The Beginning of Everything by Kristen Ashley Page 0,54
fell three strings of gold links on which diminutive jewels dangled: one string with onyx, one of ruby, one of ice diamonds. The same size and type of jewels hung from the line that fed from lobe to nostril.
His mother’s wedding chain.
And his father’s.
“Mama,” he whispered.
“It is time,” she said to the box, then turned her brown eyes to him, and that was when he noticed she wore a new chain of only rubies with some emeralds, no longer diamonds and onyx. “And I’ve instructed the servants to move me out of my rooms tomorrow. I’ll take others, in the east hall, not close to you and your bride. And I will remain in them for the time it will take to ready the relict house for me.”
It was time. They both knew it.
In fact, Mars should have assumed her rooms on his coronation.
But he didn’t have the heart for they were the rooms she shared with his father.
Mars didn’t protest her offer.
He simply nodded.
“The day after tomorrow, so if she’s in any discomfort, she won’t feel it at the betrothal dinner tomorrow eve, I’ll gather the women and we’ll perform her piercing ceremony,” she declared. “It won’t be a lot of time to make sure the piercings are clean and no poison gets in them. But this is all going very quickly, and she wasn’t pierced at thirteen to await her marital chain. We’ll just have to hope for the best.”
“It is good I have you to think of the things I have not,” he murmured.
His mother searched his face before she whispered, “Does she speak to your heart?”
“You withhold from her,” he noted instead of answering. “And not simply because she is often with Farah and Sofia.”
He watched the flash of grief mixed with anger brighten her eyes at the mention of those two women before she repeated, “Does she speak to your heart, my son?”
“She has a soul of silver,” he answered.
“Silver is bendable,” she replied.
“Silver is luminous and precious,” he returned. “And Father taught me bendable is not to be avoided. It’s breaking that is.”
His mother nodded.
She knew Ares had taught this lesson.
And lived it.
Mars carried on, “Though it is her wit I look forward to discovering.”
Her wit and her breasts and that pink mouth and watching her abundant curves on her wee body as she rode his cock.
He did not share this last with his mother, however.
“I’ve not noticed much wit. She’s very quiet,” his mother remarked.
“She does not speak unless she has something to say.”
Her head tipped to the side. “She told you this?”
He smiled at her. “Moments after we met. When I was demanding she say something.”
It was then, he was glad to see a flash of humor in her eyes.
“Then it would seem, my son, she also has courage,” she replied.
She might.
But she would not need it.
Nandra, their most powerful witch, had been adamant the Beast was rising, even after being questioned about this again once the tremors stopped.
But his wee monkey would not face these travails or any other.
He’d see to it his silver did not break.
It was what husbands did.
And as he would be husband to his tiny wife with her silver eyes, he would do the same.
“We must join the others,” he said, before calling out to the servant boy who was always close unless he’d been dismissed.
The boy came forward.
“Lock this in the place I keep things most precious,” he ordered, indicating the box with his hand.
The boy nodded as Mars took his mother’s hand, lifted it to the side of his chest and began to move them from the room.
“We have not had time to speak of much more than planning the upcoming festivities, Mars, but you should know,” she began. “I’ve decided I will not be traveling with you to the wedding of the Dellish prince.”
She could not even speak Farah’s name.
Mars sighed and replied, “I wish you’d rethink this. You’ll be missed by Farah.”
And Sofia.
“I would give you all things I have to give, as my son and my king,” she returned as they moved into the corridor. “But that is not mine to give.”
“Mama—”
She dug in her heels and he stopped, looking down on her to see her mood had swiftly changed.
“Farah, yes,” she hissed. “She was of an age she was at her own pursuits and with her friends more than in her home with her father and mother. But Sofia slept at his side. She should have known. And knowing, she should