Page 22 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

I swallowed, moving across my room in search of wine. I undid the black belt at my waist, feeling my stomach expand as the belt fell to the floor. With a groan, I untied the strings behind my back. My dress fell open in the front, still covering my breasts but no longer holding them up. My diadem went next, tossed onto my dressing table.

Kitten? His voice was deep and shadowy but so clear and loud I knew he was close. Already past the sentries, already deep inside the fortress.

Now you come crawling to me? I thought. I’d needed him hours ago.

Don’t be petulant, he chided. It’s been a busy night.

My father was murdered!

Which is why I’ve been busy.

My face heated, anger coursing through me. If you think I’m in any mood for your games—

I wouldn’t presume. There was a soft knock on my door before it creaked open.

I retreated to my bed, lying over the covers, fully aware half my breasts were exposed. I didn’t look at him. I never did. Partly out of habit; our relationship had begun with my eyes closed. I’d begun to see him as two different beings. The one he presented in public, and the one he was with me.

You left out some important information, I thought, staring pointedly at the ceiling. How could you leave me in the dark like that?

Me and you have always been in the dark, existing in the shadows. He closed the door behind him, not gently, and I could feel his annoyance and irritation spiking through both his mind and aura.

As if he had any right to be annoyed.

I said no games. I grabbed at my shoulders, the tension in them paining me. Did you know? Did you?

Know Arianna was the traitor? he asked.

Answer the Godsdamned question.

He sighed audibly, irritably. I suspected Arianna had the elixir, in the way all high-ranking nobles with secrets and access to wealth do.

I’d thought you’d have more than just a suspicion. I closed my eyes.

I’d thought you would, too. The lock clicked into place. You knew the elixir existed. You knew what it did. And you knew your aunt. She was noble, after all. Not one of them is without secrets, without some crime behind them. So ask yourself this—why didn’t you know? Why did you allow yourself to be blinded?

Arianna was the queen of controlling what people saw. She was always thinking the right thoughts. She’d think in anger at how her husband was a traitor. Or she’d worry for Naria. She’d think of how much she loved me and Meera and Lyr. Sometimes she even missed Jules. She thought about paperwork, meetings, the Council…everything but her plans for assassination, usurping the Seat, leading the rebels, being the head of the Emartis.

Fuck you. I sneered.

He chuckled. No. But I’ll fuck you tonight if you want.

You swear you didn’t know Arianna was the traitor?

Am I not the one who told you of the elixir’s existence? he asked. Am I not the one fighting to liberate the enslaved? I hate everyone who uses our vorakh against us. I hate everyone who enslaves our kind, steals from us, rules us. I’ve done nothing but try to help you. And yet you question me?

You’ve kept secrets before.

We all keep secrets.

I turned on my side, facing away from him, thinking of the secret he’d shared with me, the one I’d guarded more closely from both my sisters than any other.

When vorakh hunters arrested my kind—those with the vorakh of mind reading—we weren’t taken to Lethea like the others. We weren’t stripped of our magic or killed. Mind-readers had a special fate.

Why get rid of us when we could be used to further the positions of the Empire’s rulers, to command them greater power? Why kill us and destroy our magic when our magic could be siphoned from us, drained from us until we were dead? The elixir created from our magic provided a mental shield to those who drank it, allowing the Emperor and all those in his favor to continue with their backroom dealings and maintain their illicit and illegal affairs without fear of discovery. Vorakh like us were the Empire’s most expensive and heavily guarded secret.

The elixirs worked beautifully—too beautifully. I’d only just begun to recognize when they were in use, but I didn’t know how to get around them. Not yet.

The mattress dipped behind me, and a warm, calloused hand slid up my leg, gathering my dress around my ankles and shifting the material higher and higher until he reached my hip. Small shivers ran through me, his touch igniting me with heat, like my body knew it was about to get relief. His fingers pressed into me, drawing me against an already impressive erection as he glided his palm over my ass.