Wren clucked her tongue and clutched the blankets to her chest. The giant prison of blankets Arrik had trussed her up in loosened, but she didn’t move. She sagged into them and let out a sigh. “I would sleep better if you gave me a weapon,” she said innocently. Too innocently.
“Demands already? What a greedy wife you are.”
She shrugged. “When you can’t beat them, join them. It was worth a try.” Wren yawned. “If I need to sleep, then you definitely need to sleep, too.”
“I’ll sleep when I am dead.”
“Wouldn’t that be a miracle.”
Arrik smothered a chuckle. A fiery sense of humor to go with her fighting and her hair. He liked it. Too much.
But despite her words of protest, Wren’s eyes eventually grew heavy, and Arrik watched with some relief when she finally slipped into a resistant, unsettled sleep. He rose and made sure to secure the boy’s hands behind his back before he called in Shane. His second took in the scene and then had his men remove the young assassin.
Shane eyed the sleeping princess. “Quite a fight she put you through earlier and now she is sleeping? How curious.”
“We came to an understanding,” Arrik whispered.
His friend eyed him critically. “Be careful. Females are dangerous creatures.”
“I always am.”
His second left the room silently as the sky turned pink to the east. Curiosity getting the better of him, Arrik moved back over to the bed once more to examine the sleeping face of his new bride.
He did not know when he would next get a chance to, after all.
There were deep shadows beneath Wren’s eyes, and there were barely healed cuts and bruises on her neck that her hair had hidden.
Arrik had not had the chance to look at Wren this closely since he had nearly choked the life out of her. Now that she was washed and clean and dressed in the high fashion of Verlanti, he found it easier to take in her features.
It was the wild, red hair that Arrik liked the most. Truly, he had never seen the color upon any other person he had ever met. Even after their tussle, it was still adorned with tiny jewels, which seemed to burn and glow with her hair. It was as if her head was aflame, especially in the burgeoning light of dawn filtering through the courtyard.
He placed a hand over Wren’s face, not quite touching her skin. She was not a Verlanti version of beauty—the dress she wore to their wedding had highlighted that. Most women in Verlanti, and most of the men, too, were polished. Perfect. All sharp planes and immaculate, shining hair and clothes.
But there was something natural about the Dragon Princess that Arrik found himself drawn to. He liked it a lot. There was a softness to her, despite the lean muscles of her body that made the swathes of insubstantial Verlantian fabric feel more alive rather than sterile. It was that contrast that pleased him so. He wanted to capture her wildness and keep it for himself.
His fingertips touched Wren’s cheek for just a moment, then he retreated from the bed as if he had been burned. He was a fool. Giving in to his attraction was a mistake.
She would sooner kill him than let him touch her.
His new wife was a dragon among vipers and he had a feeling that she’d wreak havoc in the court. Soren should have killed her. She was a dangerous piece to add to the chessboard.
He smiled. It was his father’s mistake.
She was Arrik’s key to the kingdom of Lorne.
And then he would take Verlanti.
25
Wren
Her eyes snapped open. Wren had fallen asleep within her enemy’s chambers.
Is he the enemy after last night?
She didn’t know. He saved her life but did that excuse his past actions? It didn’t.
Her head was fuzzy and thick, her limbs heavy. She was exhausted—which wasn’t a surprise, given that before last night, she had been locked up on a ship for weeks and then thrown in a cell. She knew she’d fallen asleep sometime right before dawn, and going by the way the sun shone into the room via the courtyard, it couldn’t have been many hours after that. It still didn’t feel like enough.
Wren could not believe she’d slept. Now that she was becoming more aware of her surroundings, she became furious that she’d so stupidly done so, especially after watching Arrik dispatch the assassin. He was cold, clinical, precise.
He hadn’t hurt her.
The prince wasn’t the one who was meant to kill her like she’d been led to believe. Just some unknown threat. She struggled against the blankets which still held her tight. It was far too hot beneath them. For some reason the idea of an assassin was worse than her husband. At least she knew what to expect with the prince. Wren hated the idea of death creeping around corners, seeking to hunt her down.
The door opened and she bolted upright. Arrik was nowhere to be seen and servants began to file in. She blinked repeatedly as the sun shone in her eyes, the sheer curtains doing nothing to shut it out. A sheen of sweat covered her body as they wordlessly released Wren from the blankets that kept her suffocatingly in place. Guilt pricked her as they began to clean up the shattered dishes and food strewn across the ground. They did not comment on the dented tea tray that lay on the floor.
That wasn’t the only thing on the floor.
Her attention snapped to the side of the bed. The boy was gone. Not a spot of blood, nor any other trace that someone had attempted to murder her in the night.
Wren watched as the servants laid out a selection of dresses on the bed for her to wear, each of them airy and gauzy and ridiculous by Lorne standards, but still somewhat more sensible than the wedding dress she still had on.
Just as silently as they entered, they left, closing the door behind them.
Wren gazed around the huge but sparsely decorated room and swung her legs over the bed’s edge, her toes meeting the warm wooden floor. She stretched her sore body and stumbled over to a large bowl of water which had been warmed by the morning rays of the sun. A small towel sat beside it, so she dipped it in the water and used it to wipe away the sweat from her skin.
She scurried over to the bed and eyed the courtyard to ensure nobody was watching, then she quickly untied her wedding dress, the fabric sticking slightly to her skin. The air had a wet sort of quality to it that she’d not experienced before. She grabbed the most modest dress from the bed and put it on. It was a soft green color, made of a lightweight silk that would have protected against none of the elements of the Dragon Isles. But, in the already startlingly hot morning of Verlanti, the cool material was welcome.
Her bladder complained and she drifted toward the front of the room to an open doorway. It was dim without the light but she was baffled by what she saw. It was a huge room made of stone and silver. A toilet, not a chamber pot, in the right corner but that’s not what intrigued her the most. Wren drifted to the back of the room and ran her hand over the silver levers on the wall and then studied the ceiling. Was this the device her mother used to tell her about? A shower? Where the rain came from the ceiling?
Her bladder complained once more. She’d have to investigate later.
After relieving herself, she washed her hands and exited the privy. Moving over to the table, she sat down and blankly stared at the food. She was not sure if she should eat it or not. Someone tried to murder her last night, after all. What was stopping them from poisoning the food?
But if that was the way it was going to be, then that was the way it was going to be. If someone meant to poison Wren’s food—and continued to do so—then eventually they would get to her. She couldn’t live her life in fear. Plus, the prince didn’t seem like the person to leave things to chance. No doubt he’d had the food tested.
And you trust him?
“Stop it,” she muttered out loud. She couldn’t go on this way.
If Arrik meant for Wren to die, he’d have let the assassin finish her off. Which meant he wanted her alive…for now. Though she could trust nothing else about the man, she could, at least, trust that he did not wish to see her poisoned or dead. They both had an agenda and needed the other to fulfill it.