Page 17 of Wedlock

And I’ve done enough lying to last me a lifetime.

“Please leave,” I gurgle as I slide down further into the bath and allow the scented water to flood my mouth. “Just go.”

“Not until I hear it from your lips,” he mutters, running his hands through his hair before striding away from me to stare down at the bed, one hand gripping the bedpost, his back to me. “I need to hear you say it.”

I sob and force my fist into my mouth as I war with Viper’s orders and try to stay quiet, try not to push him away any more than I already have, try to hold back the words I’m forced to say. But the only thing I can really do is stall for time. Because I know I’ll say them, I have no choice.

“I have to know why,” he groans.

My mind races as I think about how to answer within the boundaries of the bite, but with the least damage possible. Taking my hand from my mouth, I murmur the only reply I can manage.

“You know why.”

My heart breaks as he leans his forehead against the bedpost, his shoulders slumped, and I slide deeper into the water so my mouth is covered again, and close my eyes. His pain is palpable, and I know, since Eleanor had shared that vampires love eternally, that he’s hurting as much as Jag is. But what he can’t know is that that hurt is magnified a thousand-fold in my heart.

His next words are low, almost a whisper.

“Yes, I know why.”

I slide up in the bath and open my eyes, but he’s gone.

14

I knew I shouldn’t have entered her room, but my feet had led me there against my will, and my eyes craved the sight of her, no matter that seeing her grieves my soul.

And so, I’d gone.

Mother is right, of course, something is wrong with the woman I’d married. I’d expected to find her crowing from the rooftops at her revenge upon my house, or begging for her life, especially since I know Mother told her what I plan to do with her and her son.

Instead, she’d done neither, merely hiding her tear-stained face in the water, despondent and listless.

In all the time I’ve kept her here, mistreated her, abused her, spanked her. No matter what I’d done, I’d always seen the fire beneath. I’d never seen her truly broken.

Tonight, she was like a stranger.

Either her personality; light-hearted, determined, irreverent, had been completely an act in The Games, or something more was afoot than just infidelity.

‘Just infidelity? What more could there be? She fucked my best friend and cuckolded me under my own roof. She presented another man’s spawn as my heir.’

Even as I think this I can’t help but recall the nights of endless passion we’d shared. Ostensibly, she was there to do her duty, as was I, but I’d looked forward to my evenings with her. No woman has ever given me such pleasure.

Was itallan act?

No, she wasn’t faking her ecstasy; she enjoyed the sex as much as I did. But that’s all it must have been to her, just duty. Because on the side she was sleeping with someone else.

Could her despondency now be because she’s so in love with Jag that she’s feeling the same heartbreak I feel, but over him? Or is she just starting to understand the ramifications of her deplorable actions, and regretting her mistakes?

No, it must be that she loves him. She and Jag had clicked from the very first day they’d met. They’d laughed as I’d rarely seen him laugh, and she’d later joked with me about running off with him, adding that he was ‘super-hot.’ I’d never for a moment thought she meant it. Hadn’t she once even told me she’d ‘married the wrong vampire.’ Yes, she’d said that. How stupid I was. It was never a joke to her.

‘She said she’d never loved me.’

“If she’s heartbroken she deserves it. And if she isn’t regretting her actions, she soon will,” I growl as I stalk towards the kitchens to get my meal, a brunette.

I can’t stomach redheads any longer.

15

“But why?” I ask again as I sit on the couch watching Eleanor remove my clothes, sparse as the selection is, from the vast wardrobe, and hand them to the nanny. “And why are you doing this yourself? Aren’t there maids to cart my clothes and effects?”