“I’m sorry. As thankful as I am for Stony Stem, it’s just not possible for me to cloister myself up there. I mean, I’m not sure how you were expecting Baze and I to find the space to train.” I fan myself with the plate again, matching the beat of my jerking hips. “We’d be right on top of each other.”
Rhordyn’s eyes open, and I suck a breath.
His face looks sharpened by a whetting rock, his eyes flat like twin sheets of slate.
Suddenly, I feel like a fat, overfed kitchen mouse hanging by its tail.
“There will be no training.”
My head kicks back as if he just slapped me. “Why the hell not? You’re the one that said—”
“Because you’re going into heat.”
My heart stills.
The breath in my lungs becomes heavy like mortar, and even the sensual fire boring deep into my groin seems to abate a few degrees.
I know what a female’s heat is, only because I stumbled on an anatomy book when I was thirteen.
But that’s aboutallI know.
Two paragraphs into the chapter, I skipped to the next, cheeks aflame. The medis who wrote about the experience made it all sound so ... so ...
Sexual.
I thought I’d avoided it. That perhaps the caspun had successfully warded it off—one of the side effects I’d noted while studying the herb in a medicine book I found in Spines. One of the only adverse side effects I was actuallypleasedabout.
Suddenly, my chest wrap feels too tight. Too constricting. My body’s desire to mature despite the hurdles has cast light on the fact I’ve been punishing it for far too long, blind to the nail-biting pain that comes with having my budding breasts flattened.
“Can I ... can I stop it?”
Please say yes.
“No, Orlaith. You can’t.”
The words land like rocks in my stomach, certain to weigh me down for the rest of my life.
“I need you to walk out of this room, go straight to your tower, and stay there.”
Stay there ...
Not only is my body rebelling against my mind, but I’m also being shunned to my tower—being ordered tostayfor the first time in my life.
I need something normal to cling to or I’m going to fall apart. Maybe not straight away, but eventually the noose of anxiety will slither in and steal my breath, just like it always does when I feel like I’ve lost control.
“Surely exceptions can be made? I’m not asking for much. Just an hour a day for me to ...” hell, I don’t know, feed Shay ... collect flowers ... visit Kai ... “wander?”
The wooden arms of his chair groan.
“Now,Orlaith!”
Guess that’s a no.
My hands fall to my lap, bunching into fists as I glance at the door, lips pursed.
What if Tanith comes back?
“I’ll be in my room.Alone,” Rhordyn grates out, and I slide my gaze back to him, weighing the value of his words. “With the door locked,” he swiftly tacks on.
