Page 95 of The Poison Daughter
“What does that mean, though?” I ask.
He smiles wickedly. “It means that we have to be spiritually and emotionally intimate before we are physically intimate. You’ll sit with me under a veil and we’ll have to exchange secrets.”
I scoff. “No, thank you.”
“It’s not optional.”
I wave a dismissive hand. “And then?”
He purses his lips. “And then we’ll be taken to the chamber in the back of the temple, where we will consummate our marriage in front of witnesses.”
This entire conversation is unsettling. Not because I’m uncomfortable with my body, but because I don’t like that he has more experience—that he’s witnessed this while I’ll be going in blind. Being on my heels is disorienting enough. I don’t like that he knows more than me.
“So I’ll have to—” He clears his throat.
“Fuck me?” I finish. “If you can’t even say it, I’m not sure how you expect to do it.”
His eyes narrow. “This isn’t a game, lovely. I’ll need to fuck you like I’m claiming you. I need to make you come. Everyone will need to believe that you’re mine or there could be challenges.”
“Challenges?”
“I told you before, out here strength is prized above all,” he says, tapping a finger on the book. “Only the strongest of us survived the attack ten years ago. Only the strongest of us survive the culling to become guards, and if you don’t regularly prove you’re stronger than the rest, they will come for you, to take what’s yours for the good of our people. You are a powerful ally. Others will try to sway you. It would be foolish of them not to when they have such an obvious opportunity to attack my relationship when it’s at its weakest.”
I smile. “Is that what this is? A relationship? And here I thought it was more of a hostage situation.”
He frowns, his shoulders going tense. “Harlow, this is serious. I know you don’t trust me, and that’s fine. I don’t trust you, either, but this is the truth: I cannot protect you from them if you don’t let me. We have different rules here—different customs.”
“And those customs don’t require consent?”
He throws his hands up. “The consent is a precursor to participation?—”
“So anyone can do anything they want?—”
“That’s not what I said,” he snaps. “We have customs, like hunt night, that are inherent to keeping wildness in our culture—where hunters can hunt and capture their prey and fuck them into submission. No one is ever forced to play and hunters need to go through a full training ahead of time to ensure they understand how to do so safely. But once they are out in those woods, anything goes. It’s why it’s an optional event.”
“That—” I shake my head, my mind whirling with the image of Bryce fucking that woman.
“It’s triumph and surrender. You wouldn’t understand.” He rubs a hand over his face. “I’m telling you all of this because everyone here already knows the rules and you don’t, and if you don’t learn them fast—if you keep fighting me every step of the way—I won’t be able to ensure your safety. The last thing I want is a war with your family.”
I could at the very least count on that last part being true. There’s no way he wants an outright war with the Carrenwells. It would be too messy, and my family’s magic—and that of those we shared the well with—would easily overwhelm even the well-trained killers within these fort walls. But I still can’t rule out the possibility that he wants a quieter, sneakier war with us. He could be working with the rebellion. For all I know, he could be Rochelli and the whole attack at our engagement dinner was a clever diversion.
“I know it goes against everything in you to listen to me, or anyone else for that matter, but there are things you cannot do here. Do not flirt with others. It makes me look weak, and that makes you vulnerable.”
I scoff. “So, I can’t so much as flirt with someone else, but you’re allowed to fuck some other woman on hunt night?”
Henry arches a brow. “I didn’t think you would care if I fucked someone else, lovely. Now that I realize you’re jealous?—”
“I’m not jealous!”
His lips twitch. “Now that I realize you are determined to have me to yourself, I promise my eternal fidelity.”
I clench my teeth. I imagine how satisfying it would be to press my fingers into the soft notch at the bottom of his throat just to make himgag. “I meant that I don’t need or want your protection. I can take care of myself.”
He shakes his head. “In Lunameade, I have no doubt, but the quickest way to get hurt in Mountain Haven is to believe that you don’t need anyone else. Do not flirt with others. Do not wander far alone. And never, under any circumstances, run from me.”
I want to push. Maybe it’s a lifetime of restriction and the freedom of finally being away from my family, but I want to stretch the limits—rattle the bars of my cage and see what he does when I do.
“What happens if I run?”
