“All right,” Melsint said with a little sigh.
“Off you go. Find your master and tell him why you’re being punished tomorrow.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Evston entered the room and unlocked her cuffs. “Your punishment is over,” he said, his gaze flicking to her tight nipples. She was tempted to thrust one into his mouth and let him suck her the way he’d been doing for days, the way that made her writhe and spread her thighs. “There’s a shift and your cloak in the drawer. Get dressed.”
He turned and left the room.
When she emerged, he was waiting.
“Rocurt doesn’t think I should be taken back to the hotel.”
“I know.” His gaze raked over her. “What about you? Do you think you should be trusted to return to the hotel?”
“I don’t know.”
He laughed. “At least you’re honest.”
“You told me a long time ago that nature always wins in the end. What if I’m never able to settle into a calm and ordered life with you? What if I continue to do wild and impulsive things that throw your life and Rocurt’s into chaos?”
“I suppose we’ll react to the crises as they arise.”
“In all seriousness, Ev. Can we make a marriage work?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
The words were like a knife being dragged over her skin. She wanted reassurance and certainty from him. She wanted optimism, because deep down she desperately wanted things to work out.
“At least you’re honest,” she said with a rueful smile.
“I try to be with you,” he said, hugging her to him for a brief moment.
When he let her go, he ushered her to the stairs, putting her hood up before they descended back into the outside world.
* * *
Brandese entered thehotel room, feeling a bit worn out. She could’ve blamed it on the spankings and the hard use of her body or the orgasms and restless sleep, but she didn’t. She knew the real cause of her low mood. She was struggling between wanting to fulfill a goal she had and her craving to sink deeper into her life as a pretty little plaything of the brilliant and gorgeous Lord Evston Calex.
“Good evening, Ms. Duckworth.”
“Well, good evening, your majesty. Did you have a lovely trip with Lord Calex? You’re certainly glowing.”
“Yes, the outer banks were beautiful,” she said, relying absently on the cover story.
“Well, he’s sent you something. Though I don’t know why he didn’t just give it to you on the trip.”
“What has he sent?”
“A little tablet and this note,” Duckworth said, handing her a closed message.
Brande tore open the note and glanced at the two words. Password Firebird.
She opened the tablet and entered the password. A projection to the screen revealed that he’d found the law she’d been working on for a full dulcate. It was a resurrection of Hela Strome’s law forbidding the monarch from arranging the marriages of his offspring or from committing them to an asylum without an independent off-world assessment.
Brandese’s eyes scanned the text, her heart pounding. Evston had rewritten portions of her arguments and added citations for at least fifty laws to support what she’d written. It must have taken him days to do it.
A pop-up notation appeared.
