Page 46 of A Vow of Embers

Sex would have made me bleed? No one had ever told me that. I curled my lip in disgust. In my experience I had found that anything that caused bleeding was not enjoyable. Why would people want to have sex if it caused bleeding?

I knew the answer. The night of the festival, if Jason had told me that I would bleed as a result, I wouldn’t have cared and still would have gone through with it. That desire had overwhelmed everything else, even my common sense.

The prince holding a dead fowl over our marriage bed seemed ominous.

He walked across the room and opened a balcony door, going outside. “Rokh?”

“Here.” He must have been down in the courtyard, waiting to help dispose of the evidence.

The prince let the chicken corpse fall down into what I presumed were Rokh’s waiting arms, then came back inside and closed the door.He had stripped the blankets from the bed before killing the rooster and there were now some bloodstains in the center of the sheet. He grabbed one of the blankets and tossed it on the far side, taking another for himself as he lay upon the bed. The only light left was a candle on a small table near him.

I walked around to the other side of the bed and stood there for a moment. I couldn’t believe I was doing this.

“How long are they going to sing for?” I asked. I wanted to delay this moment for as long as possible. I didn’t know why—the end result would be the same. I was going to have to sleep next to an almost nude man in a bed with chicken blood and rogue flower petals.

“All night. To block out the sounds that we’re supposed to be making.”

I flushed at his words and hoped he couldn’t see me clearly in the low light. I couldn’t imagine a way to do this. To share a room with him night after night. Who knew how long it would take the council to choose the next king?

“I know we can’t tonight, but starting tomorrow, couldn’t I have my own rooms?” I knew of nobles in Locris who did that. My own parents had always shared, but some married couples didn’t like each other very much and stayed apart as much as they could.

“Once I had an heir from you, you could be granted your own rooms.”

“There won’t be an heir, so why can’t I just have them now?”

“It would raise suspicion and they must think it’s a real marriage.” His voice was tight, as if I had pushed him to the edge again. “Get in bed and go to sleep, princess.”

I took my xiphos out and put it under my pillow, just as I had done in the dorms. If he was concerned about it, he didn’t say so. I wondered how many hidden weapons he had around this room.

Then I did as he demanded and climbed into the bed. The sheets had been scented with iris and it completely surrounded me. I would lie down, but not even he could order me to sleep.

Because I had no intention of sleeping at all, ever again. I didn’t want to dream, and more importantly, I didn’t trust him. I felt unsafe.

But he apparently did not suffer from the same affliction. He turned on his side, showing me his back. That was how little of a threat I was to him.

He blew out the candle and the singing outside got louder. They had indeed been waiting and watching for that signal.

“Thrax will be outside guarding the door. Don’t get up and stab him,” he said.

“I told you I wouldn’t.” I wanted to be indignant about his accusation but I’d nearly stabbed Thrax during the feast, so I supposed the prince had a point. “You aren’t worried about me stabbing you?”

“You’d never be fast enough.”

His breathing quickly evened out but I lay in the bed, listening to the explicit and loud singing, my blanket pulled up to my chin. I had often dreamed of being in this man’s bed and now I was. My life had become so strange.

It wasn’t just the chicken blood and decorated bed or the fact that I was sharing it with a man. A man I very much wanted to kill. No, it was the feeling that everything had been taken from me and I didn’t know how to get it back. How to start doing things my way again, making decisions because I wanted to and not because someone else had forced me to.

At least I had the rest of the night to try and figure out how to regain some semblance of my life.

Despite me thinking sleep impossible, I must have drifted off at some point because I awoke to the prince shaking me.

“Wake up.” There was an undeniable urgency in his voice.

It brought me out of my sleepy state instantly. “What’s wrong?”

He threw off his blanket and stood up. “The matron of the household, the one who oversees the servants, will be coming this morning with breakfast and to collect the sheets. It’s tradition. Thrax just gave me the signal.”

It was then that I realized that he was unwrapping his undergarment. “What are you doing?” I was fully awake and completely alarmed. For a moment I thought I might have been in a dream, but the singers were still going strong. I certainly wouldn’t have allowed them into my dream. This was real.