Closing my eyes, I slowly open them and connect to his gaze. “What did you see?” I ask.
“Nothing, not even you. I listened for movement, but there was none. Then, you appeared again. I feigned sleep as a precaution.”
“The venefica play,” I grind out.
“How?”
I debate whether I should tell him or not, I decide after only a moment’s hesitation to tell him exactly what happened, even her riding astride me and taking my seed inside of her womb, along with the claim of being with child instantly.
“It is possible, with their kind at least,” he announces. “She could have cast a spell, taken a potion to make it happen. What will you do if there is indeed a halfling?”
Unable to think about the concept, I rise to my feet and prepare for battle. “She will not live, therefore the halfling will not live. It matters not if there is indeed one.”
“Tib,” he warns. “You came here to free them, to release them.”
Nodding, I turn to look at Brutus. “This I know, though the venefica cares not. I told her of my plans, she wishes to create a war, to cause problems between my empress and me. I do not know her endgame, but I will not allow it.”
Chapter Fifteen
DRUCILLA
The pain.
Excruciating pain.
Wrapping my arms around my waist, I double over with that pain. I try to hold back any sounds, but I can’t. I let out a scream as my ass slides from the side of the bed and my knees hit the hard stone floor.
The door opens and I glance up to see another beautiful woman appear in front of me. She has white-blonde hair just as the other one, but bright blue eyes. She looks a little like me in the face, and if I were able to concentrate, maybe I would think that was weird, but I can’t concentrate on anything other than the pain.
She crouches down in front of me, tilting her head to the side. “It hurts already? The gods are good,” she breathes. “But not as good as I am.”
“What?” I grind out.
Her lips curve up in a smile. “Your emperor’s body is beautiful. When he is mine, fully, I’ll fix his face so that his beauty can be all around me, all of the time.”
“He isn’t yours,” I snap.
She throws back her head, laughing. “That pain you feel?” she asks. I open my mouth to tell her to fuck off, but nothing comes out. “That is what happens when the gods have brought two people together, but they cannot stay together.”
“So you’re doing this?” I ask on a breathy whisper.
She hums. “We did make it impossible for the emperor to fall in love. But I wanted to make sure the gods didn’t mess with my plan.”
I watch her for a moment, waiting for her to speak, the pain too much for me to actually say anything back to her, no matter what I want to say, which is to tell her to go to hell. Instead, I watch and I wait.
“His seed grows inside of me,” she breathes, then she moves closer. “All of your emperor’s body is beautiful, especially that hard length that grows between his legs.”
Shaking my head, I refuse to believe that she had sex with him, that he had sex with her. The pain stays just as intense in my stomach, but somehow also develops in my chest. It hurts, and the tears that prick my eyes aren’t just from the physical pain, but they’re from the emotional as well.
“You love him.” She laughs softly. “This will hurt more than you can handle. It will probably kill you, that is if we do not first.”
“He will never love you,” I snap. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
She stands, her eyes narrowing on me, then she does something that I couldn’t imagine a woman would ever do. I watch as she slips her fingers between her legs and brings them back up. She rubs them together, then bends down again in front of me and holds them in front of my nose.
“That smell is his semen mixed with my juices. He is not yours any longer, Drucilla. He has fallen under my spell and he will be unable to fight it, fight me.”
I almost throw up on her, but I hold it back, barely. She laughs, maniacal, sounding exactly like the crazy person she is. Holding everything back, my tears, my outbursts, everything, I just stare at her.
She smiles and takes a step back. “This will be fun,” she calls out.
“Wait,” I cry, holding my hand up, and trying not to fall on my face with the pain. She stops, turning around to face me again, her smile still firmly in place. “Can you give me the ability to speak this language, the Savonaian language?” I ask.
She doesn’t say anything immediately, again she tilts her head to the side and watches me. “It matters not if you speak it, you will not be alive long enough to actually say anything to any of them.”
“I would like to have the ability, even if it is just for my last moments.”
“Humans,” she snorts. Then she lifts her hand and mutters something. My body jerks forward and she grins. “Do you understand me?” she asks. Her words are Savonaian, and yet, they translate immediately in my mind.
“I do,” I say, and it comes out in Savonaian.
Without another word, she turns and leaves me alone in the room. Alone with my pain. Alone with my heartache. Because my heart hurts, it hurts so badly that I’m not sure it will ever be mended.
Curling in a ball, I cry. Tears flow down my cheeks, I try to cry out the pain, but it does nothing to ease the agony. I stay there for minutes, hours, days, I’m unsure. The pain is too much to bear and I beg for the sweet relief of death.
It never comes.
Eventually, my body is too worn out to feel
