“Only me?” she asked. “Shall I tell Nina that, then, or have you forgotten her already, my lord? You wanted her surely enough. Imagine now that it’s Sarah’s pale form beneath you, and tell me that you only want me.” She dropped a hand, brushing her fingers over his groin, and chuckled at the hardness she found there. “Shall I come to your chambers on your wedding night, Marius, and watch you take a virgin as you took Nina? You will be the husband, strong, indomitable, and only I’ll know the weakness in you that wishes to submit.”
Witchpower set her blood on fire, pushing off the winter cold until Belinda felt she could strip to the skin and go unscathed by wind and rain. She wet her lips, touching her tongue to Marius’s earlobe, and he shuddered, a sound of desire strangled in his throat. Belinda’s own rational mind warned her of danger, but the salty taste of Marius’s skin and his too-fast pulse were a delight to her, making her smile against his throat. “Or would you risk it all for me? Your marriage, your stature, your friendship with the prince? Will you have me and damn all consequences, Marius? We mustn’t, you know,” she breathed, mocking with laughter. “We mustn’t grunt and grasp and twist against one another, or seek pleasure in sharing bodies. Or would you break that commandment, my love? Would you fuck your brother’s wife?”
Marius groaned again and knotted his hands in Belinda’s hair, bringing his mouth to hers, savagery in the kiss. She laughed at his bruising strength, giving in for a few seconds before pushing away again, feeling her body flushed with desire and danger. “We mustn’t,” she said again.
And behind her, a woman’s voice murmured, “Forgive me, my lord. I wish I had not been right.”
* * * *
Sickness curdled in Belinda’s belly, birthing ice that burned the witchpower’s heat from her blood. Marius flinched back, so much an admission of guilt that Belinda wanted to let fly a sharp cry of laughter. She turned away from him, faint curiosity cocking her eyebrow, no admission of guilt in her colour or expression. Her hands were not cold, despite the churning in her stomach and the shards of ice making their way through her body. She curtsied, brief perfunctory thing, then wrinkled her forehead as she looked from Javier to Akilina and back again. “Been right, my lady?”
“What are you doing, Beatrice?” Strain filled Javier’s voice, shock sheeting off him as a precursor to the anger Belinda could sense growing in him. Akilina, at his side, stood as a bastion of smugness, though only severe disappointment and apology was visible in her demeanor. Belinda’s witchpower remained chilled beneath the need to play out this scenario flawlessly, else she might give in to its impulse to step forward and slap the expression off Akilina’s face. Javier, cheeks flushed with colour that did his complexion no favours, drew breath, and his voice cracked like a boy’s when he spoke. “What are you doing with Marius?”
“Saying good-bye, my lord.” Belinda dipped another brief curtsey, turning toward Marius as if in apology. “He’s just come to tell me that he’s to be wed.”
“Marius?” Javier’s voice cracked again, but this time with command. Marius blanched, then curled his hands into fists and let go a low laugh.
“Beatrice protects me from myself, my prince. I came here to beg her away from your side, rather than agree to the match my mother’s made.” He closed his eyes, his skin grey in the winter shadows. “More fool I, as she told me quite plainly that we were not meant to be. Forgive me, Jav, for my jealousy. Yes,” he added dully. “It seems I’m to be wed. Sacha’s sister, of all people, and by the ides of March, if my mother’s will be done.”
“Sacha’s…? And you…you came here to—?”
“To play the part of the fool. That’s always been my role, hasn’t it, Jav? You the prince, Liza the lover, Sacha the strong right arm. I’m the young one, whose passions and naïveté rise and fall so quickly as to make you all laugh. I believed you, Javier.” He spoke bitterly, ignoring Akilina’s presence, and Belinda’s stomach clenched again, this time in warning. She lifted a hand to stay Marius, and Javier lifted his to stay her. Fingers curled in reluctant acquiescence, she dropped her hand and watched Akilina from the corner of her eye. Smugness