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Now.
“I’m not h-hungry,” I repeated, voice cracking.
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m not.” I casually inched toward the door. “I ate a big lunch.”
“Cease your lies,” he growled. “Your stomach has been trumpeting for days. Why are you refusing—? Ah, wait. I see. You have no hope of outrunning me, so you’re taking the coward’s way out by starving yourself.” Alisdair scoffed. “Pathetic.”
“You are so—!” I cut myself off, taking a deep breath. Why did a man I’d soon be free of irritate me so greatly? “No,” I forced out. “That’s not the reason. I just don’t... have a taste for Lumenfellen food is all.”
“You have yet to eat Lumenfellen food, so you know nothing of its taste. Again you lie, and again you do it badly. What is the real reason?”
I didn’t speak. My lips tightly pressed together. If I opened them again, I would shove that food in.
He hummed. “No, it’s not cowardice. It’s ignorance. You think if you eat our food, it will trigger the change.”
Shadowsoul read the answer on my face. Sighing, he rubbed the bridge of his nose like I was tiresome. “Princess, it doesn’t work that way. I cannot tell you what triggers the curse, but I can assure you it isn’t food. The actual trigger has already begun its work.”
“What,” I cried, whipping around.
“Whether or not you eat will not change the result, or accelerate it. You starve yourself for nothing.” He shoved the tray across the desk. “Eat.”
I stared at the food for a long time, internal battle raging. Incredibly, I didn’t think he was lying. Everything around me was cursed from the plants, to the mountains, to the air. The mountains were hardly eating roasted lamb, so it was never going to be as simple as refusing the food. I only wanted to believe it could be that simple, because if I faced the fact that the curse was in the air I breathed, the water that bathed me, or the stone beneath my feet, I had to accept that another curse wastaking everything from me... and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“Very well,” I whispered, claiming the tray. “I will eat, but not here. You’ve given me an hour and I’m not wasting it.” I abandoned the vegetables and snatched up the rack of lamb and the mug of ale. “I’ll see you in the morning, husband...” I headed out the door, the lamb already half devoured.
“...as you’re weeping and waving goodbye to the back of my carriage.”
His laughter echoed through the hall.
I SETTLED INTO MY HIDINGspot, checking and rechecking that everything was as it should be.
This is it. Finally the nightmare will end.
The doors banged open, blasting a whoosh of air that blew out half the candles, plunging the room in dancing shadows and smoke. Alisdair stalked inside, fangs bared. He didn’t look like a husband preparing for a night of making love to his new bride. He looked like a predator who finally caught his prey.
“Very clever,” he growled. “It took me an entire five extra minutes to find you.”
I dipped down in the bath, letting the water rise to the top of my mouth. Was it five minutes? It both felt like seconds and an eternity that I waited in my steamy, overly luxurious bath.
“Not clever enough,” I said, rising back up. “I thought filling the water with every scented oil, and the room with every scented candle would be enough to block your cheat— Oh pardon me, I meant you’re marking.”
Alisdair grinned at my scolding. “It was enough, little bird, hence you earning my compliment. I couldn’t smell my mark at all—”
“But then how—?”
“What I did smell was the thick, cloying scent of a bath that was all scented oil.” He tapped his nose, tsking my shame. “Let that be your third lesson of the day. You cannot hide what belongs to me behind what doesn’t belong.”
“Hmm,” I raised my chin, rising fully in the water. “A good lesson, but not one I’ll need to know past tonight.”
Alisdair ripped off his robe and threw the tatters into a corner. Sweet talk was over. “Come to me, Princess,” he said, palming his smooth, already-erect cock. “I regret that there is no hairy cat mole—”
My face caught fire.
“—but it will fuck you all the same.” He pointed down. “On your knees. Head down. Ass up.”
Oh, yes, the sweet talk is very much over.
