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We’ll be a hundred before we have any kids.
Meanwhile, I’ve started to doubt my course of action. Though Aconitum Hall is a castle, it’s way too small when one is aware of one’s mate on a microscopic, metaphysical level. Nathan is never far from my thoughts; our connection becomes more and more insistent the longer we stay near-but-apart, and I’m not the only one feeling it. I can smell his arousal every night as I lie in my bed, and I know he’s doing the same thing I’m doing with my hand beneath the covers. Worse, he knows I’m doing it, and somehow that makes it even hotter.
I hate that I think about my cheating husband as hot.
“Hey, are you with us?” Hannah asks one afternoon, snapping her fingers in my face.
I swat her hand away. “Yes, sorry. I got distracted. It’s not like I have something super important that’s stressing me out.”
We’re in the ballroom, which is absolutely swarming with thralls setting up tables and hanging heavy swooshes of shantung bunting as they prepare for my coronation reception. It’s all in my chosen colors of gray-blue and gold, from the tablecloths to the napkins, to the new carpet I had installed everywhere but the dance floor.
Since Nathan doesn’t seem pissed off by me spending excessive amounts of money or withholding sex, ruining Aconitum Hall is the next attempt on my list.
“As I was saying,” Hannah repeats, gesturing across the room to Amanda, who’s deep in conversation with a thrall from the king’s office, “The guest list is getting a lot shorter. Your mate won’t tell us why, but my inside info is that a new sect of traitors has been discovered.”
“Which traitors? The ones who support Victor’s sons’ claims, or the ones who support my husband’s girlfriend’s claim?” I can’t help but feel a little panicky at the reality of that last one. If I lose my position, I have nothing. Well, nothing, except my parents’ assets. But no family, no power, and how could I show my face if I’m deposed and suddenly nobody—
I hit the big red stop button on the carousel of spiraling anxiety that’s filling my head with demonic calliope music so I can concentrate on Amber’s answer.
“The former. From the same plot your family was involved in.” She lowers her voice. “The council voted this morning and found them guilty.”
“So, is Amanda getting that updated guest list for the coronation?” We’d had several iterations so far, all of them handed down like a decree from my husband’s office.
“Yes. And I will remove the names we discussed,” Hannah promises.
Nathan’s mistress had magically reappeared on every guest list we removed her from. “Keep checking, right up until like, ten minutes before the ceremony.”
“She’s not getting in,” Hannah vows. “I say that as a best friend, not an employee.”
I take her hand in mine and squeeze it. “I would not be able to get through this without you.”
“I know.” She scrolls her smart pencil down the tablet cradled in her arm. “Did you get an answer from his office about adding your sisters to the guest list?”
“It was a hard no.” My parents will be in attendance, though they won’t be given a place of honor or any recognition. They’re basically there to be poor and shamed in front of the rest of the pack. But my sisters? Their absence—and Nathan’s explanation for it—stings. “He said they’re traitors and it’s in my best interest to distance myself, lest others think I’m a traitor, as well.”
Hannah’s expression goes tight. “He’s not suggesting that you…”
“Maybe? I don’t know?” I’m pretty sure he’s just in a pissy mood because I won’t have sex with him, but I don’t need everyone in the ballroom to overhear that. “It’s probably just a shitty thing to say because he can.”
Hannah’s face softens. “I’m so sorry. I know you didn’t want this life.”
“No, no, no,” I wag my index finger at nothing in particular. “I didn’t want Ashton and the shitty life I would have with him. I can put up with an awful mate in exchange for being queen and living in a castle.”
“That’s very romantic of you,” she says wryly.
I lower my voice to shoot back, “you of all people should understand what a marriage of convenience is.”
“Yours isn’t a marriage of convenience,” she corrects me quietly, barely moving her lips. “It’s a dick measuring contest.”
“He wins,” I say at normal volume, and Hannah barks a surprise laugh.
But now I’m thinking of Nathan’s dick, and I swear I feel a hot flash creeping on.
I clear my throat, square my shoulders, and say, “I’m getting my sisters back. He lost the right to worry about appearances when he decided to keep his mistress.”
That is something the thralls should hear. There’s no doubt in my mind that everyone working in the palace knows of their king’s affair. I want as many people to know that I know about it as possible. The more people who think I’m okay with it, the less pathetic I appear.
