Page 106 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

I’d felt enough shame for my shape over the years. My body had developed early. People had been commenting on my chest and hips since I was barely thirteen.

Men gave me lascivious, appreciative looks. Women gave me disapproving ones, as though there was something I should have done to prevent the way I turned out.

I had long since come to terms with it—with the looks and the generous curves I’d been given, even if I did seek to hide them more often than not.

But his careless words brought all of it back. He made me feel like I did something wrong by being the shape I was and having the nerve to get sweaty.

They were only breasts! It was widely known that some women in Orin, influenced by the Alumbrians who were more than free with their assets, had taken to wearing only a waist trainer corset and a sheer, filmy wrap over their breasts. They even sometimes wore gems glued around their nipples.

In the same kingdom where courtiers adorned their chests with priceless jewels, that massive jerk was angry that my shirt had gotten a little sweaty!

I stalked to my own chambers, choosing the door on the right, the one that I had never so much as opened. I slammed it behind me as hard as I could.

I was surprised to find the driftwood chest containing my armor scooted up against the end of the bed.

I hardly gave it any thought as I paced through the room. I wanted to cut into him just a little—the same way I had cut into that canvas training dummy.

I started to wish he would come to the door, so that I could tell him exactly what I thought of how he was treating me. I was so angry, I wanted to punch him in his stupid, fucking face.

When he did not come to the door, I decided to go and find him. We would have a nice fucking chat about what I expected of him.

I laid Sangui down in her box, sitting her on top of the white velvet cloth that covered the armor.

As my palm left the grip, so too did the anger that had been coursing through my body. All the rage that had me contemplating punching Io in the face—cutting him with the blade—flowed out like water, leaving me empty and ashamed.

I was horrified with myself. I was still angry at him, obviously. He had been a jerk. But dear gods, the blade had been fueling some violent, nearly homicidal rage, and I had not even known it.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and took a few calming breaths. What had I said to him? Something about walking bare-assed through the Reach...and cutting his cock off?

He'd said his fair share of bullshit as well. I recalled the way he called me his, like I was property. I was his. There was no question about it, just as he was mine, but in the context of his jealousy, it hardly gave me the same thrill to hear it.

I sat in the shadowy chamber for a long time, tired from the physical exhaustion of training and the mental exhaustion of the argument.

I knew the rage from the blade was the thing that exhausted me the most. It was the price I would need to pay in exchange for wielding that kind of power. Magic always had a cost, they said.

I left the room to go and find him, stopping in his chamber to shrug on one of his soft dressing gowns.

I searched almost the entire palace. He was nowhere to be found. I walked through the large, echoey halls feeling the absence of people for the first time. The rooms were quiet, still, and lonely.

I returned to our bedchamber and showered away the sweat and blood. I rifled through his dresser to find a comfortable shirt. I didn't want to put my clothes back on.

Coming up with something lacy from the bottom of the drawer did not help my mood.

I picked up the soft, black chemise with one finger to inspect it, trying to imagine what woman had left it in his chambers.

It sent my mind racing into angry, jealous territory that I would not even start to acknowledge the irony of.

In a pique, I threw the undergarment into the fire and pulled a soft, white tunic over my head.

I sat in front of the fire letting my curls dry and waited. Still, he did not come.

I found a cloak in his wardrobe after spending far too much time thumbing through the richly detailed, dark uniforms that must have been some kind of official Darkwatch attire. Many of them featured his sigil of the five-pointed stars on the lapel.

The whole wardrobe smelled like him; warm, fresh, and fiery.

I was thoroughly penitent by then, just wishing he would come back so we could make up. I was more and more convinced that he was too angry with me to do so.

I donned the cloak and walked out onto the mountain terrace, watching the dragons soar overhead. The breeze was wicked, bracing, and exhilarating. I welcomed the cold seeping into me. It seemed to refresh me and soothe my aching muscles.

The sky looked infinite with its dense canopy of stars. What seemed like an endless number of them could be seen streaking across the heavens at any one moment.

It was still the same sky I’d been looking at my entire life. It was like my vision was sharpened so that I could see what had been there all along.

The auroras were their usual marvel of natural magic, pulsing and dancing in time with that mysterious music I couldn’t hear. I desperately wished I could. I somehow knew it would be the most beautiful sound in the world.

"Sera."

I revised that statement as I heard the actual most beautiful sound in the world.

I turned and he was framed in the doorway.

He had taken the time to change somewhere, I realized. He wore the black tunic and breeches he’d worn the very first time I saw him in the castle in Albiyn. They were plain, but finely made with faint silver stitching. They fit his large, well-made body perfectly.

His collar was pushed up around his neck as though he had been in the wind. I wondered briefly if he’d been flying.

He put his hands in his pockets and strolled out onto the terrace, coming to stand beside me. He rolled his shoulders as though trying to relieve some tension.

When he looked down at me, he laughed, shaking his head. The deep sound reverberated through his chest. It seemed to catch some part of mine and sent it humming as well.

I followed his gaze to my feet. They were blanched white with the cold. I hadn't noticed them for several minutes, and I supposed it was because they were entirely numb.

Of course he reached down to pick me up. His big arms tossed me against his chest as though I weighed nothing.

"I'm sorry, Sera," he said, turning to carry me in through the doors.

I didn't answer, suddenly unsure whether or not I wanted to continue to be stubbornly angry. I was sorry as well, but I didn't necessarily want him to know that.

I caved as soon as he sat me down in an armchair in front of the fire and knelt to massage the feeling back into my numb feet. "I'm sorry too."

He shook his head. "I should not have acted the way I did or said the things I said. I was unreasonable, and you have nothing to apologize for. "

"I do,” I asserted. “I think I threatened to cut your cock off."

"No, you didn't," he said, matter-of-factly. "You just expressed a wish that someone else might."

"Well, I do not, in fact, want anyone to cut it off. And for that matter, I would be very cross if anyone else even saw it." I put a hand up to silence him before adding, "—even just the faintest outline of it."

He huffed a laugh, moving on to my other foot.

“I find it difficult to control my possessiveness, Sera. It’s the bond.

I know you can’t quite feel it yet, but something tells me you at least understand it.

” He glanced over his shoulder to the fire where the black, lacy undergarment sat unburned in the middle of the flames.

I looked at him, slightly abashed. “How was I to know it was nesericum silk?”

He grinned.

“Who does it belong to?” I asked. My heart raced in my chest. I did not want to know, but I also desperately needed to know.

“Freya’s rider, Alfa,” he said carefully.

“Did you...love her?” I asked as it felt like my heart might take flight from the frantic way it was beating. To know that she was the rider of his dragon’s mate made it all somehow so much worse.

He looked up at me, a slow grin spreading across his face. “I have never loved anyone but you. Not even close.”

I smiled as it felt like my chest suddenly expanded to double size. The words filled me with a kind of happiness that shouldn’t have been possible.

My smile turned just a tad malicious, though, as I asked, “Will she come here? Will I have to see her?”

“She comes often—to see Freya.”

I took a deep breath and realized I was gritting my teeth as I imagined the faceless Alfa in that very room, in his bed—in our bed. I wanted her to fall face-first from the balcony.

He chuckled, sliding his hand up my thigh. “I do so love it when you turn vicious, Sera darling.”

I rolled my eyes. "I do have a good excuse for it today, though.”

"Female monthly aggression?" he offered.

I gave him a withering look. "Enchanted sword. I'm sure you noticed the shredded training dummy?"

"Now that you mention it," he said, darting his gaze up to me.

I reached out to slide that stubborn lock of his hair to the side. "There is apparently a cost to using my sword—in the form of rage and homicidal fantasies of cutting...things...off."

He laughed, sliding his hands down my calf, massaging the tight, sore muscles. "There is always a cost to using magic that doesn't come from inside you. Spell work can have very unexpected consequences."

"Like how a love spell can make someone psychotically obsessed with you?" I asked, remembering the trouble black market love spells sometimes caused in Albiyn. Spells like the one Franca had once attempted to use on Arkadian.

"Exactly. But I'm sure we can help you learn to channel that rage in some other form so that you can wield the sword without worry. Which brings me to something quite fortuitous to that point."

I raised my brow.

"I have a gift for you...gifts, really."

A slow smile spread across my face.

He stood and pulled me up to lead me across the room.

On the bed lay a short sword in an elaborately detailed silver and blue scabbard next to a small box and a dark flower. The sword had a large, blue idylstone inlaid into the pommel that very nearly matched the one currently hanging at his hip.

I looked at him in question.

"You know the custom of giving a crown and flower when you.

..ask someone for their hand," he said, almost nervously, reaching up to run his hands through his black hair.

"You seem to already have enough crowns, but I thought you might not want to carry the other sword since it's so fine.

..and apparently enchanted. And you needed one with idylstone, so. .."

I stared at him in shock.

He shook his head. “It’s stupid, I know. You also have enough swords, but…”

“No,” I said, reaching for him, sliding my arm around his waist. “It’s not stupid. It’s perfect.”

I reached out to touch the sword, but my hand went to the white flower instead. Dark blue petals, edged in yellow were arranged around a central heart of white filaments. It looked as though it had been flecked with paint like the wings of the god of darkness from Albiyn’s cathedral.

I picked it up and looked at him again, my heart warming with the same feeling I always got when his magic seeped through my skin.

"Will you marry me, Sera?" He reached for the little box and handed it to me, looking suddenly unsure of himself. How could this man be unsure to ask me anything?

"Yes," I breathed, voice breaking as tears streamed down my face. "I will." And I meant it with my whole heart.

Up until then, when I thought of the decisions I was making and their consequences, I always had the idea in the back of my mind that when it all fell apart, when we could not find a way around it, I would have to go to Behr and follow through with the contract.

As I opened the little box to find a smooth round idylstone ringed by a silver crescent moon and surrounded by tiny diamond stars, I knew that was no longer true.

My life would be here at his side. No matter what befell us—no matter what storms we would need to weather, we would do it together.

I would stay with him and damn the consequences.