Page 68 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

The shock I felt morphed into a sickly pit at the bottom of my stomach. The unsettling similarity between Maksym’s mother and my own aside; that was the sort of accusation that could only be fielded by one of very few, powerful people.

Like a king.

“Does that mean…” I swallowed, because I didn’t know if I wanted to know the answer. “Did his father order it?”

The sprite gave me a slow, sad nod. “Had her burned at the stake in front of the entire court. Made an example of her. Max was never the same after it.”

“Fuck,” I whispered.

There was no denying the deep-seated internal scar my own mother’s departure caused—as much as I tried to deny it—but at least I hadn’t watched her fucking burn. My mother left when I was a child because her time as a seer in Odessa ended, not because she’d be branded a heretic by her own husband.

I couldn’t fathom the scar left on Maksym’s psyche.

But it begged another question with no delicate segue.

“You said it was a long time ago? Maksym was maybe twenty?” I asked.

“He was,” Eilir sighed. “So different back then. Carefree.”

“I can only imagine. But…how old does that make him now?”

I hoped the sprite wouldn’t take offense at my transition from the tragic topic to something entirely selfish, and it seemed I succeeded.

“Well, let’s see now.” Eilir pursed their thin lips before they started counting on their fingers and mumbling, “If he was five then…and then his exile was at least fifty years ago, but his mother was twenty years before that… That would make him…” I couldn’t tell if the sprite was smiling or wincing when they glanced up at me. “Ninety…something. Ninety and six, perhaps? I’ve lost count.”

I coughed.

My soon-to-be husband was three times my age and didn’t look it at all. Not that there seemed to be any logic to the way full-blooded fae never seemed to age, but still.

I thought there might be some kind of indicator he was approaching a century of life, like an eye wrinkle or a stray glint of gray hair, but maybe I just hadn’t looked close enough.

Good thing I had an entire dinner coming up.

“So, I can’t talk to Maksym about his mother or his father, and he’s a bit of a grumpy old man,” I said, and Eilir chuckled. “Any other pieces of advice for me?”

The sprite rose from my dressing table and offered a hand to help me up. “Two, actually. Ask him about what book he’s enjoying right now and get your bottom moving out that door right this minute. He despises tardiness.”

I hadn’t been particularly worried about my dinner with Maksym until I was standing in front of the closed dining room doors, the sound of Eilir’s wings buzzing down the hall away from me. The moment my confidante left, I found my palms damp and blood rushing faster than usual.

Did it help that Maksym had given no context as to the tone of this dinner? No.

Or that we’d just magically bound ourselves together, marking our skin forever, despite only knowing each other for a couple of days? Definitely not.

Or how about the fact that he sealed our bargain with a kiss I’m sure was unnecessary, but I also didn’t hate it in my moment of shock? And followed it up with another distraction of a kiss I’d definitely thought about more than once? Plus, I was certain he’d kissed my forehead when he tucked me in after the initium, and that felt more intimate than his lips on mine?

Those really didn’t fucking help.

Why they all rushed to the forefront of my mind the moment I stood alone in front of those doors, I didn’t know, but I needed a second to compose myself. I closed my eyes and shook out my arms, taking a slow breath in through my nose. I let it out just as slowly from my parted lips until my lungs ached with emptiness.

“Miss Wynn?”

All that air was sucked back into my chest, and my eyes shot open.

The doors were open, and the King of Grimmoria was watching me with a lopsided smile.

Heat crawled up my chest at an alarming rate.

He was dressed a little finer than when I last saw him, having forgone the tunic and vest he seemed to favor for a thigh-length black jacket tailored immaculately and accented with bits of muted gold thread.