The King's Spinster Bride, (Royal Wedding #1)(27)
What if those bewitching grins are lies? What if when he calls me “love” he’s simply saying it because it dazzles me and because it’s what I wish to hear? That I am so desperate and needy for affection that I can run to the arms of my enemy and not think about what it means?
I want him. I want him so badly I ache with it—not just between my thighs but deep in my soul. But this is the first decision I’ve had to make in sixteen years and I worry I’ll make the wrong one just because I’m a lonely spinster who’s seeing all of her dreams come true.
Mathior could be a great pretender. This could all be a game for him, some sort of devious ploy to grind Yshrem under his thumb once more, and I’m walking into it with a gleeful heart. I’m trying to be objective, but I don’t know if I can.
Because all I can think about is Mathior’s smile, his mouth between my thighs and the sounds of pleasure he made as he touched me, the fall of his hair over my legs, and the way he looked at me when I caressed him. The way he makes me feel like I’m the only thing that matters.
I press my hands to my face, fighting back the scream that wants to erupt.
I don’t know what to do. Please, Father, help me. I want Mathior, but I don’t know if it’s wrong. Give me a sign. I open my eyes and gaze out the window, but the only sight that greets me is the sight of the Cyclopae tents on the far side of the wall and the banner of our joined house symbols. Am I supposed to read something from that? Or am I seeing answers where there are none? With a frustrated sigh, I turn away.
There’s an urgent knock at my door.
I ignore it, as I have ignored all of them thus far. I know it’s the ladies assigned to wait on me. They need to bathe me and dress me for the wedding, and I have no answer yet. If I am cautious and wary, I will back out of this marriage until I know for sure if Mathior speaks truly. My fear is that if I back out, I humiliate him and make matters worse instead of better. That he will change his mind and not want to marry me at all, and then I will return to Riekki’s temple, broken-hearted and filled with regret.
The knock comes again, and then a third time. Muffled male voices call on the other side, but I move back to the window and lean over the edge, drinking in the fresh air. This was the view I had sixteen years ago, but it was a different wall around the keep itself, and back then it was spring and the air was not crisp with fall. Back then, I waited in this room with my ladies as the world wrecked itself below. I sat and sewed while my father died on a battlefield and took half his army with him and all the hopes of Yshrem. Saddest of all, I can’t even remember why my father fought with Cyclopae and its king. Was it over a land dispute? Unlikely, because the Cyclopae borders are ever-changing and their people mostly nomadic. Their cities are tent cities, not stone like ours. Over a woman? Also unlikely—my father was ever-devoted to my mother’s memory, and she died in childbirth. I suspect it was a war fought over egos, arrogance and perceived insults.
Such a shame.
The pounding at the door is more insistent, and then stops entirely. Good. Maybe they’ll leave me in peace for a time and I can concentrate. I rub a hand at my temples, thinking.
In the next moment, there’s a heavy thunk in the door that makes me jump. I turn, frowning, and it thunks again. Again. Again. Quick and relentless, it doesn’t sound like knocking at all, but the brittle sound that wood makes when an axe hits it…
A moment later, the next slam is even louder, and an axe head pokes through the wood. I stare, wide-eyed and in shock as a hole gapes in the heavy slats of my door. The hole is widened with a few more chops, and then a familiar face peers through the hole. It’s Mathior, his scar covered with bright red paint. He gazes inside, and then his mouth thins at the sight of me. With a muffled curse, he slams his fist through the hole, enlarging it until he can reach an arm through, and then pulls the heavy bar off my door and flips the latch. A moment later, he storms into my room.
I back up against the cool stone of the wall, my heart racing. His face is hard with an unreadable expression, and my throat goes dry. Is he angry that I’m stalling? Has he come to tell me that he’s changed his mind? The thought stabs me with pain, but I lift my chin and don’t move from my spot near the window.
Mathior comes to my side, and as he does, I see he’s covered in even more paint, red symbols on his chest and arms. He pulls me against him, his gaze roaming over my body and then resting on my face. “Are you unwell? Hurt?” He puts a hand to my brow. “Fevered?”
“No,” I say, startled by his intensity. I feel a little foolish because I have been worrying like mad, and yet this is not the expression of a man who cares nothing for his bride. This is a man worried for my well-being, and love and happiness bloom in my breast.
He takes in my words and then notices the wide-open shutters of the large window in my room, and how close I’m standing to it. A look of pure agony flickers across his face, then disappears.
I realize he thinks I meant to kill myself and I shake my head quickly. “Not that. I was just…thinking.”
“Thinking,” he echoes. “Of what?”
I try to smile. “My father, oddly enough.”
It only makes his expression more intense. His hands grip my shoulders tightly, and then someone clears a throat behind us.
“Leave us,” Mathior says, and his voice is flat and devoid of emotion.