“I am indeed.”
She nods once, eyes finally dropping bashfully from mine.
“Do I displease you?”
She jolts, a hot blush pouring over her fair cheeks in the firelight. “I—I don’t know what you mean—”
“Come,” I say, swallowing my amusement, and the faint spark that burns beneath my ribs at her innocence. “Let me look at you in the light.”
Her eyes widen, blush seeping further. But she obeys, moving when I gesture toward the fire.
I don’t care much what she looks like. Why should I? She is a powerful resource, both in connection and biology. That’s why she was offered in trade for the vast debt I am owed by her father and his men across the sea. It was his life I was after. But knowing my position, somewhat precarious as the last Amata in the world, her father played his hand carefully. His young daughter won’t absolve the debt, but it is a start, and enough to spare his life. For now.
She could be a cow for all I care. She’s only a womb, only a wife to run this place while I’m away on business. So I don’t need to care. But that blush intrigues me, and so does her resolve and her too-clear eyes. She’s soft as a daisy, but she’s grown up in the same world of violence and bloodshed as me. I want to test her, I suppose. I want to see just what she’s made of.
“Look at me,” I say, polishing off my wine and leaving the glass on a table.
She raises bashful eyes, and a lance of electricity goes through me.
“You’re trembling.”
Her eyes widen. “I’m—cold.”
She’s frightened, but won’t say so. A very stoic girl, then. “Stay by the fire,” I order her, and she does, as I pour her a glass of wine. “Have you been to Italy before?”
Her fingers graze mine as she takes the glass and drinks eagerly. Her lids drop as the wine touches her lips, pleasure fleeting but clear in her face. I ignore the way my body tightens at the sight of it.
“Once,” she says softly, into the glass. Her hand at her side flexes into and out of a fist. “After college. I came to study the art.”
“Whose?”
“The greats. Leonardo, mostly. Michelangelo.”
“You’re an artist.”
“An unaccomplished one,” she says with a small smile, but I detect a hint of resentment in her tone. Ambitious, then, though shy to show it. “I draw and sculpt. But the truth is, I haven’t done good work in years.”
“Why not?” Am I genuinely curious, or do I only like to have her cornered here and blushing into her wine?
She runs her bottom lip beneath her teeth, and I resist the urge to touch her. It’s been some time since a woman aside from the servants set foot in the castle. She could be a ghost in that gown, illuminated by the fire. My hand could pass right through her.
“I don’t know, truthfully,” she says, handing me her glass as soon as it’s emptied. Rose stains her lips. “I think I was a bit lost.”
“Was?” I pour her another glass, but when I turn to hand it to her, her back is to me, her gaze on the roaring fire. The nape of her neck is exposed to me like an open flower, hair pinned and the back of the dress scooped low. I imagine dragging rough fingers over the vulnerable, velvet skin there. The soft sound she might make. Would her body melt, pliant as wax, into my touch? Would she recoil?
Daniella, Dani, doesn’t answer me for some time. Both hands are closed into tight fists at her sides, and I sight that ring again, the one on her left hand, aglow like a line of magma in the fire.
“Will I be expected in your bed tonight?” Her voice is threadbare. Faint as a breath.
I study her turned back as though for answer. “Would that please you?”
“Don’t,” she whispers, with sudden vehemence. Her eyes shimmer, wet with tears. “Don’t speak to me of my pleasure.”
I dislike her tone. “I will speak to you of whatever I wish.” Her shoulders stiffen and I take her by the elbow, turning her sharply to face me. Her eyes narrow. “When I ask your opinion, I expect it freely.”
A tear glides down her nose. “It would displease me greatly,” she says, the words low and sharp. “We’ll marry first.”
“I asked your opinion. Not your command.” Something in me tightens. A need to see her submit. The softness at her edges has hardened. She’s closing herself off to me, sudden as a storm wind. I pull her closer. “We will marry when I wish, and consummate when I wish, and you will bear me children when I wish.”
