be it human or Raven, would stoop so low—potentially even bring the Raven prince’s wrath upon them—and take me to wife?
None.
Which meant that I needed to convince Malyr to marry me.
It was the only way to keep a roof over my head, cloth on my body, and food in my belly. He would torment me, of course—more so than the average husband, to be certain—but I would gain standing and protection. And who knew? If I ever carried his child, he might rein in his hatred, if only
for a while.
It was the best I could hope for.
And yet my stomach plunged to my feet, bringing them to a stop mere inches from the doors. I glanced around the corridor, expecting to see some ravens perched somewhere along the window to shift, stop me, and ask my business with their prince. Alas, the man who managed to cast an entire room into darkness presumably needed no guards.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched my cheeks, fluffed the ends of my pinned-up curls, then gave a tug on my boned corset to bring out my cleavage or, more precisely, the raven scarred into its center. I’d borrowed the green silk gown from Cici after hours of careful contemplation. Malyr might take me wearing the color of my house as a provocation.
Good.
Reminding him of whose daughter I was would hopefully taunt his desire to break me. Could he do so without taking me to wife? Certainly. Was he already planning to? Absolutely. But that wouldn’t get him the army he needed to reach his goal.
I brought my clammy fist to the door and gave three knocks. There was a long moment of silence before a muffled, “Enter!” vibrated through the set of heavy doors.
Forcing the tremble from my fingers, I pushed on the wing of the raven and stepped into its treacherous nest. One illuminated by a large stone-hearth to the right, although an oil lamp also flickered where it stood on a small desk to the left. Lemongrass and seasoned oak scented the air, lingering between a set of couches and a large… I wasn’t exactly sure what I was seeing. Pillows?
Yes, lots of pillows, spread out and neatly arranged in a circle at the far end of the room where a bed should have been.
“Why you suddenly bother to knock is beyond me,” Malyr said. “I need you to scout out a valley near the western coast and see if a group of our own is hiding there, struggling to get south and to
safety.”
So he was waiting for someone. Sebian?
My throat narrowed.
Lorn?
Malyr crossed from a wooden armoire toward the desk, wearing only black breeches and boots, his broad upper body exposed, and scarred. Not large patches of puckered skin like Sebian, but raised dark lines on his shoulder, down his upper arm, the side of his torso. I couldn’t tell how bad the damage was, but that roil in my stomach had me take a guess.
“The sooner you can head there, the better,” Malyr continued and, when no response came, he turned toward me. “Take a fate with you, in case—” He froze in place, silently staring at me for three seconds or thirty, and quickly reached for the white shirt that hung over the backrest of the chair. “You came to me.” My ears pricked at the breathed consonance of those words that seemed to run deeper
than surprise, but he cleared it away, straightened his face. “Why are you here?”
I curtsied as he shuck on the shirt, taking no small amount of pride in how I had clearly taken him off-guard for once. “To offer myself up.”
He grabbed the metal pitcher from his desk, filled the cup standing beside it, took a sip, then arched a brow at me. “Offer yourself up?”
“For marriage.”
“Of course…” A sneer twitched over his narrow lips as though he had expected something different, then he crossed the distance. “You are your father’s daughter, indeed; plucky enough to seek
me out and offer me nothing.”
“My father’s army is not nothing.”
He prowled around me, sipping his wine and running a finger around the neckline of my dress.
“Many a ladies at my court come with armies.”
“Yet all of them combined won’t surmount to my father’s army, who is holding the largest one in all of Dranada, second only to King Barat’s,” I pointed out. “I daresay you would have to marry all those ladies to match that… or just me.”
“You wish me to take you to wife, little dove? Have you considered this closely? The hate I harbor for you? The pain it will bring? The humiliation?” The way he stopped in front of me, keeping his gaze locked with mine as his fingernail traced the fresh, sensitive scars on my chest, was all malice, threat, and spite. “Until death… do us… part?”
“We both know there will be pain and humiliation, regardless. Presume I could accept that fate wearing cotton, but I would much rather do it wearing silk. Or feathers, if it pleases my husband.” If my time at the Court of Ravens had taught me one thing, it was that one could not die of shame.
Hunger and sickness, however… “You might take Ammarett with the army of another bannerman, it’s true, but certainly not without heavy losses. Most of them sustained by taking Tidestone first, which is necessary if you want to break north without my father severing your line of supplies before cutting you in the back.”
“Mmm, you have a mind for strategy, I give you that.” He took another slow sip of wine, staring down at me over the rim of his cup. “You are raising valid points, little dove.”
My chest lifted. “So you will agree to our betrothal?”
His prowling steps continued until he stepped up behind me, gently removing a pin from my hair.
A curl sprung free, which he twirled around his finger, only to stretch it long and lay it on my shoulder. He did that twice more, unfurling my strands with a patience that drove up my pulse. More intense was the wash of warmth against my back as he stepped closer and slung his arm around my belly, his breath warm against my ear. Gods, I hated the effect this man had on me… “Anything but that,” he whispered at last. “Anyone but you.”
A chill crept under my skin, but I wouldn’t let that deter me. I had come here, fully expecting to leave his chambers hurt, humiliated, belittled, cut-up, bleeding, bruised, raped. But by the gods, I would not leave unbetrothed.
I stepped out of his arm and turned to face him. “What will it take for you to agree?”
“Nothing you can offer. As you pointed out so eloquently, you were born worthless.”
I breathed through the painful truth. “You won’t ever let me hear the end of that, will you?
Because you know how much that knowledge hurts.”
For a moment, for a fraction of a breath, he worked his jaws, eyebrows drawing together. “Yes. I do know how much that hurts.”
“Well, I’m still good enough to provide you with your sick amusement, and perhaps even a sense
of delivered atonement.”
“Atonement.” He chuckled into his cup, emptied it with a long swallow, only for his mouth to emerge as a crooked grin. “Pray tell, little dove, however might you achieve that?”
“It’s really quite simple.” I gingerly took the cup from his hand and crossed over to the desk, refilling it as I spoke. “Do with me as you please. Choke me. Cut me. Bruise me.”
“I will do all that without taking you to wife.”
“Yes, I know.” Cup in hand, I turned around and walked back to where he stood the way I’d left him, then handed him his wine. “And yet marrying me will give you two things you will not get otherwise.”
“Your skill at gaining my attention is commendable.” He took the wine, eyes narrowing.
“Whatever might you give me, little dove?”
“The second largest army in all of Dranada.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, we have already been over—”
“And my willingness.”
His body turned unnaturally still, until he stiffly lifted the cup to his mouth, taking another sip as though he needed to wet his throat before he could respond. And even then, he said nothing, his eyes tracing my features, perhaps studying my sincerity. Yes, I had his attention.
“I will not fight you. I will not struggle. Might even confess that I like it,” I added, watching a gleam hush across his eyes. “Is that not what you want? To corrupt me? To make me enjoy the most depraved of acts?”
For long moments, he observed me the way he’d done it in the forest, his interest still as frightening, but also promising.
At last, he emptied the wine in one swallow and grinned. “Say, ‘Please, Malyr, marry me, or I’ll forever be ruined.’”
My molars ground together, but I forced them apart. “Please, Malyr, marry me, or I’ll forever be ruined.”
Long strides took him over to the desk, where he put down the cup. “No.”
“Insufferable bastard!” My teeth gnashed, barely audible over his bemused laugh. Gods help me, there was no avoiding what I had to do. “I will free Marla.”
He studied what appeared to be a map. “And how will you do that from Deepmarsh?”
“By visiting Tidestone after our wedding.” There was nothing left for me at home or anywhere worth not returning to him, he had to know that. “I know every secret pathway, every dark corner, every broken piece of wall. Give me five days, or maybe even three. I will create a distraction, sneak
into the dungeons, and free her.”
“Impossible without being noticed.”
A spurting sound escaped me. “Trust me, going unnoticed will be by far the easiest part.”
He gave me an assessing look over his shoulder, one brow lifted as though he was contemplating that statement a great deal. “Before the wedding.”
A spark of hope lit in my chest, only to fade seconds later… “Do I look like a fool? You’ll just rid yourself of me the moment you have your precious Raven.”
Not to mention how he would undoubtedly take Tidestone with the help of Marla and slaughter my parents—a thought that shouldn’t squeeze my heart quite as much, but… it did.
“I will not get stuck with a Brisden bride for an army alone,” he said. “And if you get caught?
Then your father might as well keep you and once more offer you up to the Dranadian prince.”
“King Barat would be a fool to allow it, given my father’s betrayal and how quickly word of it
will travel.”
“A king once more gaining the Tidestone army can hardly be called a fool,” he said before he gave a little scoff. “Alliances have been forged from weaker steel. If you get caught, I have neither Raven nor army.”
“I will not get caught, and once Marla is lost to Father, he’ll know that he has no leverage left. If she’s truly as crucial in this war as everyone makes her out to be, then Father would be a fool to ally himself with the losing side, and will push for our wedding all the harder,” I said. “I can do it. After the wedding.”
He stared at me. “I fear we are at an impasse.”
Gods be damned, why was this man so incredibly difficult? I needed this marriage if I wanted to secure my future. But how, if I couldn’t ensure that the wedding would actually take place? I needed an assurance, something to solidify my plan. I needed… I needed… … to carry his child.
Princes needed heirs, didn’t they? More urgently once they made themselves king. Malyr had fathered no children thus far, or someone would have mentioned it. It was risky, but… If I managed to have his child in my belly before I freed Marla, or at least have him think that I might, would that not be reason enough for him to go through with the wedding? Even if not, a bastard heir was better than none, and certainly worth keeping around along with his mother. Did I even have a choice?
No. My options ended here.
“Very well. I will free her before the wedding.” Until then, I needed to get his seed into me, often, and pray I hadn’t inherited Mother’s plight. “But I insist on six weeks to…” get pregnant, “come up with a plan.”
“Six weeks,” Malyr mused, staring into the room for long moments. Quiet. Thinking. Until he noisily pulled the chair out from beneath the desk and turned it to face me, then lowered himself down and gave a pat on his thigh. “Lie down over my lap so we may begin with your atonement.”
“Pardon me?”
“For my sick amusement,” he clarified. “You cannot possibly expect me to settle on you as my bride without sampling that willingness you mentioned.”
On reflex, my buttocks clenched. I’d never been spanked a day in my life, but Risa had fruitlessly threatened to ‘drape me over her lap’ often enough that I knew it was what he had in mind.
Muscles stiff, I nodded, forcing my feet toward him one wobbly step at a time. If this was what it took, then so be it.
My knees liquified once I stood beside him, the way I folded over at the waist and sunk my torso onto his legs—the only thing that saved them from buckling. Two weeks ago, I would have dreaded the humiliation of this. But now…? I feared the physical impact. How hard would he strike?
Ruffles of silk and cotton ghosted up along the back of my legs as Malyr pushed up my skirts, exposing my buttocks, letting the chill of the evening coax shivering bumps from my skin. “Reach down and grab the chair legs. Hold on to them.”
Nerve endings tingling with dread and trepidation, I reached for the chair legs, curling my fingers around them with a strangling grip. I braced for his first strike with such intensity—every single muscle in my body tense and quickly tiring—I wasn’t prepared for the gentle caress of his hand that came. How he glided his palm over my flesh or raked over my skin with the back of his nails.
“You redden and bruise so easily… It is quite a beautiful thing to watch,” he murmured and shifted beneath me, clearly discomforted by his erection that pressed into one of my ribs. That was promising. “Hold very still, Galantia.”
The warmth of his hand disappeared, only to come back down with an echoing swat and a flare of scalding heat that set my body ablaze. It ripped a silent scream from me, all air bursting from my lungs. I was so stunned by the brutal, violent pain, I didn’t even hear the door behind me open.
Only when footsteps replaced the smack of another strike did the tremors twitch along my muscles as if I wanted to roll off Malyr’s lap. The gait was too heavy, too unhurried to be Lorn’s. Which only offered a marginal relief since I’d wanted no audience at all… “I thought we had an agreement.”
The sound of Sebian’s voice accelerated my pulse, making me lift my head, trying to turn and look back at him. What agreement?
Malyr pressed three fingertips into the back of my skull, turning my head forward and pushing it down at the same time. “What can I say? She came to me, wanting to atone.”
“Because she just wouldn’t fucking listen and stay in my chamber like I had told her to…” I didn’t need to see Sebian in my periphery to know that those fingers rubbing at the back of my neck belonged to him, caring, reassuring. “That true, sweetheart? You want to atone?”
Even when he continued toward the desk, positioning himself less than six feet away in front of me, I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him. Too much awkwardness. Too much wondering what he was thinking, finding me like this, draped over Malyr’s lap with my asshole winking at him in
greeting.
I nodded.
“Well, then…” Sebian leaned with his backside against the desk, crossing his outstretched legs.
“By all means, don’t let my presence distract you.”
