Chapter 2
Giss tried to raise her sister on her com, but got no response despite the message she’d sent that it was urgent. Giss’s brows furrowed. Where could Zaw be? They’d always been extremely close, and ever since they lost their beloved father, Zawri had been Giss’s guardian as well. Zaw took the responsibility so seriously that she sometimes put herself at risk for Giss’s sake. Giss felt the same way. She’d have done anything and sacrificed anything to protect her sister. She’d almost proven that once and for all. She shivered, trying not to think again about that turbulent night.
She studied the com. Zawri was most likely at an Orium High Council meeting. If so, it would be too risky to accept a com transmission from Giss. As a major property owner, Zawri was supposed to attend them all, but she didn’t always go because the men pursued her so relentlessly. As female heiresses, both Zawri and Gissandre were expected to marry highborn Orium male landowners. It was the ruling class’s way of consolidating and maintaining power.
The laws had been written such that a woman who broke faith with the planet’s elite by marrying a foreigner forfeited her property. And women who had sex outside of marriage were considered troubled and were forced to live under restrictions in a male relative’s house or, if there was no older man, a neighbor’s.
On the night Gissandre met Larsinc, she’d left the house after curfew, which was forbidden for a woman under the age of nineteen. She’d been driven to the act out of desperation. She hadn’t worried about consequences though, since she’d expected to drown before dawn. She winced, knowing how her death would’ve broken Zawri’s heart. That night though, Giss hadn’t seen any other option for herself, and Giss’s death would’ve freed Zawri to become full heir of the estate without any interference from a future husband of Giss’s. That had been important because Gissandre had run out of honorable potential matches. The sole option she had left was the corrupt Urcolin and that was by design. By his design. At first, she’d considered giving up and marrying him, thinking that though she’d be miserable, she’d be able to use her position and Urcolin’s power to protect her sister. Later she’d realized he didn’t intend to protect her or Zawri. His only interests were his own.
She remembered the wind whipping her hair across her face as she walked along the desolate beach. She remembered climbing over the stone barrier and how cold and shocking the water had been. She remembered the sea swallowing her up and dragging her down. She remembered panicking and knowing she’d made a horrible mistake. She remembered drowning, the water in her lungs, twisting in currents, churned by the sea.
The next thing she knew, she was on the beach, looking up at young man so stunningly handsome it was like he’d stepped out of a book of ancient myths. He refused to let her shelter under a tree, which was lucky since lightning struck it moments after he pulled her away.
They’d gone unchaperoned into a cave, which she’d known wasn’t allowed. But nothing about the night had been in keeping with the law. She closed her eyes and let her memories take her back.
Gissandre had never seen a man who was quite so beautiful. She knew all the handsome boys from school and the male landowners who were neighbors on Orium. None of them on his best day looked as good as Larsinc. He belonged in an Endricane museum as a statue or holo art. The rumors about the beauty of people from Linzir had not been exaggerated. If anything, they’d been too mild.
Despite his being in skin clothes, with wild, wet hair and a big blade he’d drawn from a sheath on his thigh, there was refinement to him. His clothes and knife could’ve belonged to a Ketturan savage, but he certainly hadn’t adopted all their ways.
“I don’t think I should change here,” she said, thinking of all the warnings she’d been given throughout her life, to say nothing of the laws.
He was already naked. If she turned her head slightly, she could catch glimpses of the flat muscled belly, a pale hip and muscular buttock, and the thick cock that looked like it should’ve belonged on one of the stallions in her friend Yukor’s stables.
“What’s your name, girl?” he asked.
She forced her gaze to the wall, hoping he hadn’t caught her peeking. “Gissandre. You can call me Giss.”
“Giss,” he murmured with a nod. “Change now.”
“No. That wouldn’t be…appropriate.”
“Neither is letting your body’s temperature fall to dangerous levels.”
“We’ve been warned many times that undressing is a dangerous taunt to a man’s lust.”
He smirked, glancing at the fire. “Ketturan warriors don’t lose control when taunted. Besides, your beautiful face and long bare legs are taunt enough. If I were inclined to look for excuses to rape you, I’d have found plenty of reasons already.”
“If the skin shirt is dry, so are the pants. Will you put them on?”
“I thought I’d roll them up for us to use to cushion our heads while we sleep.”
“I’d rather you wore them.”
He reached out and plucked the pants from the branch, sliding them on smoothly.
“And turn your back to me while I change?”
He complied wordlessly.
She turned away, quickly dragging off the shift and then pulling the black skin shirt on in its place. The fabric was silkier than she’d expected. She stood, finding that the shirt skimmed her upper thighs, but no farther. Giss reached under and removed her tiny woven lace shorts, hanging them on the branch closest to the fire. They should dry quickly. The shift was too heavy for the makeshift drying stand, so she draped the gown on a warm rock near the fire.
“Done,” she said.
He looked over his shoulder, which like the rest of him was made of perfectly sculpted muscle.
“Will you tell me why you went into the sea?” he asked.
A knife of pain pierced her heart. “I don’t think so,” she said, tears prickling in her eyes. “I’d rather not talk about that.”
