Page 41 of Bride of Ash & Dust

“Thank you.”

His voice is soft. When I dare glance up, he’s staring at the windows behind me. The question rises so softly I almost don’t realize what I’m about to say until the words slip through my lips.

“Why did you do it?” I ask.

He laughs again, that soft, almost mournful sound. And the obvious answer comes to me.

“You knew,” I say.

It feels like getting punched in the gut. I step back, then sink into one of the chairs beside the bed.

“You knew about Blayne before the wedding,” I whisper. “You knew I wasn’t pure.”

Blayne’s words come back to me. Some primitive kingdoms look for blood on the marital sheets as proof of a woman’s virginity. He promised that Ethiria hadn’t done so in centuries; in fact, he said, that custom was on its way out in all the civilized kingdoms.

But apparently not in Vsenrog.

“I didn’t know,” Zarek replies. “Not for sure, at least. I did hear the rumors.”

My eyes sting. I blink furiously as my hands twist in the loose skirt of my nightgown. Blayne told me it wouldn’t matter. The way he spoke, he basically implied it was expected that women would have a lover before their wedding night.

Of course, Blayne also told me men couldn’t stop once their cock was hard. But he stopped when Zarek held a knife to his throat.

“I didn’t do it because of you,” Zarek finally says.

There’s a sharp edge to his voice, something I haven’t heard since he told me he dislikes drugs. I glance up, but he’s still scowling at the window. Only now, his hand is at his throat, and his fingers curl around the little metal tube he wears around his neck.

“I did it because fuck them,” he growls in a low voice. “They think they can make me dance, but they don’t own me.” He turns to me, his dark eyes flashing in the glow of the candle. “They don’t own you either, Princess.”

I swallow hard. What an absurd thing to say. Of course they own me. I accepted that long ago.

Zarek comes to his feet, then pulls the filthy, blood-stained shirt he was holding against his leg over his head. It’s only when he begins to pull his pants back on that I realize what he’s doing.

“You’re leaving?” I whisper.

He ties the laces on his pants. A strange flicker of disappointment curls in my gut.

“I don’t sleep well,” he says. “I would only keep you up. Besides, it’s safer for you if I’m not around.”

I blink, then rub my hand over my wrist, tracing the place where red silk bound us together forever. Zarek walks toward the door, then stops and turns around. He frowns at me.

“Do you know how to defend yourself?” he asks.

“Elrick taught me,” I reply.

My heart sinks. Elrick said he hoped I would never need to know how to throw a man to the ground or break free from someone’s grip.

“Good.” Zarek nods, then walks to the door and pulls his cloak over his shoulders.

Suddenly, I remember how he looked with his shirt off and the length of his cock outlined by his tight black shorts. Some insane part of me wants to beg him to stay.

Instead, I force myself to smile. My chest feels like it’s full of broken glass. Zarek walks through the door, and I hear a soft click as it locks behind him.

The snake is right, I realize as silence fills the room we’re supposed to share.

I have no friends here.

Chapter 23