Either way, I open the box and stare down at all the little packets inside, brown paper rolled out flat and folded around the seeds, the same packets I buy in the market to grow my own plants.
They finish stacking the boxes by my door and then one of them reaches down for the handles of the wheelbarrow. And just as they’re about to walk away, I say, “Excuse me?”
The guard who handed me the box turns back around.
“Can you give the king a message for me?”
He doesn’t look surprised to be asked. He just nods.
“Can you please tell the king that I accept his offer?”
Four
Iguess the Isiriel don’t have mirrors. It’s not something I ever noticed before, not really much concerned with my appearance when I was just going to work in the sun all day, but now that I’m standing in Annaleigh’s room, preparing myself for my wedding to the king, I’m very aware that I have no idea what my hair looks like.
There’s a gentle knock on the door to the bedroom, and I open it to find Kale on the other side.
“You hardly have to knock in your own quarters,” I tell him, stepping back to let him in. Damn, he’s big. I know all the Isiriel males are big, and I’ve seen plenty that are bigger than Kale, including the king, but it’s not something you really notice until they’re standing right next to you in a small space.
One side of Kale’s mouth lifts. I can see why Annaleigh was so attracted to him when he showed up in her bedroom and asked her to marry him. There’s something so primal about Isiriel males that’s rather irresistible.
Hence why I’m about to go out there and marry the king of the fire monsters.
“I didn’t want to interrupt you if you were having a private moment. The king has requested that I come in here and explain to you what will happen during the mating ceremony.”
“I already know what’s going to happen,” I tell him. “Annaleigh explained it to me. We just have to have sex in the throne room, right?” I try to sound casual about this, as if I’m not absolutely trembling over the fact that I’m about to fuck King Cage. I’m about to fuck a guy who has fire for eyes and lava for cum. Yep, totally casual.
Kale’s mouth twists in a strange way. “Yes, but the mating ceremony will be different for you than it was for Annaleigh. Traditionally, an Isiriel couple would be taken before the king. The king would ensure that the female is there of her own free will.” When I glance sideways at him, he says, “There was a dark time in our history when females were often kidnapped and forced into mating ceremonies. This is to ensure that no longer happens. As the king is the one getting married, during the ceremony, I will be the one to ask. In a traditional ceremony, the couple then mates before the king. However–”
“The king is the one getting married. So, we just have sex in an empty room, right?”
He frowns. “Not exactly. There must be a witness for the mating ceremony. It is tradition that the king mate before the court.”
Silence falls on the cave. And then the question bursts out of me. “Hewhat? Thewhole court? How many people is that?”
Kale puts up a gentle hand that I know he means to be comforting, but it really isn’t. I’m already going to have sex with someone I barely know and be married to him forever, and now I’m learning I have to have sex with him in front of an audience?
“Not nearly as many as you’re probably imagining. Annaleigh and I will be there, as well as all the other speakers andambassadors. If I had to put a number on it, I would say thirty people.”
Thirty people. Okay. Thirty people are going to see me naked. Thirty people are going to see me fuck the fire monster king. Thirty people are going to witness the most awkward moment of my life.
“Great.”
Kale offers me a gentle smile and then the crook of his elbow, like he’s my father, getting ready to walk me down the aisle. “You will do well, my queen.”
The way he says it startles me. I’ve heard him say that to King Cage so many times that to hear it turned in my direction makes my stomach clench. I settle my hand into the bend of his ashen elbow and let him lead me from his quarters.
When we get to the throne room, I feel like I’m going to vomit. There are definitely more than thirty people in the room, a mixture of humans and Isiriel, but I suppose, at this point, it doesn’t really matter. It could be ten or a hundred, and I would be equally as petrified.
Kale leads me to the throne. Once I’m standing before King Cage, he sets my hand at my side and takes a step back, taking his place beside the throne. There’s another guard on the other side, an Isiriel female that I don’t recognize. When she sees me looking, she smiles comfortingly.
King Cage stands, towering over me, and I realize just how much bigger he is than Kale. Taller and with wider-set shoulders. He comes to stand in front of me, and as I tremble, he reaches out and wraps a lock of my hair around his clawed finger. I look right into his fire eyes, flames slowly but surely crawling higher as I look at him.
“You are breathtaking, my bride,” he says, and the words send a shiver through me. Is Annaleigh right? Is he really doing this because hewantsme?
“Thank you, my king,” I say back, not really sure what else to do.
And then Kale’s voice breaks through the room. “Before we begin,” he addresses everyone, “Alice, I must ask you, are you here of your own volition? Have you chosen this male as your husband of your own free will?”
