How can it hurt this badly when we’ve only just met?
“No, if you’ll recall, Your Majesty, I’ve spoken on the matter. I’m not interested in being your mistress.” There is a humiliating pressure behind my eyes—for the second time in one night—and I skirt past the king before he sees it, moving at a fast clip back in the direction of the gathering. “Goodbye, Corbet.”
“Good…bye?” he sputters, following on my heels. “Are you mad?”
“I’m quite clearheaded, thank you,” I toss over my shoulder.
“Get back here,” he growls. “You will sleep in my bed starting tonight.”
“Not a chance.” I stop short, turn and look him in the eye, needing to sever the connection between us completely, lest my foolish hope decide to rise again. “I’m entering the wife auction tomorrow.”
Now I see where he gets his nickname “the Fury.” His blue-gray eyes turn almost translucent with ire. “Like fucking hell you are!”
I poke him hard in the chest. “It must be wonderful to have choices. I want a wife, I don’t want a wife,” I say, mimicking his deep voice. “Well I have no choice but to find a husband or my sisters will have no home to speak of.”
He has the nerve to almost appear relieved. “If that is your worry, cast it aside. I will support them, as well as you.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I won’t earn it on my back.”
Some of the color leaves his face. “What do you think a husband will expect from you?”
“Intimacy, yes. But also companionship. Respectability. Maybe even love.”
His jaw is on the verge of shattering. “You will give no other man your love!”
“You leave me no choice. And if you stand in my way tomorrow, you’ll put my family in the poorhouse. For I will never consent to being your mistress.”
“Goddammit, Gwen.” He reaches for me, but I’m already gone.
I go directly to my tent and remain awake for an hour, watching my sisters sleep and reminding myself what’s really critical. Duty. Honor. Family.
And I firmly ignore what I cannot solve—the pain in my chest.
5
Corbet
I am dangerously close to getting drunk before breakfast.
Not exactly king-like behavior. Normally I don’t give a damn about how I’m perceived. I’m confident in my ability to lead and make decisions for the greater good. I know there is no ruler more equipped to protect his people. But this morning, I am required to be present at some ridiculous joust. Instead of participating, I’m sitting on a dais beside the leader of our neighboring kingdom, nodding and giving the official signal for the competition to commence.
Someone kindly just put a sword between my ribs.
My attention does not just wander. Oh no. I am barely aware of my surroundings. There is only my constant search for Gwen in the crowd, my eyes hungry for the sight of her midnight hair and stubborn chin. She is my woman. Every fiber of my being knows it. And yet I do not have her. Is it not the cruelest irony that the woman who makes me burn is the exact kind of woman who balks at being a mistress? Was I insane to think this proud farmer would be content to make her life as my kept woman?
I’m sick to my stomach.
My eyes are gritty and red-rimmed from lack of sleep.
My skin itches with a terrible foreboding.
Gwen has her mind set on finding a husband today.
Stopping her would be an easy feat. I’ve only to turn to the king beside me and ask him to disqualify one of his subjects from the wife auction. He wouldn’t even ask me why, although he’d suspect I want to tup her myself. And God knows I do. I want to push her ankles up to her ears and ride her raw. Want to fuck her again and again until she can’t live without my cock. Want to…
Laugh with her.
Take her riding on the grounds of my kingdom.
Hold her hand during meals.
Fall into the sanctuary of her arms after a battle.
Down in the arena, a sword clashes with armor and I bolt upright, dragging myself out of my wayward thoughts—and lord were they ever wayward. For a moment there, I was imagining Gwen at my side performing activities only a wife would.
A mistress is meant strictly for relieving the ache in a man’s loins.
Not filling his castle with the warmth of her humor and personality.
But my sisters deserve to have someone who professes love for them, so I force myself to do it. Only for them. Even if it makes my face feel like it’s on fire.
Gwen’s husky confession from the night before drifts through my mind. What is that odd twisting feeling in my chest that happens when I replay those words? Surely I’m not imagining her saying the same thing about me one day. That I deserve to have her love for me professed out loud. Love isn’t something I value.
It is flimsy. Just words that people don’t mean.
People who are supposed to love someone can use them just as easily.
Cold snakes down my spine, the memory of a wolfhound’s jaw locked around my calf making me swallow uncomfortably. The memory of calling for help from someone who was supposed to keep me safe at all costs.
Yes. Love is flimsy. Now the steel of my sword? That is substantial.
Gwen really seemed to mean it about her sisters, though.
What if she has the capacity to love me where my parents did not?
“Corbet, you look ill,” Connor mutters in my ear. “Eat something.”
There is a trencher of meat and potatoes at my elbow, but my stomach turns at the idea of filling it. Where the hell is Gwen? Is she preparing for the fucking wife auction?
No. I can’t allow it. If she puts herself up for auction and someone else takes what’s mine, it will burn me alive. From dawn until dusk until the end of my days, I’ll think of her. I’ll hunger for her and wonder…I’ll wonder.
I am seconds from picking up my helping of food and throwing it as far as possible when I finally spy Gwen. She’s just walked into the arena. Two young girls are at her sides, one slightly older than the other, but both quite small, their eyes wide with excitement over their surroundings. But Gwen is watching them. Not the proceedings.
Her enjoyment seems to come from their reactions. Their laughter.
Her love for them is evident, her heart on full display and…
She is worth so much more than a half commitment.
I’m ashamed I even asked her.
“Corbet,” Connor says impatiently, leaning forward once again from his seat behind me. “The jousters are awaiting your signal to begin.”
“Oh, for the love of—” I lift a hand and drop it again. “When is this over?”
“It’s over when it’s over.” He pauses. “Then begins the wife auction events.”
“Events?”
“Yes. Do you know nothing of the Joining?”
I grunt, my eyes still glued to Gwen. Is she wearing flowers in her hair today?
The yellow blooms probably make her eyes sparkle.
Is she ever going to glance in my direction?
Do you hear yourself?
“First there is a pie-tasting competition,” Connor says.
At this, I turn in my throne. “A what?”