Page 31 of Bride of Ash & Dust

The voices fall silent. I force myself to swallow the sting in the back of my throat and turn to face my room.

My heart sinks. My wife has her arms around a tall blond man, and she’s kissing him in a way that makes me feel like someone just slipped a knife through my rib cage. I step back. My shoulder blades hit the wall, and my vision swims.

Godsdamn it. I told her not to expect privacy in that room.

I fucking told her.

The man pulls away, growling something under his breath. My wife giggles. It’s a sound I’ve never heard her make, and it feels like claws dragging across my skin. She moves toward the bed and pulls the curtains back.

He turns toward the mirror for the first time. Something about his face seems dimly familiar, and I have the horrible feeling that I should know who this is. Then he turns away from the mirror, away from the bed and the beautiful woman on it, and toward my desk and the pile of parchment someone stacked on it.

What the fuck?

“Do you have to do that now?” my wife asks.

She’s pouting at him with a sort of flirty insolence I wouldn’t have thought she could muster. Horribly, my cock stirs in the darkness behind the mirror.

The man smiles at Lilias as he runs his hands over the stack of parchment on the desk, like he’s absentmindedly shuffling through them. He starts shoving them into a bag on the chair.

“You know me,” he says. “I hate a mess.”

When he turns his back to the bed, blocking what he’s doing from Lilias, his eyes are hard and sharp.

And I know it’s an act.

The flirting, the joke about hating a mess, it’s all deliberate. Whoever this man is, whatever he’s pretending to be doing, he’s looking for something. On my desk. He shoves the last stack of parchment into his bag, and then, moving quickly, he holds something dark against the candle flame. It only takes a moment, and then he presses whatever it was against the desk. He twists his wrist, lifts something small and pale, and tucks it into his vest.

Then he turns back toward the bed. Lilias smiles in a way that makes me feel like I’ve just been punched in the gut. A moment later, he tosses his belt to the side. And then I see his bare white ass cheeks as he shoves his pants to the floor.

Shit. I can’t watch this anymore.

I creep out of the secret passage, pull the dagger from my hip holster, and open the door to my fucking bedroom.

Chapter 19

Zarek

THE STOPPING POINT

The door swings open silently. From this perspective, I can only see the man’s back. He’s still wearing his shirt and his stupid vest. And that’s what stops me.

He didn’t take off his shirt. Hells, he didn’t even take off his vest. And he hasn’t touched her between her legs.

Is he just going to ram right in there, then? Still half dressed? Doesn’t he know that could hurt her?

Of course he knows, I realize. He just doesn’t give a shit.

I hold my breath as I creep toward the bed, my blade in my hand.

“Gods, the things you force me to do,” the man says. “You don’t know how hard this has been for me, these past⁠—”

I clear my throat.

The man jumps back, away from the bed. My eyes drop and, well, at least I have a bigger cock. I’m not above savoring that fact as the blood drains from his face.

“What in the nine hells,” I say, pointing my dagger at his neck, “do you think you’re doing?”

The lump in his neck bobs as he swallows. He’s a tall, lanky man with pale skin, and again, something about his face is sickeningly familiar. It’s not like me to forget a face. Where in the hells do I know him from?