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The bottom line is, what option do I have, if not him? Valdred, whose long cock I still taste at the back of my throat? Junis, perhaps? In case I’d like another bone broken on top of a forced blowjob.
At least now I understand why I healed so fast. Why I was sick my entire life, yet not really. So vulnerable to many things, yet stronger than my peers.
Not quite normal. Not quite human, and not even a sup.
Smaller, stronger. Weaker, more powerful. Charming, indifferent. Cruel. I was always so many things that didn’t make a lick of sense.
Valdred, Ryther, Junis—all of them? They’re me, only none of their instincts to hurt, to manipulate, to hunt have ever been curbed by a patient human mother.
They’re the worst of me.
Now, that’s a little harsh, isn’t it?
I recoil, as though the deep, chocolate-smooth timbre felt like lashes against my face.
I didn’t speak and he heard me. Not even my thoughts are safe.
Run, run, run, I chant to myself.
“That would be highly foolish, queenling.”
Now he speaks out loud, and I hear the smile that barely cracks his marble face in his voice.
“And you don’t strike me as a fool.”
Foolish would be trusting him. I don’t. But he’s still proved the least terrible option on the table. And the most delicious one, too.
Still, I’m not about to be taken in by his smirk, or his pretty eyes, or his dangerously gorgeous face. Wanting him and being deceived by him are two equally stupid things, but I’m only guilty of one.
“You’ve been listening in since Valdred first talked to me. You know my name. Yet you let him fuck my face.” I lift my chin. “You knew I had no say, didn’t you?”
Ryther is silent, considering, calculating. “Have you ever been able to say a single lie, in all your life?”
I blink in surprise, unsure what to say. “What?”
“Have you ever lied?” he presses.
I know I don’t like outright lies, but surely I’ve told some. I’ve stolen sweets and pretended I didn’t know where they had gone. I’ve faked illness to skip school. I’ve been as duplicitous as most kids—more than Rachel.
And yet…
Did I ever lie?
I’m too miserable for school today, Mom.
That was true enough, when I simply didn’t feel like going.
What cake? I would hedge, rather than admit to anything.
“She can’t lie,” Valdred grunts impatiently. “The gentry aren’t even able to, and she’s as pure a folk as anyone can be, from the elder blood.”
Any one item in the long list of things I’m learning about myself today. I feel like if I don’t take notes, I’ll forget a good half.
“Precisely.” Ryther only spares him a glance before returning to me. “None of us is able to formulate outright lies, queenling. And I vow that you’ll be safe from harm in my camp for the night. From anything within and without, myself included.”
Oh. So that was his point. He plucked the knowledge that I didn’t trust him right from my brain and offered me a reason I should.
“I’m not asking for forever. Trust me for a night.”
