“And what is it that is expected of me?” I asked, giving her the benefit of the doubt.
“You’re his whore, of course. You serve his needs, and as his concubine, you do anything he wants. You will be moved from the pavilion soon, where you will be expected to service the men who he deems worthy of fucking you. Now I know you think you are special to him, but we all were at one time. His passion is fleeting, and we all play our parts here.”
“Is that all?” If he thought he could put me in the harem to feed his elite guard, he had another thing coming.
“Listen, you are nothing new to us. You think you are so fucking special. You’re nothing, less than nothing, really. We are taking bets; you know what bets are right? You should, since it’s a human term. Many of the women in the pavilion give you a week of holding his attention before he moves on to someone of the Horde.”
“Considering I’ve held his attention for a few months now, and that he’s the one who brought me here…put me down for six months.” I smiled coldly. She wanted to be a total bitch? Bring it, I could play this game. “Now if you would excuse me, I’d like a bath.”
“I don’t think so!” she screeched, losing all sense of playing it cool. “He won’t be coming for you tonight. He’s made other plans.” She hissed but sheathed her claws. “He’s made plans that include me tonight.”
I felt bile rise to the back of my throat. “Then that is his choice. You think it bothers me?” It did, and I was doing my best to act nonchalant.
“Watch your back. You are not going to make many friends here, Witch.”
“I’m not just a Witch anymore. Haven’t you heard? Turns out I’m the Blood Princess, Claire. I didn’t ask to be here, Ryder made a contract with my parents for me. It’s a simple matter for him to fix, since he is the only one who can undo it.”
“Wrong; here, you are only a meal for the newly crowned Horde King,” she argued.
“Whatever,” I quipped and turned to my helper gals.
“He was with me last night, gaining strength to travel to the Blood Realm,” she cooed with a nasty taint to her sweet tone.
Ouch!
“He fed from you?” I asked, trying my best to hide the hurt that was even now burning in my chest.
“Yes, and he was very hungry,” she said, watching me as I turned around to face her.
“You slept with him?” Yes, I was a sucker for punishment.
“How else does one feed?” she replied coyly.
“He’s the King, it’s his choice,” I replied, trying to keep my face from betraying my feelings.
I’d slept with Ryder right after he’d been with Claire, but then he’d come for me and in doing so, he would have needed to be strong and ready to fight if presented with a worst case scenario.
I felt sick to my stomach; worse, I felt like I was going to…I threw up all over the bed with Claire watching me. She cringed and recoiled as if I’d thrown up on her. Fucking Fairy was dead! This was his fault, his stupid doing.
He’d gotten me knocked up!
This was going to go badly.
Chapter Six
I’d retched until I’d dry heaved. Someone had cleaned up and another had wiped my face with a cold cloth. They had tucked me into the fresh bedding, and I could hear whispers from the doorway. Hours went by, and when Ryder didn’t come to get me, despair kicked up its ugly head. Why hadn’t he come to get me?
Eventually, I’d fallen asleep as comforting hands soothed my hair as my mother had done many times when I’d been a child. It was comforting, but when I’d woken up, only Eliran was in the room with me.
“You were sick again,” he stated the obvious.
“You think?” I replied harshly and instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry, Eliran.”
“It concerns me that you are still getting sick. You are fully Fae now. You should be fine. Ryder seems to think that the first few times had to do with the wards inside your Human abode.”
“Home; it was my home, Eliran,” I whispered.
“Right, well, since you are newly out of Transition, we need to keep a close eye on your pregnancy. The first two months are the equivalent to a human’s first trimester of pregnancy. If you were to miscarry, this would be the time that it would happen.”
“Any idea why I am throwing up so much now that I am no longer in a house warded against the Horde?” I asked, finding myself concerned. I hadn’t wanted to be a mother, hadn’t even wanted to think about it. I may not have wanted it, but the thought of losing it brought tears to my eyes.
It was amazing how soon you could become attached to something you hadn’t wanted. I felt the tears flooding my eyes and tried to stop them, but failed.
“Synthia, you shouldn’t cry. I promise to do everything in my power to ensure that you and the baby are both healthy and fine.”