Panic flashed across her face. I wondered about it only briefly before I added, “You will move into the South Wing.” My private wing of the keep. “You’ll have your own rooms. You’ll be paid a monthly stipend.”A quite generous one,I thought…but I needed her to say yes. “And you’ll be free to spend your days and nights as you wish.”
“And what’s the bad part?” she asked, surprising me.
“The bad part?” I chuffed out, flashing her a small smile. “Hardly any, unless you have an aversion to being fed from. The most unpleasant thing you’ll have to do is takebaanyeregularly. I’ve heard it’s an acquired taste.” When she didn’t react, I asked, “You do know whatbaanyeis, yes?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied. “A tea to help aid blood production.”
I inclined my head. There was another edge of this arrangement,one that we would both tip over. But she would need to know—I didn’t see a way around it, and I needed her to understand this from the very beginning.
“And if,” I said, carefully choosing the words, like I was plucking them out from a basket, “the nature of the feedings lead to sex, you will need to take marroswood as well.”
CHAPTER 6
ERINA
There was utter silence in theKyzaire’s study, save for a howling gust of wind that rattled the arched window outside. Even the fire in the hearth was silent, as if waiting for my answer.
This was everything I’d wanted, wasn’t it? For Kaldur to finally take notice of me. I’d imagined a gentle courtship in my more fanciful daydreams, of walks in the garden at midnight, of stolen kisses in the shadowy stairwells of his keep, of teasing grins and romantic yearning and pinching longing.
That was how I’d always imagined falling in love might be like. Maybe it felt a little like madness—but at least you would know there was a safe place to land.
Instead, this felt…slightly disappointing. Cold. Like we were negotiating a contract, which I supposed we were.
I felt this even as I tried to hide my trembling from being near him. Even as I memorized and studied every sharp angle and beautiful slope of his features, as I saw myself reflected in those mirrored eyes. Theywerelikezylarrs—I’d been right. But instead of lost souls feeding from them during the moon winds, I felt likeIwas ravenous for them. Ravenous to keep them onme, always. When he looked away, I felt like I’d been severed in two.
I licked my dry lips, shivering a little when a droplet from my hair ran down the nape of my neck.
“You’re…you’re asking me to be your mistress.”
I didn’t know where the bold words came from, but I found them tumbling from me.
“That you feed from,” I clarified.
The idea filled me with intense and eager curiosity. I could endeavor to ignore my disappointment. Perhaps this was how things like this were done withKyzaires. In quiet studies, in quiet negotiations, on quiet nights.
I thought of the scene I’d walked in on earlier, with him and hisothermistress, and I couldn’t help but flinch a little. Couldn’t help but feel the burn of dismay and despair.
Kaldur’s tone was crisp when he said, “To be clear, I don’t like that word.Mistress. It implies too much or too little. In my experience, there are long-term lovers or fleeting bed partners, and yet that word is meant to encompass them all. You would be more, Erina.”
More?
Hope sprung in my chest, a little trickle.
“Really?” I asked.
He seemed to catch himself. He frowned. “A blood giver is a responsibility in itself. A blood giver is respected, especially one who gives to aKyzaire. I do not ask this of you lightly and certainly not on a whim.”
He was so certain. That caught me off guard because I wonderedwhy. Before today, I hadn’t even known he couldn’t stand the mere smell of me. Now? After a whiff of my blood, he was offering me…everything. Everything a poor, unwanted orphan girl could have ever dreamed of. A home. Stability. Status.
But what about love? Marriage? Children?
Don’t get too deeply in your head,I reminded myself, though thewords held the teasing edge of Luc’s voice. He’d always been the one to keep me more grounded in my daydreams, hadn’t he? Even though he was a dreamer himself, he always said I could out-dream the entire population of Krynn.
This was a negotiation after all, not a love proposal.
But…maybe with time, he will fall in love with me too,I couldn’t help but hope.
Some people would call me a naive fool. Perhaps I was. But I also knew that there were three things I wanted in this life. To fall deeply in love and make a family of my own. To see Luc again. And to finish my series of stories so that one day, I might read them to my own children.
