Page 34 of Faeling
“We willnotdiscuss children,” she wheezed.
“Fine. Then you choose a topic,skala. I’ve been carrying this conversation anyway.”
She loosely crossed her arms and shot him with a frown, seeing how easily she’d walked into his trap.
“Let us discuss my imprisonment, then,” she bit out.
Vallek shrugged before pulling her plate closer to finish off her food. There was no sense in wasting it. Although his family were of noble blood, they were a relatively minor name in the list of Balmirra’s paladins. He and his sisters had had a happy enough childhood, wanting for nothing, until Mordis came into power. He demanded all paladin sons be conscripted to train as warriors, and Vallek had spent his late adolescence and early adulthood in the harsh conditions of Mordis’s camps. Boys fought for food and slept on soiled straw.
To make them hard, said Mordis.
To break them, more like.
And so no food went to waste with Vallek. He indulged in good food and his one goblet of mead or wine, every plate and cup another defiant insult to Mordis’s hated memory.
Spearing a chunk of cooling squash, Vallek sighed. “We’ve already discussed that at length.”
“Wehave not!” Jumping to her feet, Ravenna marched to stand before him, her fists planted on her hips. “You merely declared you were king and would have your way.”
“I am, I did, and I will,” he agreed. Catching another pieceof squash, he lifted it to touch Ravenna’s lips. “Just a few more bites. For me.”
“I will not be fed like a baby,” she seethed, eyes narrowing when he pushed the bite past her lips before she’d fully finished speaking.
“No, not a baby. A cherished, well-spoiled mate.”
He was inordinately pleased when she took a second piece, chewing speedily as she glared daggers at him. He’d accept this, and his beast was pleased to see her fed by their hand.
As she finished chewing, Vallek poured them both a goblet of wine. “Drink with me?”
Ravenna took the cup he offered and raised it to her unsmiling mouth. Without dropping his gaze, she drank the wine in three great gulps. Placing it back on the table, she sneered, “Finished. May I be excused now?”
Not waiting for permission, she turned on her heel and flounced back to her seat.
Vallek pressed his lip to his tusks, holding back his laugh. Hellion indeed.
He didn’t rush his evening cup, sitting before the cold hearth in his preferred chair. More than once he tried to coax her to sit somewhere more comfortable, but every time she refused. Although he admired her determination to spite him, by the time his lids grew heavy with sleepiness, he was ready for her capitulation.
Rising from his seat, Vallek stretched out his back. His body and mind a pleasurable kind of tired, he stalked over to his wary mate. She squinted up at him suspiciously, confirming his instinct not to bother asking if she’d accompany him to bed.
Instead, he leaned down and gathered her up in his arms. She could do little more than gasp and sputter as he held her high on his chest and walked from the den into his sumptuous bedchamber.
Ravenna had just started protesting when he laid her gently upon the rich bedding. She looked so right there, and one day soon, he vowed she’d look up at him from these very sheets with warmth and welcome in her eyes.
For now, he had to contend with the spitting hellcat again.
“I will make but one more demand,” he said. “As my mate, you will share my bed tonight and all nights hence.”
Before he could cage her in with his arms, Ravenna’s dainty foot landed hard in his vulnerable middle, pushing him back. Using her momentum, she rocked into a backwards somersault and began to roll across the bed. He watched her go, not sure whether to be amused or horrified or annoyed. Perhaps a bit of everything.
She landed gracefully on the other side of the bed, well out of his reach.
“I will not,” she growled. “I’d rather sleep on the floor.”
“Fine then,” he growled right back, his annoyance winning the day.
Lips pursed in an expression he was getting far too familiar with, Ravenna snatched at the thin coverlet and began pulling it closer. Vallek thought about jumping on it to stop her, but in truth, he was tired.
He matched her glare as she gathered up the bundle of bedding, ridiculously larger than her, and made to walk around the bed.
