Page 40 of What Fury Brings (Wrath and Fury #1)

S anos felt like an idiot.

No, scratch that. He was an idiot.

Keeping his identity hidden had been crucial to his survival, but he didn’t have an excuse now. He should tell her.

Sanos , he would say. My name is Sanos.

How did he think this would work? That he would simply continue to pretend as their romance progressed. It was him she wanted, not his damned brother. She just had the wrong name.

And when she’d called out his brother’s name right before he was about to take her, it’d been more effective than a bucket of ice water.

He could not, would not , bed her as she called out another man’s name.

He wanted her to say his name. He wanted to hear it fall from her lips more than he wanted anything else.

But what would happen once he revealed the truth?

She couldn’t have him, a crown prince. He was too politically important to Brutus. And she couldn’t come with him to Brutus. He would never let her live in the same castle as his father. Not that it mattered. Olerra needed to remain in Amarra to become queen.

And to do that, she needed a husband. Would she ransom him for his brother? His father would make the trade. Of course he would. Atalius wanted his heir, the one he’d groomed since childhood to be just like him. He would hand Andrastus over in a heartbeat.

What kind of brother would Sanos be if he allowed that to happen?

Who the fuck was he kidding? It had nothing to do with letting his brother take his place and everything to do with the thought of Olerra bedding his brother.

She can’t. She’s mine.

But she wasn’t, and she could never be unless she knew who he was.

It was a problem with no solution. No matter what he did, he lost.

The only thing he could do, the only thing he would do, was help her win her throne. He’d tell her once she was named crown princess. Hopefully his father didn’t find out where he was before then.

So he would wait. He would tell her before anything drastic happened. But the best thing for her right now would be to get that vote from the nobility. He wouldn’t let anything stop her from getting what she wanted most.

When Olerra entered Andrastus’s room the next morning, she was beaming. Her guards outside the harem rooms reported seeing nothing in the night.

“You didn’t try to escape,” she said.

“As if I would have made it farther than I had last time.”

“You like it here, admit it.”

“I like you ,” he corrected. “I tolerate everything else.”

“We’ll make changes,” she promised him. “The moment I’m named heir, I will speak to my aunt about making things better for you. For the other men who wish it. Whatever you want, we can discuss it. Together, we can make this place good for everyone.”

He looked at her so fondly. His hair was mussed from sleep, and she could smell the delicious scent that was just him coming from the bed.

“May I kiss you good morning?” she asked.

His face visibly relaxed, as though he might have been worried what the state of things between them would be. “Always.”

She smiled, leaned down, and gave him a chaste peck on the lips. The moment she tried to pull away, his hands went to the back of her head, keeping her in place. He pulled her onto his lap, and she giggled as she fell into place.

His kiss was not heated as it had been last night. It was deep and sweet. It was careful, as though he were trying to communicate something to her. She thought she might know what it was.

We’re okay. Nothing is wrong. I just need to slow down.

She was perfectly fine with that. She didn’t want anything that he didn’t.

Olerra put her hands on his chest, pushing him back a few inches. He went without resisting.

“I just want to understand,” she said.

Her hands curled around his biceps. She really liked the feel of them. The way her fingers had no hope of touching. The way he couldn’t help but flex underneath her. As though he wanted her to find him impressive.

“Is it… intercourse that is off the table but everything else is fair game?” she asked.

Andrastus looked down at his lap as though he were ashamed.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just thought it might help if I understood. Perhaps we could avoid any discomfort. I want to know what is and isn’t okay.”

He raised his head, frustration clear in his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay, too,” she said.

“What I do know is that you are nothing like I thought I wanted. Yet, I want you. Make no mistake of that. I want you more than anything. Just not yet.”

“Would it help if I promised not to initiate intimacy without asking? Let you decide what you want and when you want it?”

“And what if I do something you don’t like?” he asked.

“I’ll like it,” she promised. “But if you’re unsure, you could always ask.”

He said nothing, as though her words made no sense. She decided to be a little wicked and help him along. “For example, you could ask, Olerra, can I kiss you? Just as I asked you this morning. That wasn’t strange, was it?”

He shook his head.

“You could ask, Olerra, would you like to put your hands on my cock?”

Andrastus swallowed.

“You could say, Olerra, could I put my cock into your mouth?”

His eyes were blazing, but he didn’t move, as though he wanted to torture himself longer by hearing all the filthy things she could come up with.

“You could say, Olerra, would you like to sit on my face? Or—”

He silenced her with another kiss, this one hot and primal. He pulled back just enough to say, “All of it. I want to do all of it.”

Olerra adjusted her position until she was straddling him. By touch alone she found the strings keeping his tight shorts closed. When she freed him, she wrapped her hand around him, relishing in the heat of him.

“Gods, Andrastus, you feel so perfect.”

And then his body went rigid beneath her.

She let go of him immediately, her confusion profound.

Was it her talking that bothered him? She’d thought he liked it when she spoke like this, despite his protests in the beginning.

Naughty talk was her favorite, and she didn’t want to give that up to please him.

But she would. If it was what he needed.

“Do you… need silence when we— Is that it?”

Andrastus groaned. “I’m sorry, but I think I need a moment alone before we head to breakfast. Would that be all right?”

“Of course. We could even eat with the troops this morning if you’d prefer?”

He nodded.

“Great, I’ll return in a few minutes.”

Olerra shut herself within her room and sat on the edge of her bed.

She didn’t know what to do. He’d told her what he wanted.

But that still didn’t work. She wasn’t sure what she was doing wrong.

He had no problem becoming aroused. The problem wasn’t his body’s enthusiasm, that was for sure. It must be something in the mind.

And then a horrible thought struck her.

Had someone hurt him?

Abused him sexually?

Fiery anger propelled her to her feet, and she began to pace. Of course. Of course. Andrastus wouldn’t be able to help when he was triggered. And he wasn’t ready to talk about it. He probably couldn’t talk about it.

Olerra wanted a name. She wanted the person responsible taken to the pit. She would lower the guillotine herself. Better yet, she’d take a fucking ax to them. She wouldn’t just take the cock. She’d take all of it. Balls and hands while she was at it. Let the coward responsible be a mewling mess.

When she finally calmed down, she put her focus back on the matter at hand. Andrastus needed to go slow. He needed her to be patient. He needed her to make him feel safe.

She would do all of that. She would do whatever he needed. No one would hurt him again.

She vowed it.

There was no word fouler than his brother’s name, Sanos decided.

He spent the next week talking with Olerra as much as possible. If they were talking, then they weren’t being physical. If they weren’t being physical, then he wouldn’t have to hear fucking Andrastus’s name called out in ecstasy in place of his.

It was torture.

He enjoyed the time they spent together.

He enjoyed hearing her stories and telling her his.

He enjoyed hearing her opinions on the way the world worked and how she would change it once she was in a position to do so.

She was an incredible conversationalist. He felt bland by comparison, yet she seemed enchanted by him.

Twice he caught her reaching out as if to touch him and then pulling back. He pretended not to notice.

And he suffered.

One evening, when it was just the two of them having a quiet dinner in the seating area of her rooms, he asked, “Have you ever tried to kill her? Glen?”

The question didn’t seem to hold any judgment, only curiosity, which interested Olerra. “No. Not once.”

“Why not?”

“One, because it’s a poor queen who has to take out her only competition in order to win a throne. And two—”

She hesitated, wondering what he would make of the next part if she told him the truth.

“I still remember her as a child. We grew up together. As close as Ydra and I are now.”

Andrastus took this all in with a patience she’d never seen from him before. “What changed? How did you go from sisters to rivals?”

She couldn’t help but ask, “Do you really find this interesting?”

He nodded.

“My parents both died when I was four. Glen declared I was her sister now. She would be my family. Though her mother, my aunt by marriage, kept me at a distance, she permitted the closeness we came to share. Glen was kind. She genuinely loved me. Though even back then she had a manipulative personality. She would ask me to do things for her.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Little things at first. I was stronger. So she’d ask me to open a jar or be the soldier in our games where she played the princess. As we got older, she became a little more brazen. Asking me to run errands for her or deal with noblewomen who displeased her.”

“Deal with them how?”