The Protegre Brides: Summer: A Sapphic Space Regency Romance by Katryna Lalock

Author:Katryna Lalock [Lalock, Katryna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Desert Dingo Publishing
Published: 2024-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

12

GENELLE

Ihear nothing but the hammering in my chest as I fly from Summer’s room and slam my door shut. My chest rises and falls rapidly, my breaths short and strained.

Did I really just flog my brothers betrothed?

No – it was more than that. My body aches in ways I don’t understand, and the only way to relieve the ache is to touch myself.

Multiple times.

When light touches the far end of the property, I’m sure I’ve barely slept more than a few hours. My eyes burn with exhaustion, my wrist aches and cramps.

I rise with the light and do my best to look put together. By the time I’ve bathed and changed, I feel somewhat better. Summer was insolent, she needed to be reminded of her place.

Her place as the marchioness, my mind screams at me. Her place alongside my brother, to eventually become the duchess while I will forever be lady. Her words from last night prick at my skin – what did I know of love? Childhood crushes faded into dust when it was clear there was no reciprocity. They cared for my brother instead, or the boys we saw at the balls.

Every friendship potentially dangerous, squashed before it could ruin me. I toed a delicate line between a close friend and a romantic interest. I’d suffered too many times from my inability to understand what I meant to the other female.

It was not as though it was unheard of, for two females or two males to fall in love. Many alien races did not have a gender binary, and most were not as rigid as ours.

It was my parents that caused me to hesitate. If I married a male, there was possibility for advancement in rank, for creating little heirs that would spread our family’s influence far and wide. Of course, my father would put up a fight at the idea of a sizable dowry, but if it meant prestige, he’d look the other way.

For me to marry a female would mean no heirs, and questions about dowry he wouldn’t want to answer. I knew what he would say; what awful suggestions he’d have for me to just ignore my natural inclination.

So that part of me is hidden away, shoved far below the layers of duty I have to this family. If I must be unhappy, then let my brother be happy. Perhaps that means with this human woman, though I still cannot see why. If I gave her a chance, perhaps I’d find something about her I liked.

That would mean being around her again, and I cannot stomach the thought of being in the same room with her after what I did last night.

I hope I am early enough to the kitchen to avoid Aaoric and Summer, but their whispers tell me otherwise. I peer around the door into the dining room. They sit next to each other, heads bent, words quick and quiet. Her hands are folded in her lap, her legs crossed away from him. He lounges, though his arm is draped around the empty chair at his side – not hers.

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