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And, underneath it all, a shame so thick that I want to spit and clear its taste from my mouth.
“Because.” It takes conscious effort to release her, to step back, to allow the air to rush into the new space between us. “I want you, Belladonna. Desperately, in fact. You’re beautiful and you’re kind and you’re strong. Not to mention your desire is strong enough to drown cities.”
Her cheeks deepen into a crimson color against her tan skin. “Then why not take me?”
Gods, if she understood the effect her words have on me.
I clear my throat. It does nothing to negate the knot forming there because the knot isn’t real. It’s all emotion, messy and illogical. “Because, little one.” My voice is raspy, but I can’t help it. “Because, when I take you, I want you fully in possession of your faculties—not lust drunk on my power. I want your need for me to overpower the shame your people have cursed you with.”
“Cursed.” She frowns. “It does feel like a curse, doesn’t it?”
“You would know better than I.” For all my experience with humans’ dreaming selves, I’m still an observer. I can see the desires, see the things blocking those desires, but I’m not the one experiencing them. I’m not a mind reader. I can’t reach into Belladonna’s soul and pull her shame out at its poisonous root.
She rubs her chest as if she can feel my violent desire. “It was so easy in there. I knew what I wanted, and I went for it. I didn’t doubt.”
“I know.”
She ducks her head, letting her hair fall forward and hiding her expression from me. “I want you, Rusalka. I want you so desperately, it feels like a spell, even though I know it’s not. But I can’t...” Belladonna makes a frustrated sound. “I hate this. I hate that I know what I want and can’t make myself reach out. I hate that I’m not even sure I believe in hell but I’m still scared of going there for wanting things that aren’t a nice churchgoing husband and a life spent giving him obedience and children. I hate that I can hear their voices in my head.”
Even as I tell myself to give her space, I can’t resist stepping forward and gently drawing her into my arms. She doesn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around me and hug me tight, her body shaking with the force of the conflict inside her. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”
“I never fit,” she whispers. “It started before I was born. My first memory is my mother telling me that the whole congregation knows I’m a sinful little beast and will do nothing but bring sorrow down on everyone I encounter.”
“How old were you?”
“I don’t remember exactly. Four or five.”
Once again, murderous desire rises in me. I close my eyes and try to breathe through it, to keep my flames from betraying my rage. “You were a child. An innocent.”
“No such thing according to our church.” Her voice has gone a little watery. “Born with sin and all that. I made it to high school before I realized there was nothing I could do to earn their love. No matter how hard I tried, I would always be flawed in their eyes.”
I swallow down the poisonous words I want to spit about her parents. “You mentioned a sister.”
“I did.” She sighs, slumping against me. “I love her so much. Ruth is a genuinely good person, but once I walked away from the church officially, it seemed like she had to try to love me back. It wasn’t effortless or easy, and even when she said she loved me, there was an asterisk attached to it.” Belladonna hiccups. “Hate the sin, love the sinner. But the so-called sin is me.”
I stroke a hand down her long hair and hold her until her tremors ease. Only then do I guide her through the process of getting ready for sleep and tuck her into the massive four-poster bed. She looks young like this, innocent and scared. “I’m sorry, little one.”
She swallows hard. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put this on you. You gave me a lovely night and I responded by weeping all over you.”
I have to pause to make sure I can modulate the fierceness of my tone. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I will take your tears any day, Belladonna. They are as much a part of you as your laughter and your desire.” I press a quick kiss to her forehead. “Sleep, little one.” It’s tempting to press a little magic behind that command, but I resist.
I don’t go back to the party. I certainly don’t go to bed. Instead, my footsteps trace the path to my study. As much as I’d like to spend my time out amongst my people, these days the true battles are fought through paperwork. Predatory trade agreements are just as threatening as a sword and offensive magic. Our territory isn’t particularly rich in resources outside of lumber. We have small swaths of farmland, but only certain types of crops prosper here. We need trade with the dragons for wheat and the gargoyles for the medicinal herbs that grow in their mountains. Even with the krakens for the deepwater fish that could feed a small village for weeks. As for the bargainers, they deal in more elusive products, ferried back from other realms.
And none of them will commit to a long-term trade agreement between territories.
That leaves me begging for scraps from individual traders, most of whom are only too happy to raise their prices to predatory heights. Like the current asshole I’m engaging in a continued battle of letters with. He’s a dragon who wants to pay half of fair market price for our lumber and for us to pay double for the wheat he has excess of.
I’m still hunched over my desk, cursing under my breath, when Danik steps through the door sometime later. His shirt is unbuttoned, and his eyes are heavy-lidded, but he seems alert enough as he drops into the chair across from my position behind the desk.
“You should be at the party,” I say without looking up.
He raises his brows. “You either get me or you get all three of us. We had thought—hoped—Belladonna arriving in the territory might help you recover a little balance, but...” He waves a hand at my study. “Here you are, and there she is alone in her bed.”
“She’s been here a day,” I snap.
“I know. Talk me through it. What’s wrong?”
Damn it. I should have known that they noted my mood and decided to do something about it. I know what the proper thing to do is. Smile and make a joke, send him back to the revelry, continue my slow seduction of Belladonna, allow her to have a baby to benefit the territory and everyone who lives in it. That is the only course of action that will result in the outcome of what I’ve been working so hard for the last few years: to be a leader powerful enough to make the other territories pay attention, a fact that will be doubly true if Azazel has his way and finally puts us all on even territory.
