Nepenthe did more than rid a body of pain. It blunted the faculties too. And the most I’d ever taken at once had been a handful of drops in my tea. I expected a vial’s worth would send me into a dream-riddled sleep that I’d not wake from for half a day. I shivered at the thought and shook my head. “No nepenthe. Just do it.”
Theodore looked at me like I was mad, but he knelt at the edge of the bed and waited as I struggled to slip my leg free of the covers. The small movement made me whimper. My thigh was a flap of bloody flesh. Only a thin layer of skin, that I assumed Theodore had coaxed into existence, had kept it from bleeding. When I’d moved it had torn.
“Hold this.” He pressed the nepenthe into my hand. “You’re going to change your mind.” Then he set a tentative, but warm, grip on my knee. He swallowed hard and stared at my thigh, which was exposed all the way up to the curve of my hip. He didn’t move.
I threw a fist into the mattress. “What in the bloody Gods are you waiting for?”
His mouth opened and closed. “Can I touch you?”
“You’re already touching me.”
“I need to touch you here.” The wound was large, curving around my leg toward the underside of my buttock.
“Oh, for Gods’ sake.Yes.Touch me.”
For a tense moment our gazes locked. Anger and concern and annoyance churned between us until finally he palmed the flesh at my hip with such a firm hand that I gasped. He’d not hurt me, but his touch was fervent, frustrated, and somehow tender too. A heavy exhale slipped past my lips as he slid his hand down my rounded hip to the edge of the wound. His touch left a trail of gooseflesh in its wake. Then he met my eye. “Last chance.”
“Do it.”
He didn’t hesitate. He tugged the flap of skin closed in one skilled motion as his hands filled with fiery heat. I screamed, then drained the little bottle of nepenthe in one swill.
“That’s what I thought,” Theodore mumbled, and his touch grew hotter and hotter.
I squeezed my eyes shut as the nepenthe carved through me. It trimmed away my pain until all I could feel was Theodore’s power and the pressure of his fingers. It cut the flimsy ties that kept my anger in place too. “You’ll come with me,” I said, in an odd voice. It was not a question, or an order, or a plea, but some nepenthe-laced thing in between. “To the Mage Seer.”
His fingers paused on my skin. “I’ve already said that I can’t.”
“Because of your dearest betrothed,” I snapped.
His keen eyes found mine and I worried I’d let my asinine desire to guard him like some sort of treasure I’d never be able to claim slip into my voice.
“Yes,” he said, carefully. “When we arrive on Varya, I am to meet immediately with the Empress of Obelia and her daughter, whom I am to marry.” His grip on my leg tightened and a new flood of heat radiated through the healing skin. “That is why I cannot go with you.”
I pushed up onto an elbow and scowled. “And why can’t you send a rider?”
He kept his gaze on my wound. “Because it’s not just the severance you need while you’re there. You need a prophecy too.”
I stared at him. My mind swam with worry over his words, his commands, over everything he withheld. I was overcome with fury and fear, but still, I could not help but notice that King Theodore was appallingly, tragically handsome.Fucking nepenthe.I squeezed my eyes closed. “A prophecy.” The words slurred. “Is that your third condition?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then I don’t need to do it.”
“You do.” He rose in a huff and went to a clean washbasin beside the bed. He washed his hands, wrung out a rag, then brought it to my healed leg to clean away the thick smears of blood. “Because I am your king, and you swore fealty to me. And because the third condition, which you have already agreed to, hinges upon the prophecy.”
My hand shot out and grabbed his hard forearm. I yanked him toward me, leaning in close enough to feel his breath fanning over my cheek. “I know you did not bind yourself to me out of the goodness of your kingly heart. You did it because I have something you need. Something, I expect, that you cannot get from anyone else.” My words were sloppily strung together, but not without bite. “I will not live another life like my last, honoring the whims of a king who wishes to use me. I bent the knee to you, yes, but it will cost me nothing to denounce you and leave your kingdom with my blood still running through your veins. I will happily let our bond plague you with unending worry over my well-being until you are old and gray if you treat me like I am some palace maid to be ordered about. If you want a severance, if you want me to receive a prophecy sothat I can fulfill your final condition, then I have some terms of my own you must agree to.”
Theodore did not blink as he stared at me. I wasn’t certain he breathed. His handsome face was unreadable, until his mouth parted in the barest look of offense. I wondered if anyone had ever spoken to him as I just had. I waited for him to rail at me for doing so. But his bewildered eyes merely slipped from mine and landed on my lips. One breath. Two breaths. Three. Then he jerked his arm from my hold.
“Later.” His voice was rough, clenched. “When you’re not flying from the nepenthe, we’ll…” He rolled his jaw. “… negotiate.” He strode to a built-in bureau and pulled a white nightshirt from within. He tossed it over my now clean and healed leg. Only a fine, silvery line of new skin remained.
Brooding, he went from lantern to lantern, turning them low. “A rule: If you somehow wake before I do, you are not permitted to leave this cabin without me at your side.” He strode to the door and clicked the lock over with a key. Then he tucked it deep inside his trouser pocket. My heart thundered, the fog over my mind grew denser, and I watched the shadow of his strong body curl onto the settee. “Good night, Lady Imogen.”
I fumbled the nightshirt over my dizzy head before falling back into the pillows. Sleep held me in its palm, but I could not help picturing it as the clawed, slick-skinned hand of the monster from my dream. I thought I could feel it writhe through the water below me, thought I could hear its roaring heart in my ears. Despite how I tried, my eyes wouldn’t stay open. A terrified whimper filled my head as I finally slipped into midnight darkness.
The dress draped over the foot of the bed was made of the finest cobalt silk I’d ever seen. The distinct smell of armoire clung to it, and the hard creases in the skirt told me it had been shoved into a forgotten corner for some time, but there was no mistaking how expensive it was. I ran my fingers over the whirling stitches on the bodice, when my gaze snagged on my engagement ring.
The large, rare stone glittered and shone. Perhaps it would fetch me enough money to start a new life. New clothes and a small home. The king’s discarded dresses and goodwill would very soon run out.
