Page 116 of City of Snakes
Finally, he stood and looked down at me. “How many filthy thoughts have gone through that head of yours in the last few minutes?”
Too out of breath to answer, I gaped up at him. He roiled with self-loathing over what we’d just done, and that caused a shameful feeling in my gut. What did he blame himself for? Then it hit me.
Freya.
He felt responsible for her death and being intimate with me was eating away at his conscience.
I was too stunned to speak.
“You do not need to worry about whether the physical parts of our marriage are something that I want,” he concluded.
And then he walked up the stairs like nothing had just transpired.
I stood there, feeling so tightly wound that I could snap.
Sources save me.
Chapter 36
Krait
Elsedora’s hands were clasped in front of her. “What was that?”
She’d followed me up here and now she paced the bell tower quarters. I needed to repent, or sulk, or blow off steam. Without company.
My physical reaction to Sybilla was natural. It was normal to feel attracted to a beautiful woman with whom I could prospectively have a child. Whom I would marry. It pissed me off that she had doubtedthatpart.
“Thatwas both nothing and none of your business.”
El winced, looking hurt. “Not my business? Youaremy business, Krait. I have spent my life working for you. Most of it searching for her.” Elsedora motioned toward the direction of Sybilla and my bedchamber, and a lump grew in my throat. “How long has that been happening?”
“El, it isnothing.”
Pink flushed between the freckles on her cheeks.
“You need to stop saying that. Do you not think it could be something?” Her voice grew an octave higher as I reached the desk and slumped onto the desk chair. “Have you two—”
I stopped her. “We are not discussing that.”
El smirked and said, “Fine. But Ryn owes me a hundred coins.”
“For what?” I asked.
“We made a bet. He thought you had already but that doesn’t look like a satiated expression.”
Please let this line of conversation end.
“It is good that you like her, though, is it not?”
I knew what she wanted to hear, and I wasn’t ready to say it. She liked Sybilla. I knew by the way she was prodding me. Her questions came from a place of care and not just for me.
“There is nothing to this, El. I can never offer her what she wants—don’t romanticize it.”
Elsedora hopped up to sit on the desk next to me and nudged my knee with her foot. “What exactly do you think she wants?”
“Comfort, safety, a family, halls full of laughter.” I twisted my hand in the air, trying to make light of it.
“And you don’t?”
