“Then who?” I cant my head. “A pathetic rube whose entire purpose is to marry into the ruling families?” I scoff. “Don’t be so mundane.”
“I won’t agree to this,” she hisses, her arms tightening across her chest.
“I thought you said there was no chance I wouldeverhave you, pet?” I volley back.
Her eyes narrow. “There isn’t.”
“So why are you so up in arms then? Shouldn’t this be an easy condition to agree to?”
“You said ‘when the time is right.’”
I shrug. “Maybe the time will never be right, doll. Only the gods know for sure.”
I move another chess piece across the imaginary board. Always countless steps ahead. Her expression shutters, and I know I have her. The feeling is as salacious as having her come all over my fingers. I watch her from under my lashes as she deliberates. She chews on her bottom lip, and I give her a dazzling smile in return.
“That’s all of it then?” she says peevishly while looking down her nose.
It tickles me how she glosses over the final condition, but wordlessly concedes nonetheless. It’s as if she’s attempting to ignore it, hoping that it will somehow cause me to forget.
Oh, but she’s dreadfully wrong.
Every day, everysecond, I weave my sticky web tighter and tighter around her.
As we stare at one another, my tongue swipes over the healing cut on my lip. The consequence of Veil’s little domestic tantrum the other night. She might think that she’s fighting back, somehow resisting me. In reality, she’s barely struggling. Deep down, in the dark recesses of her mind, she’s finding satisfaction in this perverted push and pull. And sinking her perfect cunt on my cock is just as fated as me breeding her full of my heirs.
All she needs is a little bit of convincing, whether she first agrees to it or not.
After sealingour agreement with a tense handshake, I escort us into Laveta—a cabaret bar nestled in the heart of the Carnalis neighborhood. Now that the threat to our lives is a thing of the past, the rebellion squashed and forgotten, we can finally travel freely around Pravitia once again. And ever since discovering Veil’s true identity, I’ve been itching to visit one veryspecificheir.
Laveta’s dark reds, velvet, and black decor gives it an unassuming air of luxury without being too loud and garish. It’s a private establishment, only fitting a maximum of fifty people, inaccessible to the general public. The small stage faces circular tables, and is where Belladonna comes to sing.
A little birdie told me she’d be here tonight, and after nodding to the bouncer manning the door, I lead Veil inside with a hard tug of the wrist.
I find Belladonna crooning onstage, dripping with lust and white lace, red hair cascading in loose waves over her freckled shoulder. A single spotlight draws everyone’s attention to Belladonna while she cradles the microphone seductively in both her hands, her red lips a stark contrast against her pale white skin. Every patron in this joint is under her spell, panting over her as if she were a siren singing a divine melody. Her dear god of lust must be so proud.
One look at Veil, and I know she recognizes her from our fateful night during the Feast of Fools. And her lack of enamoredness for the woman on stage further confirms that she is indeed one of us.
“Why did you bring me here?” Veil hisses under her breath. “I thought you said to keep my identity a secret?”
“I did not bringyouanywhere, doll,” I reply smoothly, coaxing her backward and toward an empty table. “I have business to attend to.” I push her down by the shoulders. “Now sit.”
She settles into the chair with a huff, crossing her arms and avoiding eye contact. I chuckle under my breath as I walk away, tickled by her recent bout of defiance. With every passing day, Veil slowly becomes more and more brazen, and it pleases me immensely. It’s also a rather mighty aphrodisiac.
I sit at the bar and order a glass of champagne, idly flipping a coin between my fingers while Belladonna finishes her song.
The Foleys and Carnalises have never been close. Always some old family feud causing tension between them. My aunt’s demise at the hands of Belladonna’s father during the Lottery thirty-eight years ago explains the chill between us. My aunt was only eighteen. It’s what spurred our parents’ generation to have only one child. That way, it would ensure the continuation of the bloodline and prevent any siblings from possibly being sacrificed during the Lottery.
I’ve never cared to keep up with silly feuds, but Belladonna has always been the most sensitive of us all. Especially when, nineteen years later, her father was sacrificed by Aleksandr’s mother. Killing an heir has always only been allowed during the Lottery. Our generation was the exception since there were no siblings to pass down our gods’ given powers if one of us were to be killed. Belladonna was only ten years old when her father passed. Then her mother died of a broken heart not long after.
She’s kept to herself ever since.
“Foley,” Belladonna says when she approaches the bar. Her green eyes study me with suspicion.
I grin. “Carnalis. Tithe Season treat you well?”
The barkeep slides Belladonna a cosmopolitan without her asking, and she takes a dainty sip before sitting beside me.
Ignoring my question, she says, “Mercy isn’t here.” Her red-chromed nails tap on the marble bar top as her gaze skates across the room, as if she’s already exasperated with our conversation.
