The Beginning of Everything by Kristen Ashley Page 0,129
he have to button his leather shirt up to his throat so the ink slithered out on the left side of his neck only to disappear into his beard and then slink up his cheek and around his eye?
And could he at least have a patchy beard? Not a full, thick, manly one you wanted to catch in your fingers and tug.
Last, couldn’t he be just a bit awkward? Witnessing his confident, long-legged soldier’s stride as he made his way to us was most annoying.
I would soon not be annoyed.
I would be stunned immobile when he did not simply arrive at our small huddle and stop.
He arrived at my side, slid an arm around my waist, his fingers curling at my hip, and he pulled me into his side so roughly, my head bounced on my neck.
“Is all well, my princess?” he growled in a manner in which he already knew the answer to that question, it was not well, he very much didn’t like that, and he intended to rip someone’s head from their shoulders because of it.
“It’s perfectly fine,” I told him.
He scowled down at me.
And really.
Did he have to bloody scowl so magnificently?
“I’ll leave you two to have some time together. There is not much of it these days,” Liam offered, his eyes on me. “But I’ll have some vials sent up to your rooms with instructions on how to use them and things to look for, should some adverse effects start happening. It’s not usual, but it’s good to know just in case.”
“That’s not necessary,” I said sharply.
“What’s not necessary?” Cassius asked, still growly. “And what vials?”
This was, I assumed, precisely why my mother didn’t want people talking about, and certainly not knowing about, her predicament.
Because once talk started, it had a tendency to spread.
“I’ll send them regardless,” Liam told me. “Should you change your mind.”
“What vials?” Cassius repeated.
But G’Liam was bowing to me, to the prince, then he turned and walked from the room.
When the door closed behind him, it was me who was turned, and as I was learning that Cassius was wont to do, this was not of my volition.
But I didn’t have it in me to protest when the front of me was pressed to the front of him.
I tipped my head back.
“What vials, Elena?” he demanded.
“It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. If he even sends them, I’ll be disposing of them.”
“If it doesn’t matter, then you shouldn’t have any issue with telling me what they are.”
“It doesn’t matter so it isn’t worth wasting time talking about it.”
“If your husband wishes to know something, you should tell him.”
I was losing patience.
“First, Cassius, you are not my husband…yet. But when you are, if you wish to know something I wish to keep to myself, as my husband, you should allow me to do that.”
“This does not make a healthy marriage.”
He would know. From reports, he’d had a very healthy one.
And it ended in anguish.
Therefore, I gentled my voice when I replied, “I intend to cause no harm when I say that you should be aware and come into it from the very beginning understanding that our marriage will not be like your last.”
He replied instantly.
“You are fair, she was red. You are tall and trim, she was petite and plump. You ride like the wind, she was afraid of horses. She found delight in the flight of a sparrow, you’d probably shoot it out of the sky at two hundred feet.”
I was deeply offended.
“I would not kill a sparrow,” I snapped.
He shook his head once at the same time his arm tightened, and he shook me.
“I think you understand my meaning.”
I did.
I was still offended.
“I don’t even eat meat,” I informed him.
His head jerked in surprise. “You don’t eat meat?”
“You sat beside me at dinner the other night, Cassius. Did I eat the roast?”
“I thought your appetite was off due to your sister’s mischiefs.”
“No. Most Nadirii don’t eat meat. Though, I will note my sister is one of the ones who does.”
“This is preposterous,” he declared.
“Why?”
“Because the body needs meat.”
“It does not for I’ve never in my life eaten meat and as you can see I’m just fine.”
He seemed to be considering that knowledge at the same time finding it fascinating.
I did not have time for him to be fascinated.
I also did not have time to enjoy watching him be fascinated.
I had things to do.
These being dallying in a bath with my lieutenants and my fellow Sisters of the Beast, this while my ill