She held her chin higher. “My mother is brewing me the proper tea. I’ll ingest it tomorrow morning. Trust me, Your Grace, I donotwant to bear your child.” She didn’t want to bear anybody’s child. Not at this stage in her life. Before, when she’d grown up knowing she’d already been promised to Rishaud, her stomach had turned at the mere thought of giving him heirs, of handing him innocent, vulnerable children to torment. Before her first fertility year post-marriage was due, she’d planned to permanently rectify that concern and ensure she could never become pregnant. And now, here she was—somehow still pregnant with the child of a bloodthirsty, ruthless asshole. She ground her teeth because even as she thought it, there was akernel of a voice that chimed in that Malachi and Rishaud were perhaps somewhat different. She’d observed Malachi to at least deeply care about those he considered loved ones—his Cadre, auntie, and Trystin—he held them all in treasured esteem and took extreme care with each of them. Not that any of that mattered now. Yes, he wasn’t Rishaud, but it didn’t mean she wanted his child.
Yet the path her mind just took rattled her greatly, because why the hell would the tenderness he showed those in his inner circle even matter? Her mind was unnervingly all over the place; ithadto be some bizarre effect of the nascent bond formed by their Markings. For maybe the thousandth time, she cursed her recklessness when she’d let him bite her and had bitten him back.
“You are certain that is the course you wish to take?” Malachi’s darkened gaze remained fixed upon her. His stare took on a quality that made it evident he was searching whatever expression he saw on her face for confirmation.
“Without question,” Kadeesha answered immediately.
Malachi probed her features a moment longer, then nodded. “Come to me if you need anything. I’ll grant you the privacy you’ve requested.” He rose from the chair and stalked out of the infirmary. Kadeesha sagged against the chair, surprised by how much relief she felt amidst how stricken she was over the pregnancy. Malachi’s reaction could’ve been much worse. He’d handled the revelation about her altered fertility in a shockingly composed manner. And having the space to make her own choices in this matter highlighted a freedom she’d never before had. For the first time in a long time, she truly felt in control.
Chapter Thirty
TOO ANXIOUS TO HAVE GOTTEN MUCH REST OVERNIGHT, Kadeesha flung the heavy furs off her and gave up pretending to sleep when the first golden rays of dawn streamed through her window. She bathed and dressed in her flying leathers. After Yashira brought the pregnancy-ending tea, she planned to burn off any lingering nervous energies and other pesky emotions by taking to the skies with Zahzah for more combat drills. She was lacing up her boots, furiously tugging at the laces with more force than necessary, when the knock she’d been waiting for came.
The footsteps that sounded behind her call to come inside thudded heavy against the floor. Too heavily to belong to her dainty mother. If she didn’t already have an inkling who was in her room, her Marking pulsed with a steady warmth. She snapped her head up and glowered at Malachi, only to gape when she sighted the small white teacup trimmed in gold between his hands. She barely had time to process it, though, because Malachi was glancing over his shoulder and telling someone else “You may enter,” in the ever-imperious, ever-commanding voice he fancied donning.
Frowning, Kadeesha’s stare cut behind Malachi to the door he’d left ajar. A dozen or so servants poured inside. One carried a silver tray with a pair of crystal pitchers and four silver goblets. The rest carted tiered platters teeming with food. They set the food and drink down in a neat array on the glass-topped table in the sitting room, bowed to Malachi, and departed.
Malachi sat in one of the chairs at the table, hooking his left ankle over his right knee. “I fetched your tea from Yashira and brought food along because she said you’d need to ingest the brew alongside proper sustenance to avoid feeling run-down,” he said by way of greeting. He placed the teacup he held in front of the empty chair closest to him at the table.
“There’s enough food here to feed a small army. Surely my mother doesn’t intend for me to need to consumethismuch.” It was all she could think to say, her mind stuck on the fact that Malachi was sitting in her room, with the tea, instead of her mother. “Did she seek you out?” Kadeesha automatically went on guard. Yashira was playing games—ones Kadeesha didn’t find amusing.
Malachi’s hulking shoulders rose, then fell. “I sought her out.”
It was the most disorienting answer he could’ve given. It was yet another occurrence this morning that Kadeesha couldn’t fit her mind around. Why would he do so? Why would he bother being so … involved? Then, she pinned down the reason. She smirked, propping her hip against the pillar at the foot of her bed. “Making sure I don’t change my mind and continue to carry your bastard child as some power play, hmm?”
There was a barely perceptible tightening to Malachi’s jaw. It was such a slight, fleeting response that she would’ve missed it if she weren’t staring at him so intensely. “It isn’t a concern,actually,” he said tonelessly. “I’m well aware you’d likely rather die than bear my child. I let members of your court be killed, and then coerced you into abandoning your court and playing the role of my war prize in mine. You hate me. If our roles were reversed, I’d want to gut me too. As it is, you only tolerate me when I’m fucking you senseless, because my dick gameisjust that good, as you so graciously pointed out in my study.”
She rolled her eyes. However, she couldn’t quite refute it without them both recognizing it for the utter lie it would be. And Malachi would then call her on it.No upper hand for you today.She pushed off the pillar and walked to the table. She dropped into the chair in front of the teacup and wrapped her hands around it. Malachi tracked her movements the entire time, his face contorting with an emotion she couldn’t name. “Why’d you really come?” she asked point-blank, needing an answer for … Well, the reason she desired an answer was another thing thatshecouldn’t grasp the precise nature of.
He didn’t respond right away. He reached over and tugged the teacup out of her grasp, sliding it a distance away on the table. “Yashira advised that you eat before taking the tea,” he informed her.Okay, then.He’d gotten very meticulous details from Yashira. Even more staggering was the fact that he’d paid attention, remembered them, and was expending the energy to relay them, as if he cared how she felt before, during, or after.He didn’t.Before she could probe him again on the disorienting, strange behavior, he placed a lavender scone, two poached eggs, and a filleted piece of blackened redfish on a plate.
She narrowed her eyes on the food. His selections weren’t coincidental; they were her favorite breakfast items. “How long did you and my mother talk for and what all did you two talk about?” she asked warily.
Malachi grabbed a fork off one of the trays and set it on the side of the plate, which was starting to feel like some type of trap she couldn’t discern the nature of. Seeing as how she knew her mother, Kadeesha had an idea or two, though. “Many things,” Malachi answered, holding the plate out to her. “Among them was the apparent bond she and Nychelle are forming, which I wouldn’t have betted on happening in a million eons. We mostly, however, discussed you. I wanted to know how taking the tea would affect your well-being. She mentioned your appetite might be off and since she stressed the importance of nourishment, I inquired about your preferred dishes and had the kitchen staff prepare them this morning. They’ll do the same for lunch and dinner over the next few days, since Yashira said your lack of appetite might linger. If something isn’t to your liking, just let me know and I’ll adjust their orders,” he said, moving the plate closer to her. His brow furrowed when she still didn’t take it. “What is it? Is something unappealing? I can get you something else.”
It took her brain a moment to catch up to how considerate and attentive andgentleMalachi was being with her. She … she had no words. Nor was she sure how she felt about it. This version of him reemerging, which she thought she’d left behind in his bathing pool and that had been a one-off born solely of some debt he believed he owed her after the explosion, was as completely bewildering to glimpse this time as it was the former time.
She managed to find words. “No. What’s already on the plate is fine.” She also managed not to sound as unsteady as she felt.He has a stake in ensuring I’m back at top strength as soon as possible in order to keep preparing my squadron for his invasion.The logical explanation deposited her back on solid ground; it lent apractical reason to Malachi’s behavior that was on par with the ruthless individual she knew him to be.
His presence in my rooms this morning is about his vengeance and conquest aims, nothing more.What was entirely impractical on her part was the wounded sensation that pricked her. Celestials be damned, it was only in its earliest stage and this pregnancy had her being irrational.
“Terrific,” Malachi said, his satisfied voice breaking into her thoughts. He laid the plate of food on the table directly in front of her. “Be a good girl. Eat it all,” he commanded.
She bared her teeth. If this were any other situation, she’d tell him to go fuck himself due to pride and principle alone. He didn’t own her. She most certainly wasn’t one of his subjects. That meant neither he, nor anybody else, had any authority to command her to do anything.
Still, she wasn’t so stubborn to ignore that he might just be parroting Yashira’s specific orders, and she wasn’t about to cut off her nose to spite her face. She picked up the fork and ate. He watched her, eyes intense yet inscrutable, and Kadeesha worked to ignore him. She was nearly done when she decided she couldn’t let it go, however. After the last bite, she laid her fork down with enough force that it clinked loudly against the plate, and she dug her heels in. “You never answered my question,” she pressed Malachi. “Why areyouhere, specifically? It’s the break of dawn. You don’t stir this early. And even if you did, don’t you have kingly affairs to see about? Full-scale invasions to continue planning?” She’d arrived at her own conclusions about what he was doing in her rooms, but she wanted to—needed to—hear it from Malachi to lay the matter to rest.
He was quiet for a long stretch, like he hadn’t heard her—or wasn’t about to deign to answer. He reached for the pitcher ofwine between a tray with pastries and one with the poached eggs and redfish. He filled the glass in front of his untouched place setting to the rim. He drank deeply, draining the entire contents in one go. After he set the goblet down, his stare bore into her so intensely that the golden shards among the brown shone like liquid gold. “I am a king, as you said,” he finally spoke, “and I may be many repugnant things, but I am a male who doesn’t shy away from responsibility or duty. That is, when it counts. Therefore, I am here, since you didn’t get your own self … pregnant.” He bit off the word, damn near growled it.
She could’ve better handled him admitting that his motivations lay in making sure she remained useful as a war piece. As for what he did impart … she was simply too prideful to abide Malachi forcing himself to be anywhere or anything he didn’t wish to be. She looked him square in the eyes, letting a coolness freeze over her own stare, and told Malachi, “I am neither a responsibility nor a duty. We do not have those sorts of ties between us. We have an arrangement born of a series of carefully negotiated bargains; that is all. Therefore, you may get on with your day guilt-free.”
Yet, she couldn’t help but think there was something off here. Because she was pretty sure therewasa sense of guilt, one akin to the glimmer of the same emotion she’d wondered at in his study, and that meant Malachi had to have at least a sliver of humanity inside of him. To be honest, she didn’t even know the male had the ability to possess a conscience to begin with. She added it to the growing list of bewildering revelations the morning had brought, all the while wondering why he still hadn’t left.
“I’ve cleared my agenda until tomorrow eve.” He nodded to the tea. “Yashira mentioned the brew should be completely safe, but I …sheinsisted you still be looked after for a day or so. Also,I’m aware you aren’t a mere duty. You could never be anything so ordinary.”
She didn’t know how to respond to any of that. It continued to throw her off-balance thathewas the one sitting with her making sure she ate enough before drinking the tea and would then be the one to remain with her and look after her. That he’dvolunteeredfor the tasks. His guilt, or whatever else drove him to care about her welfare, aside, Malachi himself didn’t have to be here. Yashira would’ve taken care of her well and Malachi knew that. Which brought her back to how startling and perplexing his attentiveness was.
Who are you and what have you done with the real Malachi?The accusation was on the tip of her tongue. But she ended up asking him a different question, one that she found herself burning to know the answer to all of a sudden.
