I wrap my hands around his upper arms to both offer him my willing touch and emphasize my request for protection. From him. I play the game, at least for a few minutes, to avoid my own rape. And, heart pounding as sweat breaks out in delicate beads, I lift my chin and tilt my head, offering my neck. It’s instinct I didn’t know I had.
He lowers his head and teeth clamp down, incisors sharp.He’s hard against my abdomen but other than that movement, he’s as still as I am.
“I’m overwhelmed, Renaud, and still grieving recent deaths in my family.”
It's not a lie. For the first time in my life I'm at the mercy of something I can't kill or control or maneuver around, and the experience is. . .unpleasant.
“Give me something.” It’s a cold demand, but stilted as if he’s masking a plea, and he rests his forehead against mine. “For months, years,centuries,I’ve waited. Patience expired the moment I opened my eyes; my will broke when I answered your call, heard your voice in the flesh. Your eyes that scream their hatred. Your heart beats, blood I crave on my lips rushes through your veins and I haveno more patience.
“I will give you what time is left in me to give, but we both need this, Nyawira. A few sips to sate the thirst, enough to hold on a little longer.”
What can I give him that won’t be a lie?
“Not yet.” The concession claws its way out of my throat, my stomach churning. Anyone who would force this is vile, worse than vile.
He lifts and tilts his head in that smooth predatory way, eyes unblinking sapphire, arms a vise. His body poised, but he still hasn’t struck.
Survive whole. Just survive. Slowly, painfully slow, I inch my right hand up and settle my palm on his face. The barest touch, but another concession.
“Not no forever, just not yet. Court me. Offer my parents and aunts honor as a suitor should. My mother is dead, but shelives in your mind. What says she of how you treat her only daughter now?”
This is not what Nora advised. She more or less said to open my legs and lie back and think of future vengeance if he displayed even a glimmer of interest, and fingers crossed he gets it out of his system after one hard fuck. It's easy for her to say though, she's not the one lying back.
I'm not apologizing for the slap.
Iamgoing cold under his stare, and my trembling is no longer pretense. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Will I slit my own throat or suffer the shame? My family needs me. But I need to be able to live in my head, and it's already difficult enough.
Darkan, I need you. What do I do?
Renaud stills, then inhales and turns his face into my palm for a split second then steps back, releasing me, his eyes bleeding back to gray with a rim of blue. My knees almost buckle; they tremble as I dig my nails into the tree trunk behind me. I’ve negotiated, maybe even seduced, time, but how much?
“Court you. Very well, Lady Aerinne. For my sister’s sake, court you I will.” The hairs on my body rise at the mild response and arm themselves. If not for the tree at my back, I’d retreat, even knowing better than to run. “But we did not finish our dance.”
1 This word pops up in different dialects in this world (Immortal Sorting is probably where you first read it.) It is basically the feminine version of a rut, except females (or anyone with ovaries, though the gender terms will vary) get the short end of the fucking stick, as usual, because their biology causes instinctive, and entirely unwanted, submissiveness. This may be an evolutionary thing since male type people in a rut can become very violent, very fast. And despite most of the feminine characters in the stories Scribe releases to the public being warriors, many Adalessikai females aren’t. They have varying degrees of power, but so do the males (non ovary peoples, varying gender identities), and when there is a power differential in the society, the weaker party is more or less fucked (gender being irrelevant, such as with Aerinne’s parents, and Embriel’s parents. But. . .more aboutthatmuch later.)
In Édouard and Terreille’s case, there was no rut involved, but they came close. In a situation like that, biology will either force one of them to be the submissive, or force both of them to back down because, like, two snarling alphas is a shitstorm waiting to happen. Everyone was very happy, thank you, that that worked out.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
YOU WILL CRAWL FIRST
He grabs me and spins us in a dizzying whirlwind back to the Court clearing and once again he’s the Prince, all trace of a male descending into rut gone. It's as if those few near feral moments of threat and negotiation never happened.
This time I cling to him with no pretense at coordination or grace. It’s a subtle punishment, rendering me helpless in his arms as we return to the vultures and I don’t fight it—let him win these small displays of dominance; keep the edge off the beast’s hunger.
But I’m still Aerinne of Faronne. “Have you forgotten my Vow, Prince?” I snap.
As I speak it strangles me for three heartbeats, reminding me of the consequences of failure. I’m in the arms of the male whose throat I’m required to slit.
Even if I want him, I can't have him except on his deathbed. Or mine. Courtship is only buying time, like my strategic submission.
His pale gaze travels across my face, over my lips, down the line of my bare shoulder and tense arm to fingers that flex open and closed. He’s turned off the glimpse of wild desire as if it never existed. His self-control is frightening, and inspiring.
It also reinforces that any poor behavior from him is a choice.
“I forget nothing. I think if you were armed, you would try to kill me.” He smiles, taunting.
