Page 53 of The Poison Princess and the Lord of Misrule

Half-hidden in shadow, I wait in the darkness of the corridor until she comes into sight, then capture her wrist. Regret targets my chest at her wince, and I quickly wrap an arm around her waist?—

Pulling her out of the light, into the dark.

Chapter 16

Seravyn

Igasp as Ren draws me into the corridor. “Goddess, Ren—what are you doing?”

He presses a finger to my lips, then he drags me deeper into the shadows, through a half-open door and into a small, dark room off the great hall. Some forgotten antechamber, cold and silent, the roar of the feast dropping to a muffled hum behind the closing door.

And then it’s just us. My back against the stone wall. His body close. The dark swallowing us whole. Only our heavy breaths between us.

“Ren,” I whisper, my eyes wide and bright in the gloom. “If he finds us?—”

“Don’t think about him. Not right now.” His voice is wrecked. His hands frame my face.

And the guilt rises up to choke me. Goddess, what I’ve put him through. Forced to watch me marry Aldric, thecelebration where he was treated lower than any animal. Driving him to this point, and what will happen to him if he’s found out.

And still, selfishly I want to be nowhere else than in his arms.

My hard swallow pulses against his palm. “Morrishan’s mercy, I was holding strong,” I say, my voice breaking. “I was holding strong until now. Here with you, how can I go back to him.”

Then his mouth slants over mine and he’s kissing me. Fevered and desperate, stealing my words and silencing my fear in one frantic kiss. He swallows my pain, and I feel every bit of his desire bleeding through his lips.

He pulls back a measure, his breathing labored. “I cannot let him be the one,” he says, words hot against my swollen mouth. “Not him, Sera.” His thumb traces my trembling lip. “I can’t just stand in that hall and let him take you to that bed.”

Some pained sound leaves my throat. My hands come up to grip the front of his motley, and I’m not sure if I’m trying to push him away or pull him closer.

“I can’t do this,” he tells me, his forehead dropping to mine. “I thought I could. Gods, I swore it to you, but I can’t think of his hands on you.” His voice fractures on every word, low and torn, scraping out of him like it costs him blood to speak. “Fuck, the things he’ll do to you in that bed. The way he’ll hurt you and take you—” He breaks off,his jaw clenching. “It should be gentle for you. Your first time should be tender and loving, and he’ll be neither.”

The truth of it lands in my chest like a stone, because I know he’s right. I’ve seen what Aldric does to the women he uses. I watched him through a cracked door. Felt his teeth in my skin and his fingers bruising my wrists, and that was only a taste.

Tonight, he will make me his meal.

I palm Ren’s face, wanting to ease this worry in him. “I have something,” I whisper. “You don’t have to fear for me, I have a dwale.”

He goes still, his pale and dark eyes questioning.

“Isolde brewed it. For tonight.” My hands smooth over the front of his motley, trying to steady us both. “It dulls the senses. Slows the mind. When I drink it, when he—” My throat tightens. “When it happens, I won’t be fully aware. Mentally, I’ll be somewhere far away, behind a veil. I won’t even remember much, if anything at all. That’s the mercy of it.” I make my voice as gentle as I can. “I promise, I will be fine. This isn’t your worry to carry, Ren. I have a way through it, you have to trust me.”

He pulls back enough to look at me, and even in the dimness I can see the anguish carving his face, the wet shine at his lash line.

“This is how you plan to survive him,” he says hollowly. “Mind vacant, letting him have your body while he—” He shakes his head, a sharp, violent motion. “That’s not mercy, Sera. That’s death. Mercy doesn’t require you to leave your own body to survive it.”

I blink. “It’s the only way,” I say.

His hands tighten on my face. Something has shifted in his eyes. The grief is still there, but beneath it now burns something fierce, something resolved, and my breath stalls in my chest at the intensity of it.

“No, it’s not,” he says, voice a low rasp. “Let me help you.”

“But how? There’s nothing you can do.”

A fire brims in his gaze. “Let me make your body ready for him.”

The words knock the air from my lungs.

His thumb traces my trembling lower lip, slow and reverent, and his voice drops to something raw and aching. “The gods know I want to carry you out of this palace right now and never look back, but I can’t. Not tonight. But I can do this. I can make it so it doesn’t tear you apart. I can ready your body to take him, so when he does—” His voice cracks. “It won’t hurt so bad. So your first time isn’t only pain.”