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“Perhaps we could slip some sejd into his drink,” one of the ladies suggested, her implication clear as she eyed me dubiously.Because I might not be enough to tempt him.

I took no offense. Honestly, not tempting him was rather reassuring. I feared the bedding.Better me than my gentle sisters.That was the only reminder I needed. I squared my shoulders beneath my mother’s continued scrutiny. I could do this. He might be a warrior, but so was I. In my own way. Even if Stig disagreed.

“Too risky,” my mother pronounced, and I exhaled with relief.

The potion was notoriously effective. Almost too effective. Some who ingested sejd were driven so mad with lust that they required numerous partners before the effects wore off. It was even purported that one man, so overcome, took to the sheep scattering the fields.

They wrapped me in a robe and led me to a bench situated before a dressing table and a mirror. Once I was seated, they set to work on my hair, brushing the wet snarls free.

My dressing robe was unceremoniously parted so that they could rub perfumed lotion on my legs. When hands reached for my belly and breasts, the queen stopped them, slicing a commanding hand through the air.

“No. We don’t want her tasting of perfume.”

My stomach lurched, and I struggled against the bilious rush in my throat.

Tasting?

My face burned. He wouldtasteme? My skin? My breasts? With his mouth and tongue? Was that what husbands did to their wives?

The queen must have read some of my confusion in my face. She seized my hands in hers and chafed my suddenly cold fingers. “Now don’t fret. It’s only a possibility.”

“Aye,” Lady Frida agreed. “He will likely not even touch you above the waist. He’ll have his way with you and be done in a flash, as most men do.”

“If he’s deep in his cups,” another woman volunteered, “the ordeal will be over in two pumps.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis.

The ladies all laughed, their eyes shining with a merriment I could not feel.

Dread sloshed in my stomach like poison. None of this felt real. I was accustomed to enduring, but this was something else entirely. Invasive in a whole new way. I would be taking himinsideme. A warrior from the Borderlands. We would join. Mate. Become one. The only escape from each other would be death.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Look at her! Her face has lost all color. None of you are helping with your talk of the bedding,” the queen said, chastising her maids. “Leave us. All of you. Be gone.”

With murmurs of apology, they all filed from the chamber. She sank down beside me on the cushioned bench, taking my hand again and giving it a comforting squeeze.

“You’ve been a gift to me, Tamsyn. From the moment you were found in the bailey in that basket, you were my daughter.” She bent her head and pressed an affectionate kiss to the back of my hand.

I blinked away the sudden sting in my eyes. I knew the story well. My story.

The young, tenderhearted queen had been increasing with her first child when I was found. She’d always possessed a soft spot for children, wanting several of her own, but her sentimentality was especially acute then. The moment she lifted me from my blanketed basket and held me in her arms, she had insisted on keeping me.

She had been my champion from the start, claiming me as herown despite those who called it unseemly for an orphan with no known origins to be raised among the future offspring of the Penterran throne.

The naysayers, led by the lord regent, had almost convinced the king to ignore his new queen’s wishes and hand me over to a peasant family, to be brought up alongside their brood, another body to help them in the fields. But then the notion had been put into the king’s head thatIcould serve as a royal whipping girl.

The conversation had already begun, after all. The search was in the works. It was a long-standing tradition among royals. With one child on the way—and there would certainly be more to come for the young couple—the burgeoning royal family would have need. Children, even royal ones, required discipline, and it was forbidden for anyone to lift a finger against the divine issue. It would be death for anyone who dared. It was customary for royal children to use a proxy, here and in other kingdoms, even across the sea in Acton. Presumably even north of the Crags, in Veturland, the land of our enemy.

Oh, there were concerns over the mystery of my parentage, to be sure, but the queen declared it fate that I’d materialized out of nowhere. No one saw anyone leave me in the middle of the courtyard, abandoned in a basket. My appearance was almost... magic. A sign. A cosmic gift. They would need a royal whipping child. And there I was.

I was brought into the fold then. A princess on the outside, attired in silks. A soldier on the inside, serving the Crown.

Today would be my final test. Once done, I would be Lady Dryhten... whipping girl no more.

Fortifying myself with the reminder that we all had our burdens to bear—even my sisters would one day wed as commanded—I studied the queen, my mother. Love softened her gaze as she looked at me. Love for me. It was bittersweet consolation. I would miss her. Miss all of them. This was more than marrying a stranger and subjecting myself to him. It was taking myself across the kingdom towhere I knew no one. Where I would be alone, an outsider in the eyes of everyone.

She tucked a damp strand of hair behind my ear. “We all have our duties in life. Mine was to cross the sea and marry the young king of Penterra and strengthen the bonds between our countries.” Her eyes had a faraway glimmer as she exhaled. “Now it is your turn. I know this Border King is not the man you envisioned for yourself, but—”

“I’ve never envisioned a man for myself,” I interrupted, so very startled at the notion.