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All these questions do my head in.
I want answers.
Ineedanswers.
But today, I’ll settle for at least one.
As if sensing my thinning patience, Anya suddenly appears, rushing into my tent, cheeks flushed, brow sweaty, looking somewhat breathless. She throws a mischievous wink to Inessa, who continues to stand beside me, before eating the distance between us and curtseying at my feet.
“So? Were you able to learn who sent the rider?” I belt out frustratedly when she takes too long to talk.
“I have, Your Highness.” Anya smiles, pleased as she stands back up.
“Well, are you going to tell me or keep me in this infernal suspense? A name, Anya! Give me a name.”
“It was from King Atlas, Your Highness,” she rushes to explain.
“Atlas? Are you sure? What proof do you have that it was him?” I interrogate, my hope waning as I watch Anya’s cocky grin fall to the floor with each question I throw her way. No longer looking so confident, her gaze falls from me to Inessa, as if her friend could collaborate her story. “Don’t look at her, look at me!” I insist. “You aren’t sure, are you?”
“I’m as sure as I could possibly be, Your Grace,” she insists, holding her chin up high. “King Levi’s man swore to me that the squire wore the marigold seal on his person. He swore to it.”
“Did he tell you this before or after he bedded you?” I cock a knowing brow.
Her cheeks flush crimson at the insinuation that she let one of Levi’s soldiers have his way with her just so she could retrieve this particular crumb of information for me. Although everyone in this room knows that’s exactly what Anya did.
I even counted on it.
Anya’s seductive skillset is one of the reasons I chose her to accompany me on this trip to begin with. With her hourglass-shaped figure, long flowing red hair reminiscent of an open flame, and gentle submissive facial features, she’s every man’s wet dream. Hence her appeal to me.
“Anya, Her Majesty has asked you a question,” Inessa chimes in, more for her friend’s benefit than for mine.
“During, my queen,” Anya finally responds.
In other words, the soldier would have said just about anything just so he could rut inside her.
Gods be damned!
“He sounded sincere. I believed him. But if you need me to steal the scroll so that you can see it for yourself, I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever my queen wishes.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose with my fingers, trying to ease the building headache forming there.
“I doubt King Levi will leave the scroll out of his sight,” I mutter, disheartened.
“Even a man like him needs to sleep, Your Highness. They usually do… after,” she whispers suggestively, alerting me to the fact that most of her lovers are so spent that they have no choice but to give in to their slumber.
My hands ball into fists with the suggestion, and before I know what has come over me, I lean in and grab Anya’s chin, sinking my nails into her skin.
“King Levi will share no woman’s bed, but my own, if I so wish it. Is that understood, Anya?”
Her eyes widen in horror as I shove her away, making her land on her hands and knees. She bows her head and body to kiss the tapestry immediately, stretching her arms and placing her open palms on the floor.
“I never meant to offend you, my queen. I live to serve you. Serve you and you, alone. Please forgive me. I meant no harm by it.”
Damn it.
I know Anya’s loyalty is to me.
I may not be able to say that about most people in my court, but where Anya and Inessa are concerned, I know their hearts and loyalty are only mine. But Anya suggesting that she bed Levi struck too much of a nerve inside me. A nerve long forgotten. Just picturing the two together has me fuming with rage.
