Page 69 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

It might’ve been the first time I’d seen him look like a true semblance of a king, and I was definitely staring.

“Everything alright?” he mused.

My eyes flickered up from their natural level at his shoulders to find him watching me with a dark, raised brow, his lips quirked.

My cheeks were about to combust. “Everything’s great,” I fumbled.

Maksym looked doubtful, albeit still amused, but he stepped aside and motioned me into the dining room.

It gave me a precious moment to gather myself again as he shut the doors and trailed behind me to the table. I shouldn’t have been surprised I’d make a fool of myself before we’d even sat down to eat, but there we were. At least Maksym was going to know exactly what he was getting into with this bargain.

Admittedly, I knew little of Grimmoria’s customs, but taking my seat before their king seemed like it might be frowned upon. So, I waited to the right of the head of the table while Maksym ambled over to a sideboard piled with bottles and glasses.

Hopefully, another glass of the lacquer-stripping spirits wasn’t on the menu.

The table was set much as it had been at our last meal—a spread of simple decorations scattered down its gratuitous length, two modest place settings tucked at the end. They had about half the amount of silverware I was used to being forced to navigate when sitting at a table this size, and that was a relief.

All signs pointed to casual, and that eased a measure of tension from my spine.

When the muted clinking of glassware stopped, and the barely audible sound of Maksym’s footfalls picked up, I glanced over to find him armed with two amply poured glasses of what I hoped was red wine. Despite his heavy-handed pours, the liquid barely sloshed in its confines as he strode back to the table.

“It comes from the wilds, but I’d never tell Malakai how much of it I go through,” Maksym chuckled as he extended a glass to me. As soon as my fingers brushed it, he stilled and drew it back. “Ah, wait a moment.”

He took a healthy sip from both glasses before placing one back in my still-outstretched hand with a smile. “Newfound trust and all that.”

I glanced at the burgundy liquid before returning a reserved smile of my own. “Appreciated. But doesn’t this dictate you wouldn’t be able to do anything to me anyway?”

I flashed him my bargain-marked palm as I spoke, but the king gave me a noncommittal shrug as he unbuttoned his jacket and lowered into his chair. He took a slow sip of his drink before adding, “Everything in life has a loophole if you look hard enough, Miss Wynn, including bargains. I’m sure you know that.”

As I sat down, I frowned. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

The king had to know well that I, an Odessan, had sparse knowledge of bargains, but the way he phrased it sent tension flooding back into my muscles.

“Nothing as dramatic as I’m sure you think it is,” he chuckled. “I bargain sparingly and in good faith. I promise you that.”

Now that was a promise I was skeptical of.

He’d laid out our bargain to me, a complete stranger, with far too much ease for me to believe it was something he did with any restraint. And the more I caught glances of the marks decorating his skin, similar to so many decorating the flesh of the Elixia and other Grimmorians I’d been around, the firmer I found myself in that belief.

I’d thought them all just tattoos at first, the dark glyphs and sigils I could glimpse on his arms, chest, and hands, but I realized now they all looked identical in structure to the matching marks we bore on our palms. Painted in swathes of blood, not meticulously poked into his skin by thousands of needlepoint pinpricks.

Something told me that was another topic Eilir would tell me was off-limits.

“You look much better rested.”

My attention flickered up from the swirling marks on the back of Maksym’s hand to find his vivid amber eyes studying me with a little too much curiosity.

It took a moment for me to realize what he had just said.

But of course.

The truest male-speak for how I clearly looked like absolute shite the last time I saw him, but he wanted to frame it up with a poor attempt at a compliment instead.

“Oh, thank you.” I huffed a dry laugh. “I’m sure I looked like utter shit when I came out of that cave. But sleep has been coming easily now that I’m not mulling over being executed.”

The corner of his mouth tugged up, and from over the rim of his glass, he said, “Well, I’m relieved to know you think our arrangement is truly a better alternative to death.”

“As of this exact moment, it is. But it’s still early days, my liege.” I sank back a little in my chair and did not miss how he tensed at the use of his title, which others tossed around so freely. “Plenty of time for things to go to hell and back once or twice. How long until we wed again? A few months?”