The Hidden Kingdom by Sarah M. Cradit

Author:Sarah M. Cradit [Cradit, Sarah M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

* * *

Assana hadn’t left Balfour’s room for days. He’d stopped attending his courses. He had more important things to attend, he would say, falling over her, plunging himself inside and annihilating all except her illicit desire.

She could have pushed him sooner, but there was something about him that almost caused her to forget why she’d come. A small part of her saw herself never leaving this room, content to spend the rest of her days twisted in endless coitus with this strange boy.

He started calling her Assana days ago. She’d never given him her name. I know who you are, he’d said. I knew it after that first day. I just didn’t care.

She’d been stunned. He had more cunning in him than she expected. Did you?

Is that a problem for you?

We’re cousins. Doesn’t that bother you?

You knew we were cousins when you were plotting to fuck me, while you were fucking me, and after you fucked me. Should I be bothered?

Balfour reluctantly unwound himself from her arms. It wasn’t a temporary thing this time, but a call to the action Assana had come here for. He groaned to do it, and she resented that he was the one to break the fugue of this bliss. That she’d not found the wherewithal to put her mission above her confusing desires.

He slipped on his worn and peeling boots. They weren’t befitting the nephew of a lord, and Assana wondered why Earwyn hadn’t sent her son any new ones. She realized it must be because he hadn’t asked.

“What was it like, fucking the king?”

Assana was so taken aback by the question, all she could do was laugh. “Unpleasant. Why?”

“I’ve never met anyone who’s fucked a king. Only curious.” He finished with his boots and turned to her. “Did you see it happen? Did you see his murder?”

Assana was afraid he might read her mind. Could he do that? There was no way to know for sure. She pushed her memories of that day back. “No. I didn’t.”

“Oldwin let you go, after he’d murdered the king in his own keep? Just like that?”

“No, not exactly,” she said carefully. “I hid from him until it was safe to escape.”

“How did you escape? The word in the Easterlands is that you’re either Oldwin’s prisoner, or dead. There’d be a lot of people happy to see you.”

“A boat. Why did you bring me here, Balfour?”

He shrugged.

“You must have some reason.”

“I suppose I was curious why you’d go to such lengths to get my attention.”

“I need something.”

“Plainly. Bad enough to use me to get it. Most around here wouldn’t have sunk low enough to come to me for anything. I suppose I had to know why.”

“You weren’t the first,” Assana said. “But I do hope you’ll be the last.”

“Because you want to keep fucking me, or because you want to stop fucking me?”

Assana continued to be surprised at his artless way of speaking. “Because if I don’t find this answer soon, it’ll be too late.”

“Well,” he said, “tell me what it is, and if I can help you, I will.

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