Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
A long sacrifice of her life, but worth having her freedom for the rest of it.
If she were able to speak in the morning, I would suggest it. It was the easiest way out for both of us. Without involving Grimwood. More importantly, without involving my father. Save for, I imagined, another arranged marriage after that. Likely with someone with grand aspirations, who would make my life a living hell. But at least she’d be willing.
“Whoa. You’re okay. Well, as okay as you can be, I guess,” I said as she jolted hard in my arms and wrenched away.
Rolling onto her back, her eyes went huge, panicked, until consciousness and her memory caught up with her. But that look of shock and fear was quickly replaced with something that twisted her whole face. In a blink, she rolled away again, curling into a tight ball, and rocking.
“What is it?” I asked, climbing off the bed and moving around to find her mouth opened in a silent scream.
“Shit. The fuck?” Knight hopped off the bed, crying. “What hurts?” I asked, but she only curled tighter, tears streaming down her face. “Fuck. Okay.”
I strode across the room, yanked open the door, and called out for Vishen.
He came stumbling out the door, shirtless, his hair still wet.
“Something’s wrong with her.”
His brows pinched as he rushed across the hall and into my room. Taking one look at her face, he whipped the blankets off her.
“Why is it so fucking hot in here?”
“She was shivering all night. Hard.”
“Did she have a fever?” he asked, feeling her head.
“No. She was cold as a corpse.”
Vishen’s brows knitted as his hands moved over her body, seeming to try to feel for injuries. He was no doctor, but there’d been no doctors in a regiment, either. So, soldiers got good at treating not only battlefield wounds, but random accidents or illnesses. Though I had no idea how he was gauging if anywhere he pressed hurt when she was still silently screaming.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She’s not hurt anywhere. Except for this.”
He yanked up her sleeves, revealing bruises wrapped around her wrists and forearms. From where someone a lot stronger than her had held on and likely dragged her.
“And these.” He waved to the tops of her feet and knees, where red scratches were clear in the harsh morning light. That solidified my dragging theory.
Grimwood.
He was going to pay one day.
Slowly. Painfully. Along with whoever did his dirty work for him. Judging by how much deeper and larger some of the bruises were than the other, there were at least two men involved.
“Gotta do something,” I said as she pressed her hands to her face. She still looked like she was crying, but no more tears came.
“I don’t know what to do,” Vishen admitted. I knew it killed him a little. He almost always had advice or answers.
But he wasn’t the type to give up, either.
He yanked her hands away from her face, pulling her mouth open, when something caught my attention.
“Wait. Her eyes… her eyes look like paper.”
“Her mouth is dry too. Get the damn water.”
I brought it over.
“Sit her up so she doesn’t choke.”
Glad for an occupation, I pulled her upright then moved behind her, pulling her against me, her head angled back, so Vishen could open her lips and pour small sips of water in.
Little by little, she stopped struggling against my hold, relaxing a bit as Vishen supplied her with pitcher after pitcher of water.
He glanced over at me and shook his head.
Because why was she in so much pain because she was thirsty? Did she have some sort of condition?
There would be no answers, though, until the drugs wore off. And I was getting a little concerned that it wasn’t wearing off yet.
“I’ll go get more,” Vishen said when she finished the last of the water.
Alone, my wife relaxed against me for just a moment, the relief clear in every muscle in her body.
But then something in her had her jerking, some internal pain she couldn’t tell me about.
Her head turned in toward my neck.
It was only a few seconds before I felt her strangely cool tears streaming down my neck and wetting my shirt.
My arms slid around her.
“I’m going to figure it out,” I vowed.
And suddenly, that was more important than anything else—my mad father, the kingdom, my crown, everything.
“I’ll fix this,” I told her, my hand gliding up and down her back. “Then I’ll kill Grimwood for doing this to you in the first place.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Serin
All there was from the moment my eyes opened was pain. It wove into every hair strand, embedded in every pore, twisted in my muscles and sinew, filled my organs, and coursed through my blood.
It burned, stabbed, crushed.
And I couldn’t even scream, could only cry for a moment before what seemed like the last drop of moisture left my body.