“They can’t make her stay with you if you choose me, because it would be improper.”
I turn to look at her again, studying her face.
Her blonde hair is a shade darker than Asha’s, and her lips often hold an amusing smirk that once been charming to me.
But her smell never captivated me the way Asha’s had.
Bathing in the creeks, she was more brazen about showing her body than Asha was, and I was excited to see her naked, out in the wild.
But I was never compelled to touch her the way I was with weak Asha. With Amber, I had restraint even when I wanted her desperately.
With Asha, there is none.
What is wrong with me? Clearly, Amber is the better of the two. Yet I do not lust when I am around her, and I hardly think of her at all when she is not nearby.
“I’ll come with you now, to your hut, and help you move the weaves if you’d like. You can take me to your bed, claiming me asyours. I’ll let you lick me and do all the things the men like to do. I’ll bear your children. Several, if I must.”
I snort derisively.
“People may complain about me, saying I’m bossy, but they’ll never call me weak.”
She speaks truth, yet she does nothing to my blood.
But what does that matter when I have my line to think about? If I am to couple with one of the Penticari, they would have to be strong, for they would bear my children.
Amber licks her lips and takes a step toward me. “Well?”
“You have given me much to think about.”
Her eyes slowly draw down my body, settling at my loins. “Is there something I could do to help you make your decision?”
I know not what she is offering, but it piques my interest.
She takes another step toward me, her hand finding the waist of my pants.
Surely she could not mean to do this in the middle of the village.
Furious, I jerk back, glaring, and storm away before she can get another word out.
Though, deep down, I know it would be good for me to listen.
Nothing she said should offend me. In many ways, she is right with her assumptions.
Yet, I find the very sight of her offensive.
I wander the village, watching the women interacting with each other and with the men, remembering how repulsed I was when I first saw them.
Grixis spoke true when he said they were strong in different ways. They work dutifully, and there are bonds between them one would not see with the women of Tempest, who often engage in court chatter to gain power. Which seems like something Amber would do.
I pause when I see Eddard with Meg, the look in his eyes of utter devotion when he speaks with her.
I did not think that type of commitment was possible, but what is more surprising is Meg’s devotion to him.
On Tempest, it was rare for a woman to take only one mate, and it only happened when they were looking for very specific outcomes.
When my mother, the Queen of the Upper Reach, kept me, it was only because my father was the Great Warlord Grynrock, a man who took more land than any known warlord before him.
At my birth, my mother made a promise to the Queen of the Lowlands that I would be a gift to her daughter, the Great Princess Kasmina.
