House of Blood and Whispers by Natalina Reis

Author:Natalina Reis [Natalina Reis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Natalina Reis
Published: 2023-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Cold and Cruel

Guilt was eating me from the inside out. Outside it was still raining—did the rain ever stop in this place?—and my bare feet and the hem of my white nightgown were caked with mud. I didn’t care. It grounded me at a moment when I couldn’t understand my own feelings. Around the corner of the building that held our quarters, there was a small niche on the wall, half protected by the overhanging of the roof. Whatever used to be housed there was gone, so I took up residence, bringing my legs up until I could rest my aching head on my knees.

Where was this guilt coming from? I had done nothing wrong. In fact, I was the one who had been wronged, time and time again, for the past couple months. First, I had been wrenched from my own home up North, then taken across the ocean to serve a disgusting ruler, married his son, and was now being kept like one of those high-end courtesans who stirred up a lot of obscene thoughts in men like the emperor. Why was I the one feeling guilty?

I tapped my forehead on my knees. “Stupid, stupid.” The look on Sung-jin’s face when I told him it had been just a kiss had broken me, and I didn’t understand why. Yes, he was not this horrible man I had thought him to be at first, and we had developed an awkward friendship of sorts. But that was all.

Or was it?

I should have stopped the torrent of words, but my survival instincts kicked in, and harsher, colder ones left my lips. Gods in heaven, I even told him I would go after his best friend. But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him believe I liked him. He was still the enemy, however in a different class than his father. He was still holding me prisoner in a kingdom too far from home, with little hope of ever returning. But he was kind and courteous, always making sure I had everything I needed, that I was safe and comfortable. Last night he had helped me bathe, comforted me, and let me sleep in his arms when I was terrified of how I felt. Those were not the actions of a foe, no matter how much I’d prefer to view him that way.

I had repaid his kindness with cruelty, my words barbed with poison. Their effect had been painfully clear by the haunted gaze in his gorgeous eyes, the sudden dip of the corners of his lips. I had crushed something within him, something I suspected he didn’t reveal to anyone. Yet, when he was trusting enough to be vulnerable before me, I betrayed that trust and used it as a weapon against him.

My name fit me after all. Cold and cruel.

The truth was, I was scared; scared of these new feelings warming me from the inside. Something in me yearned for Sung-jin. I couldn’t lie. I enjoyed his company, and when he had been beaten to the doors of death, a part of me had nearly died with him.

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