Page 83 of Mortdale

Had Ulric threatened him with Piper? It had to be.

Did he know what I was here to do? Had he always known?

But…why would he agree to let me investigate it?

Goddess. Maybe he knew I wouldn’t find anything. Maybe he was sure he’d buried everything too deep for me to find out anything at all.

Had Agnes known about his involvement from the start? Maybe that’s why she’d picked me to marry him in the first place. But if she had known about his involvement, why wouldn’t she warn me? Why had she sent me into his arms unprepared?

No. Gerda had to be wrong. Right? Right?

I blinked when he brought his thumb to my nose, pressing on the blood dripping into the red bath. “You want to run for it?”

“It’s too late,” I whispered. Too late to run from you. My body and mind were now accustomed to finding him comforting, to find safety in him, that I’d forgotten how to fear him, how to doubt him. Had that been his intention from the start? Learn to disarm me without having to kill me?

“It’s not.” His bloodied thumb traced the shape of my lip back and forth, slowly, carefully, as if he wanted to learn it. “It’s never too late.”

The exarch went on and on, his words echoing through the Basilica and drowning every other noise, even the raging thunder outside. Just not the voice screaming against the walls of my cranium.

Logan’s voice was much softer, surrendered, tormented as he murmured, “If you ever want to leave this marriage, I want you to tell me first. Give me a head start, won’t you?”

The red water rippled from the uncontrollable shake that had taken over my limbs. “You’d let me go?”

“Not far, but I would.”

My trembling lip slid between my teeth. “That’s a horrible promise.”

“I’m a horrible man.”

He pulled back when the exarch turned his attention on us, and I watched him slip his thumb in his mouth, sucking my blood clean off his skin. His head tipped back and his eyes drew shut as he drew in a deep, controlled breath.

My nails dug against the tub edge as I pulled myself closer to the ceramic wall until my aching nipples were pressed up against the cold surface. My unfeeling, half-dead corpse of a body felt alive, choking on the desire to breathe near him alone. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It couldn’t be like this. But the possibility was right there, only a foot away from me. To know and to feel desire. I wanted him. And I’d lied. I wanted him to want me back.

Why did it have to be him?

It couldn’t be him.

Right?

The exarch handed Logan a silver bowl and diamond-adorned knife. I flinched back when my husband dragged the blade across his palm and let his blood fill the bowl. My eyes remained on his bleeding hand as he dipped it in the water, the back of his fingers skimming the length of my arm before he dragged it back out completely healed. He dipped his thumb into the blood and brought it to my forehead, dragging it down between my brows. He brushed it across my mouth, and I saw his chest rise faster when I let my lips part, tasting his blood on my tongue. He stilled for a moment, inhaling slowly in and out, and then dragged his bloodied thumb down my throat. The back of his fingers gently brushed over my pulse before he went to drag his bloodied thumb between my breasts and down to my heart. His hand briefly vanished down the red water as it grazed the length of my stomach down to my hips, dragging an unsettling amount of want deep in my belly.

Theodora had explained the ceremonial marks in her own tacit way. She had a tendency to start steaming and turning red at the mention of anything too uncomfortable. But she had failed to mention how sacred they’d feel when he looked at me as he marked me with his blood.

The exarch lowered a golden cup between us, and Logan let a few drops of his blood drip into the red concoction.

I watched him watch me over the rim of the cup as I slowly drank it all, his throat working down a hard swallow while the gold in his eyes vanished entirely in a pool of black.

“What now?” I asked, licking my lips. “Do we sacrifice him on the altar?”

“I hold him down, and you do the cutting.”

I didn’t hold my smile back. “That’s because you think your witch can’t hold him down.”

“I think my witch can do whatever she strings her fingers around. Especially when it comes to blowing things to pieces.”

“It was one thing.”

He lifted an amused brow. “One big thing.”