Page 23

In Salas’s case, the fact remained that several witnesses described other men harassing him before the fight. The reports held no mention of him shouting back at them. He stoically bore the insults in silence until the moment he struck one of the men.

The reports held no information about what exactly the insults were or which particular one had finally provoked him into the attack. I wished I knew, but it proved not necessaryto eventually convince the council to reduce the verdict to the lashes already served.

The satisfaction from the victory coursed through my veins with excitement as I exited the council meeting room shortly before lunch.

Gem immediately accosted me on the other side of the door.

“It’s been arranged,” she informed me in the discreet fashion of a seasoned courtier, keeping with my pace down the corridor.

“What has been arranged?” Lifting my glasses, I rubbed my eyes. Winning the long, intense debate left me elated, but also mentally drained. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ll have that slave tonight.”

Gem had kept her voice down. But to me, it came like a slam of a hammer against a church bell.

I looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear us. However, Gem had been a member of the royal court long before I came to Rorrim. She knew how to act and when to speak. The corridor was empty, with only two guards standing at the doors to the council meeting room, both too far to hear us.

“Tonight?” I exhaled.

I didn’t forget our conversation about Gem making the arrangements. But the memory of it had shifted into the background with my daily duties taking the front seat. Subconsciously, I must’ve been hoping for more time, which proved impossible with my super-efficient cousin.

“Yes, tonight.” She grabbed me under my arm, walking with me to my rooms.

“Does it have to be tonight?”

“Why wait?” She paused. “The sooner the better, is it not?”

“Yes. Of course. It’s just that...”

My heart slammed into my ribs, pumping blood so hard that a swishing sound pulsed in my ears. All that bloodmust’ve run away from my face because Gem patted my hand sympathetically.

“Oh Ari, you’re nervous. That’s understandable. Most people are nervous the first time, but that’s why it’s best to do it when at least one of the couple has done it before. Since you’re attracted to him—"

“Am I?” I couldn’t exactly name this unsettling feeling I experienced for Salas. I just knew I’d never had it before for anyone else.

Gem tilted her head, searching my eyes. “Don’t you want him? How do you feel about spending a night with him?”

“’I... Well, I’m curious about him.”

“Curious?” She pondered my answer. “Curious is good. I was curious about sex too. That was probably the strongest emotion I had before my first time. Whatever it is, we should use it. Who knows when you may feel even remotely ‘curious’ about a man again?”

My stomach fluttered like an empty plastic bag trapped in a hurricane. My palms felt sweaty, and my heart was doing somersaults.

Was that how attraction felt?

Until now, I imagined it’d be a warm, cozy feeling, like sunshine and fluffy puppies, not whatever wretched mess had been happening inside me.

We came to my private sitting room located next to my bedroom. Gem poured herself a glass of chilled water from the carafe by the unlit fireplace, then stretched in a chair by the open patio doors.

“Once you do it once, sex will stop being such a big thing,” she said. “You’ll even feel silly for stressing over it so much.”

“I hope so.” Too restless to sit down, I remained standing in front of Gem.

“If this slave is really good, you may even like sex enough to start visiting the gladiators regularly afterwards,” she teased. “All is good, by the way. He’s healthy and fixed.”

“Fixed?” I echoed.

The procedure was often performed on unmarried men, especially if there was a reason to believe they engaged in sexual activities with women. It prevented them from fathering children out of wedlock. I’d never seen the procedure done, but I’d been told it was common, safe, and reversible if needed, usually performed by skilled healing witches.