Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
I start to tell her I’m the Princess of Theravan…but decide that’s more information than she needs to know.
“Yes, I am,” I say firmly. “Do you have a place where I could tend to my manservant? He is in a bad way, I’m afraid.”
“Indeed, he is,” she agrees. “I’ve got a room free for you right now. Can you get him to walk? Don’t think the two of us can shift him—he’s too damn big!”
“Valen? Valen!” I lean down and pat his cheek carefully.
His eyelids flutter at last, revealing eyes that look like dying coals. Which concerns me—it seems as though the fire inside him is going out.
“Valen,” I say again. “This nice woman has a room for us in her inn. Can you rise and walk with us? You’re too big to carry.”
With a low groan, he levers himself to his feet and sways for a moment before I—very reluctantly—slip an arm around his waist. He’s so big and naked and dirty—yet under the acrid fumes from the desert, I can still smell his bonfire-and-male-spice scent.
“Fuck…” he mutters, putting one hand to his head as I attempt to keep him upright—it’s not easy since he’s tall as a tree and heavy as one too.
“Come with me,” the innkeeper, whose name I still haven’t gotten, urges us. “We need to hurry before the poison sets in.”
“So…fucking…hungry,” Valen growls as we stagger towards the Slaughtered Lamb.
“We have hot food at all hours,” the innkeeper assures us. “Just ask old Maud—I can get you whatever it is you need.”
Well, at least now I know her name.
“I thank you, good lady,” I say, giving her my best princess smile—the one I save for Court where I’m supposed to be scrupulously polite to everyone. “You are too kind.”
“Eh, it’s nothing.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Couldn’t leave the two of you out in the wilds. The forest ent safe, even in the daytime, lest you stay on the path.”
And with this piece of wisdom, she leads us into the inn.
14
IRENA
I don’t see anyone else inside The Slaughtered Lamb, which is wooden and rustic. Valen is leaning heavily on me, making it hard to pay attention to much of anything except keeping him upright. Luckily, the room that Maud, the innkeeper, has for us is on the ground floor.
“Here we go, then!” she says brightly, shoving open a door at the back of the common room.
There’s a big, four-poster bed with a small table and two chairs on one side of the wide hearth and a large wooden tub on the other side. Maud pokes up the fire, making it blaze and then points to the tub.
“Get him in there and start washing him at once. You’ve got to get the poison residue off him if you want to keep him alive. If it leeches into his skin, it’ll eat him up from the inside out.”
“But…is there any water?” I look around uncertainly.
“Yes there is, my Lady, for this is the Deluxe Suite!”
Maud sounds extremely proud as she goes to the wooden tub and twists a faucet set over it. I can see tubes leading down to the metal tap. They run through the middle of the fireplace and from there, presumably outside.
“See there—the water comes in from the well and the fire warms it,” the innkeeper explains. “It’s almost like magic! So go on, scrub away and I’ll make a bit of breakfast for you both.”
She leaves us and I have no choice but to help Valen into the tub. Even though it’s quite big, he still has to scrunch up with his knees halfway to his chin. This parts his legs and puts the male part of him on display—it, too, is covered in the brown poison dust, I note with distaste before I look hastily away.
Luckily, there’s a large sponge and a bar of harsh but effective soap sitting on a little tray beside the tub. I hand them both to Valen and nod at him.
“All right—clean yourself up.”
His head lolls weakly as he looks up at me, his eyes regaining a bit of their old fire.
“That’s not how it works and you know it, Princess,” he rasps. “You wear the ring and I wear the collar—that means you have to clean me yourself. Otherwise this fucking dust won’t come off. See?”
He dips the sponge in the rising water and wipes his face with it. When he pulls the sponge away, his face is still exactly as dirty as it was before, despite the smear of brown dust on the sponge.
I stare at him indecisively. I’m remembering now what the scrap of manuscript said—“Be ye aware that the one who controls the beast must also clean him and rest with him nightly.”
I didn’t think much of that line when I read the manuscript—I was more concerned with the part about having to feed the beast on my own blood. Or “Blude” as it’s spelled in the Old Tongue. But now it occurs to me that wearing the ring has made me responsible for the huge male before me in all sorts of unpleasant ways.