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He pulls his cock free of my mouth and looks down at me, his hand still fisted in my hair.
"You are absolutely trying,” he says. “I do things to you, with you, that would destroy most of the females in my harem, and you are somehow made stronger and bolder by them. You are made different.”
“True,” I agree. “You won’t be able to break me, Sithren. Not ever. I’ll go when I decide to go, and we both know when that time comes, you won’t be able to stop me. I’ll be a shadow in the night, and you’ll be left with nothing but a memory.”
My words strike home even harder than I imagined they would.
“Go then, if you like,” he growls. “Go and spit out the unfortunate infant you have selfishly conceived with no interest in providing it with safety or family.”
I could retort that all most of the family he claimed to protect is now fertilizing the back garden, but that is a low blow. He’s angry because he knows I am capable of escape. Especially with the way Tethys keeps undermining his security in her sad bid for something like maternal attention.
“Get your girl a nanny,” I tell him.
“Why don’t you stay here and mother her with your baby instead of running off into an indifferent universe that will likely swallow and destroy you both?”
He makes the suggestion that has been in the ether out loud. With those words, his agenda becomes stunningly, strangely clear.
“Is that why you took me? Because you wanted a new mom for your daughter, and you thought the human woman who pissed you off would be a good candidate?”
“I thought the human woman who infiltrated my world and survived would be strong enough to defend against my enemies,” he says. “I have not taken another wife, because I cannot find any who I trust to know when they are in danger and be able to defend themselves and their children. You are precisely the sort of woman I need.”
“I see. So I fit a job description.”
“Yes.”
I wonder if it even occurs to Sithren that he has all the romanticism of a used condom. He doesn’t seem to understand that what he is saying is more of an insult than a compliment. It’s not that he loves me. Or even likes me, necessarily. It’s that I’ll be a strong broodmare.
“And if you find another woman, a warrior of another species, will you add her to the family, your new defensive harem of aggressive mates?”
“So you agree?”
“I do not agree. I am trying to determine how fucking delusional you are, Sithren.”
“What do you want that I am not providing?”
He is almost adorably confused.
“Devotion, love, monogamy, love, faithfulness, love…”
“You want to be loved.”
“By the man I give my life to? Yes.”
“I see. And if I were to say that I loved you, what would you say?”
“I’d say it’s not something you can just say. It’s something you show.”
“Ah, yes. You humans enjoy your grand romantic gestures. Like, perhaps, traveling deep into enemy territory to claim a bride who does not know how greatly she is desired?” He steps closer to me, his slitted eyes gleaming with predatory intensity as he begins to make a relentless list. “Who has no idea that she has not left the mind of the one who seeks to claim her from the moment he saw her for what she was before she departed his world all those months ago? The one who will make her a mother because she wishes to be a mother? The one who will keep her even though she is obnoxious and obstinate? The one who refuses to see how well she fits, and how happy she is, likely happier and more settled than she has ever been in her short, miserable life being used by the Authority? Would that qualify as romance?”
I am too stunned to talk for a second.
“I don't know if it qualifies as romance, but that was a hell of a verbal takedown.”
He smiles.
I’d like to smile back, but I can’t. He’s under my skin. He’s in my head. And he just mind fucked me just as hard as he regularly fucks me. I have a lot to think about.
6
I can’t stay here. This is not my destiny. I had my life planned out. I was going to have my baby, be free, and never answer to anyone ever again. With Sithren, all I do is answer to him. I have been captive inside this house since I arrived. My world has become these beautiful walls and the carnal wills and whims of their owner. He cannot think I would ever be satisfied with such a life. I can hardly believe he expects Tethys to live this kind of life.
I am lying on the bed, one arm under my head, the hand of my other arm over my lower belly. Have I made a huge, irreversible mistake?
