Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
“Of course I trust you. You’re my husband.”
“Then tell me who you met at the tavern the other night, and I’ll go with you,” he says, voice silky smooth. “I’ll tell Magpie to send you down again and I’ll supervise. I just need a name, Aspeth.”
My entire body locks up and I go cold. “It’s no one important, I swear.”
“Then tell me a name.”
“I can’t.”
He gazes down at me, his expression full of frustration. “I wonder about you sometimes.”
“I promise I’m not very exciting,” I tell him, my expression falsely bright. “I’m just a woman who loves Old Prell and wants nothing more than to study it.” I reach up and caress his face, so strange from my own yet so comfortably familiar already. “That’s all there is to me.”
“Is that so?” He leans in ever so slightly. “I think you’re lying, Lady Aspeth Honori.”
The breath catches in my throat. My name. He knows my name and who I am.
I’m fucked.
TWENTY-EIGHT
HAWK
Earlier
5 Days Before the Conquest Moon
There’s nothing quite like having a new wife to make you question your sanity.
I should be upset over the stranger she met at the inn. I should be furious. I should march down there and question every person who’s ever gone in and out those doors and not let up until I get an answer. But the Conquest Moon is coming closer and closer, that annoying circle in the sky shining brighter with every day, and it’s making me irrational.
I’m upset over Aspeth meeting a stranger, true, but when I try to think about that night, all I can think of are the soft cries she made as I ground my cock against her skirts. The way her slick cunt felt under my fingers. The way she watched the others with such avid interest. It’s the rut that won’t let me focus on anything but her, and I don’t trust myself to climb into bed next to her that night, or any of the next several. Last night, I stayed in the kitchen, drinking an herbal tea that’s supposed to deaden the hunger that the Conquest Moon brings on.
Magpie’s up early, and when she sees me, she pounces. “Good. You’re here.”
“Where else would I be?”
“There’s a quick job the guild needs done today,” she says. “A retrieval. Some idiot left his sword in Drop Seven’s tunnels and it’s got sentimental value to him. He can’t get it because he broke his foot. I told Rooster you’d do it.”
I get to my feet, my thoughts flooding with Aspeth in bed, Aspeth pinned to the alley wall, Aspeth squinting at my cock…the last thing I want to do is leave her side, which is exactly why I should. “Fine.”
It’s a job. It’s a distraction, and I can put everything off for a few more hours.
But…“You’re taking them into the tunnels for a practice run today, aren’t you? I should be there.”
“That got delayed,” Magpie reassures me. “I had to file for an additional permit so we could have an extra teacher. It’s going to take another day before we’re able to head down. You have time to do this.”
I don’t think anything of it. The guild is constantly asking for more permits, as people like Rooster—who loves bureaucracy—take charge. I head off and retrieve the sword, and it’s exactly where it was supposed to be. Foolish to waste manpower picking up someone else’s discards, but if they want to pay for this, I’ll take the coins.
But when I return, the nest is empty. All is quiet, the lights out. Aspeth isn’t in bed, and the only person at home is her fat cat, his face planted in his overflowing food dish. I reach down and give him a pet, only to huff with annoyance when a fistful of loose cat hair comes up. Has any creature ever shed as much as this one? “Where’s your mistress?”
“Mrowr?” is all Squeaker says.
Fucking Magpie. I know what’s happened here. I bet if I went to the guild, there’d be no permit for a second teacher on the excursion. She just wanted me out of her hair so she could be in charge of the team. But I’ve taken the last few down without her putting up a single word of protest. I don’t understand why she’d maneuver around me now.
Unless…
I cross the house, looking for the place I stashed her liquor. I’d pried up a floorboard when she’d told me to hide it all from her, and when I get to the place in the cellar where it’s hidden, the bottles are still there. That doesn’t tell me much—she can just buy more if she’s determined. But I’m suspicious of her actions.
She doesn’t want me around for a reason. Until I figure out what that reason is, I’m not going to rest easy.