The King

“Just because you’re mated doesn’t mean you have to have children.”

She was silent for a time. “Does it not even occur to you for a second this might be important to me? And not as in, ‘Oh, I need a new car,’ or … ‘I want to go back to school.’ Or even, ‘How about we have a f**king date once in a while in between you getting shot at and doing a job you hate.’ Wrath, this is the foundation of life.”

And the gateway to death—for her. So many females died on the birthing bed, and if he lost her—

Fuck. He couldn’t even go there in the hypothetical. “I will not give you a young. I could doctor up the truth with a lot of meaningless bullshit and soothing words, but sooner or later, you are going to have to accept—”

“Accept it? Like I got sneezed on by someone with a cold and I just have to resign myself to coughing for a couple of days?” The astonishment in her voice rang out clear as that anger of hers. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“I’m really f**king aware of every word I choose. Trust me.”

“Okay. Fine. Why don’t we put the shoe on the other foot. How about I say … how about this—you’re going to give me the child I want, and that’s just something you’re going to have to get used to. Period.”

He shrugged again. “You can’t force me to be with you.”

As Beth gasped, he had some sense they’d entered a new dimension in their relationship—and not a good one. But there was no going back.

Cursing under his breath, he shook his head. “Do yourself a favor and stop sitting with that female for hours every night. If you’re lucky, it hasn’t worked and we can just forget about all this—”

“Forget about—wait. Are you—are you—have you lost your f**king mind?”

Shit. His shellan didn’t stutter or stumble, and she rarely swore. What a trifecta.

But it didn’t change anything. “When were you going to tell me?” he demanded.

“Tell you what? That you can be a real a**hole? How about right now.”

“No, that you were deliberately trying to start your needing. Talk about things that affect us both.”

What would have happened if she’d suddenly gone into her time when they’d been alone together during the day? He might have given in and then …

Not good. Especially if he later found out she’d been marking time with the Chosen for specifically that purpose.

He glared at her. “Yeah, when exactly was that going to come up in conversation? It wasn’t going to tonight, right? Were you saving it for tomorrow? No?” He leaned into his desk. “You knew I didn’t want this. I told you so.”

More pacing: He could hear her every footfall. It was a while before they stopped.

“You know what, I’m going to leave right now,” she said, “and not just because I have to go out tonight. I need to not be around you for a while. And then, when I come back, we’re going to talk this through—both sides of the issue—no!” she ordered as he went to open his mouth. “You don’t say another goddamn word. If you do, I have a feeling I’ll be packing my bags and taking off permanently.”

“Where are you going?”

“Contrary to popular belief, you do not have a right to know where I am every second of the day and night. Especially after this diatribe.”

Cursing again, he popped his wraparounds off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Beth, listen, I’m just—”

“Oh, I’ve listened to you quite enough for the time being. So do us both a favor and stay right where you are. At the rate you’re going, that desk and that hard chair are all you’re going to have, anyway. You might as well get used to them.”

He closed his mouth. Listened to her walk off. Heard the doors slam shut in her wake.

He was about to jump up and go after her, but then he remembered Doc Jane saying something about John Matthew’s MRI at that human hospital. Had to be where she was going—she’d said it was important for her to go with him.

Abruptly, he remembered the seizure, and what had gone down in the middle of it. He’d confronted Qhuinn afterward about what John had tried to communicate to Beth—if something was being said to his shellan, he was going to know the details, thank you very much.

I will keep you safe. I will take care of you.

Okay, file that under WTF. Normally, Wrath had no beef with John Matthew. In fact, he’d always liked the kid—to the point where it was kind of creepy how easily the mute fighter had entered all their lives—and stayed there.

Great solider. Good head on those shoulders. And the lack of a voice wasn’t a problem except for with Wrath because obviously he couldn’t see to read ASL.

Oh, and as for the blood test that said he was Darius’s son? The more time you spent around the kid, the more obvious the connection was there.

But he drew the motherfucking line when any male tried to come between him and his mate, blooded brother or not. He was the one who was going to keep Beth safe and cared for. Nobody else. And he would have confronted John afterward … except the oddest thing was, the kid didn’t seem to know what he’d said either: John wasn’t well versed in the Old Language enough to hold a conversation in it, and yet Blay and Qhuinn had both confirmed that that was what he’d appeared to be mouthing.

But whatever. John was going for some treatment, and on the Beth front, he was ultimately not going to be a problem. This baby stuff, however …

It was a long while before Wrath peeled his clawed hands free of the throne’s armrests, and as he fanned them out, the joints burned.

At the rate you’re going, that desk and that hard chair are all you’re going to have.

What a mess. But the bottom line, granite truth was … he just couldn’t lose her in pregnancy. And as bad as it was to have this rift between them, at least they were both still on the planet and going to stay that way: There was no way in hell he was going to voluntarily risk her life just for some hypothetical son or daughter—who, by the way, assuming they survived into adulthood, was liable to suffer under this royal legacy as much as he did.

And that was the other big part for him. He wasn’t in a hurry to condemn an innocent to all this King crap. It had ruined his life—and that was not an inheritance he wanted to share with someone he would undoubtedly love almost as much as his shellan—

Shifting in the throne, he looked down at himself—and frowned.

Even though he couldn’t see anything, he realized … he had an erection. A throbbing, straining arousal was pushing against the fly of his leathers.

As if it had somewhere to go. Like, now.

Putting his head in his hand, he knew exactly what that meant.

“Oh … God … no.”

“Would you like to feed?”

As the Chosen Selena waited for a response to her question, she did her best to ignore the fact that the incredible dark-skinned male in the bed before her was na**d. He had to be. With the sheeting rolled down to his waist, his chest was bare, his chiseled pecs and his roped shoulders illuminated by the soft light in the corner.

It was difficult to imagine why he would bother with anything below the hips.

Dearest Virgin Scribe, what a sight to behold he was. And a revelation—although not because she was ignorant or naive. She might have been sequestered up in the Sanctuary since her birth a century ago, but as an ehros, she was familiar with the mechanics of sex.

Regardless of training, however, the act had not yet been her destiny. The previous Primale had been killed in the raids just after she had matured, and his replacement hadn’t been named for decades and decades and decades. Then when Phury had assumed the mantle, he’d changed everything and freed them all whilst taking a shellan to whom he was monogamous.

She had always wondered what sex was like. And now, looking at Trez, she knew viscerally why females submitted themselves. Why her sisters had primped and prepared for their “duty.” Why they had returned to the dormitory afterward with an incandescence to their skin, their hair, their smiles, their souls.

It was overwhelming to experience this firsthand—

Abruptly, she became aware that he had not answered her.

As he continued to just stare up at her, she wondered if she’d offended him. But how? It was her understanding that he was without a mate: He’d come into this house with his brother, not a shellan, and there was never a female up here in these quarters.

Not that she’d noticed his every move.

Just most of them.

As her cheeks flushed, she told herself that surely he must need a vein after all he had suffered? In fact, the toll of his illness showed in his face … his hard, beautiful face with its almond-shaped dark eyes and prominent, carved lips and high cheekbones and strong, heavy jaw …

Selena lost her train of thought.

“You can’t mean that,” he said roughly.

His words were deeper than usual, and had the strangest effect on her. All at once, that blush on her face bloomed inside her entire body, warming her from the core out, loosening her in way that made her fear her future a little less.

“I do,” she heard herself say.

And this would not be a duty. No, in this quiet, dim space between them, she wanted him—at her neck, not at her wrist—

Madness, an inner voice warned. That was not appropriate, and not just because it blurred the lines of the work she did here in this house.

Closing her eyes, she hated the fact that, by all that was reasonable, she should turn and walk out of the room right now. This male, this resplendent male who was capable of melting even her stiff limbs, was not her future. Not any more than the Primale was—or any male, for that matter.

Her future had been determined even before she had been swaddled in her first robing as a Chosen.

After a long moment, he shook his head. “No. But thank you.”

The rejection made her nauseous. Mayhap he sensed the inappropriate desires on her part? And yet … she could have sworn he felt similarly. He had stopped her by the stairs that one time, and she had been so sure he had wanted …

Well, at least then she’d been in her right mind enough to try to warn him off.

After they’d parted awkwardly, however, the way he’d looked at her had lingered, and that was when she’d begun to watch him from the shadows.

He was not staring at her like that now, though.

And it had all changed for him with her offer. Why?

“You’d better go.” He nodded to the door. “I just need to eat something and I’ll be fine.”

“Have I offended you?”

“Oh, God, no.” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “I just don’t want to…”

She couldn’t catch the rest of whatever he said, because he rubbed his face and muffled the words.

Abruptly, Selena thought about the books she had read in the Sanctuary’s sacred library. So many details of lives lived down here on Earth. So rich and surprising, the nights and days. So vivid the histories, until it had seemed as though she could reach out and touch this other plane of existence. She’d been hungry for this other side, developing an addiction to its stories in all their glory and their sadness: Unlike many of her sisters, who merely recorded what they were shown in the seeing bowls, she had been voracious in her free time, studying the modern world, the words used, the manner in which people conducted themselves.

She had always had the conception that that was as close as she would ever get to having freedom of choice and any kind of destiny.

And that was still true, even after Phury’s liberation.

“Goddamn, female, don’t look at me like that,” Trez groaned.

“Like what?”

He seemed to roll his hips, and when he mumbled something she also couldn’t catch, she breathed deep—and, dearest Virgin Scribe, the scent that was poured of him was nothing short of ambrosia in the nose.

“Selena, you gotta go, girl. Please.”

He arched back into the pillows, his magnificent chest tightening, the veins in his neck standing out. “Please.”

Obviously he was in pain—and she was somehow the cause.

Selena fumbled with her robing to keep it in place as she got to her feet. With an awkward bow, she dropped her head. “But of course.”

She didn’t remember leaving the room or closing the door, but she must have: She ended up out in the hall, standing halfway between the locked vault that led into the First Family’s private quarters and the stairwell that would take her back down to the second floor …

Next thing she knew, she was up in the Sanctuary.

Bit of a surprise, actually. Usually, when she was done with any duty upon the Earth, she would wend her way north to Rehvenge’s Great Camp. She enjoyed the library there—its fictions and biographies were just as gripping, and somehow less intrusive, than the volumes up above in the Sanctuary.

But something in her had taken her to her former home.

How different it was, she thought as she looked around. No longer a bastion of monochromatics—now only the buildings, constructed of pristine marble, were white. Everything else glowed with colors, from the emerald of the grass to the yellow and pink and purple of the tulips to the rushing pale blue of the baths. But the layout was the same. The Primale’s private temple remained close to both the scribing cloisters and the enormous marble library as well as the locked entrance into the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters. Off farther in the distance, the dormitories where the Chosen had had both their repose and their meals were adjacent to the baths and the reflecting pool. And then opposite all of that was the vast treasury with its objects, oddities, and bins of precious stones.