Shattered (28 page)

“No,” Nathan choked out.  He took a deep breath and it tickled his throat, but he suppressed any further coughing.  “The news is simply sudden, that’s all.  And I can’t help but wonder if a wedding this soon after a funeral isn’t a little improper.”

“I think a wedding is just what the people need to usher in a new King.  I don’t want my rule to begin with a funeral, though I admit, not many mourned for Trent.  Yo
u certainly didn’t.”

“We each deal with grief in our own ways,” Nathan muttered, and put his attention back on his food.  He had to keep his eyes off Robin.  Heir to Verill…  He didn’t believe it.

“I’m sorry, my Lady,” Jeremy said to Robin.  “He’s been poor company ever since his little disappearance last month.”

“You seem to have a talent for losing track of family,” Robin replied.  “I hear both your sisters have since vanished too.
  Denrick won’t be pleased when he finds out Clara is missing.”

Nathan glanced up at Jeremy and saw rage flash across his face
, just for a moment, before he was able to get it under control again.  So that was it then.  That’s where she and Denrick came in.  Jeremy gained Veril’s support in marrying its heir, and with it he got their army, second only to Surnat’s.  And Denrick got Clara.  But why did Jeremy need an army?  Between his own and the King’s watch, now combined, he had the largest force in the realm.

“Word certainly does get around fast
,” Jeremy said.  “But your father need not find out.  Once our wedding is out of the way I’ll figure out where they’ve gone.  S
omeone
knows, I need only convince him to tell me.”

“Best of luck with that brother,”
Nathan said to his wine, glanced up once at Robin and saw her jaw clench in displeasure.  Screw her.  She should have told him, instead of letting Jeremy blindside him like this.  Heir to Verill, she lied to him.  He took another sip, thinking that this evening might pass faster at the bottom of his cup.

***

The illusion Jeremy created at his wedding was clever, Nathan had to give him that.  He couldn’t
possibly let it be known the princesses were missing, and to try to hide them away like he had at Trent’s funeral would never do, so he drew as much attention to them as possible.

These
girls were the right size, the same hair, and behind colorful masks no one could tell the difference.  Their faces were adorned with paper butterflies, they had flowers in their hair.  Jeremy had dressed them in flowing pink silk, draped them in silver and gold.  Perfect little imposters, playing the role of pixies, dancing around and curtseying to strangers.  They walked Jeremy and Robin down the hall and once the vows began they were whisked away.  And anyone who might know the truth gained much more by staying silent.

Nathan played his part too.  He dressed up
and stood at Jeremy’s right, held his tongue as the vows were recited.  But it hurt to see Robin standing there.  He wished she didn’t look so perfect.  So beautiful.  He thought about Adara instead and that took some of the sharper sting from his gut, eased it just a little.

Nathan consoled himself with a glass of wine at the reception and another at the feast.  At least
Jeremy’s men were good enough escort him back to his room afterwards.

***

“Nathan knows where they are,
” Jeremy said.

Robin didn’t look up.  She felt his breath on
her cheek, his bed beneath the other, and all but the smallest amount of her attention was on the door.  She’d known this day would come, but nothing in knowing prepared her for it.  It didn’t help that the strict corset beneath her wedding gown made it so hard to breathe.  She hadn’t drawn a full breath all afternoon.

When she didn’t respond Jeremy shrugged, she felt it in his arms as they pressed against her shoulders.  He leaned back onto his knees and
hiked her dress up to her waist, lowered himself between her thighs.  His touch made her skin crawl and her arms felt like two weights at her side.

“
You’re trembling,” Jeremy said.  Robin could hear the slightest hint of a smirk in his voice and when his fingers crept higher she cringed.  She didn’t need to see his face to know he preferred it this way.  She felt him stir against her thigh.

Robin shut her eyes to help facilitate the fantasy that she was anywhere but here.
  It was no use though, she felt him all over her.  When he pushed himself inside Robin swallowed back a grunted cry.  She pressed her cheek harder against the bed and squeezed her eyes shut so tight that she felt the tension in her forehead.

He moved in and out of her, but the friction
wasn’t abating, and each new thrust rubbed worse than the last.  But it did help to know that this was likely the only time she’d have to suffer this indignity.  He would consummate their marriage and then return to more accommodating pastures.

Robin did
wished her body would respond though, to make this easier, but even it seemed set against her.  She tried to think of Lily and her mind wandered to Adara, and from there it settled on Nathan, and that was far less preferable than reality.  She couldn’t think about him without remembering the anger he’d been masking all day, as he stood an arm’s length away from her during the wedding.

She opened her eyes and saw Jeremy staring down at her, face straight and slightly disinterested
.  He was barely holding on to an erection now that she stared up at him.  She knew her discomfort must be apparent, but so too was her boredom.  She wished he’d hurry up and finish and she realized then she was no longer afraid.

Jeremy pulled out of her and his eyes left her face.

“Denrick told me you’re a virgin.  Why aren’t you bleeding?”

“I bleed every month, my King,”
Robin replied, her voice flat.  Her attention fell off to the side.  “Give me a week more if you want blood.”

Jeremy chuckled and pulled away a little further.  Robin hoped
that might be it, but in a rush he grabbed her arm and flipped her over onto her stomach.

Robin got her hands beneath her
and her hair fell over her face.  Before she could look back over her shoulder she felt her dress being pushed up again, felt Jeremy’s fingers on her hips, digging into her skin.  She went slack against the bed and it didn’t even occur to her to be alarmed until she felt the head of his cock press between her cheeks.

She
tried to squirm her body up, naïve enough to still think he was simply ill-positioned.  Jeremy’s hand on her hip steadied her, pressed her into the bed, and his other guided his erection into her ass.  He got the head past the tight barrier of muscle and Robin tensed up, taking in a sharp breath as her body went rigid, and when he forced the rest of himself into her a shriek tore from her throat.

Jeremy was still chuckling when her voice quieted from the room, when the shock and pain of his invasion subsided enough that she could even comprehend what had just happened.  His hand had slipped to the shallow of her back
and, now that she was still, he relented some of the pressure against her spine.  Robin hadn’t even realized she’d tried to crawl away until she managed to get her eyes open and saw his sheets twisted up around her hands.  She felt sweat on her forehead, her back, and dripping down between her legs.

Jeremy planted both hands beside her shoulders and lowered his body against her back.

“I don’t even need you,” he whispered, near her ear.  The weight of his body threatened to suffocate her further.  “I don’t need Verill or your army.  The kingdom is already mine.  No one can stand against me now.”

The pain was just starting to be
come tolerable when he lifted off her again.  He pulled out and hovered over her, just long enough for a whimper to slip from her, for this time Robin knew his aim.  And when he dove back into her flesh she howled again.

He did that again and again, until Robin was exhausted of voice and shaking all over.  When he couldn’t get any more than quiet whimpers from her he seemed to lose much of his interest, and there were no more delays then.  He quickly pumped away at her ass until he came.

Jeremy
didn’t say a word when he was done, just got up and left her there.  And Robin curled up as much as she could, even though the ribbed corset she wore constricted worse when her thighs drew close to her chest.  She couldn’t get free of it and it was horribly fitting – even she saw the irony there.  A physical manifestation of her entrapment; it made her laugh.

It quickly turned to a sob though, if only to continue to fill the silence.  She didn’
t want to hear Denrick’s words in her mind, nor her own thoughts, but they still crept in.  Nothing Jeremy did was any less than what she had done.  She was as twisted as him.

***

“How much did I drink last night?” Nathan groaned.  He covered his eyes with his hand to block out the morning and buried his face in the pillow beneath Adara’s head.

She sat up and leaned over him, and her hair shielded him from some the light.  “I don’t know, but you were angry last night.  Did you know you smashed the bowl you kept above the hearth?”

Nathan shook his head and pressed his hands against his temples to relieve some of the headache that raged behind his eyes.

Adara laughed.  “Well, you did.  You grabbed it and threw it at the men that brought you back here.  Chased them out into the hall too before I could drag you back.”

Nathan smirked a little and held on to that, to keep the hurt and anger out of his voice.  “You know Robin married Jeremy yesterday, right?”

“Of course, how could I not? I might not have been invited but there isn’t a person in Surnat that doesn’t know.  But you knew it was going to happen.  No sense in drinking yourself into oblivion every time you see her.”

“I can’t help it.”

“That’s a lie Nathan and you know it.”

Nathan sighed.  “She asked me to trust her and then she married my brother. 
My scheming, kin slaying brother.  How can I not be angry?”

“I never said you couldn’t be angry, but you can control how you react.  No more drinking.  Promise me.”

Nathan peeked an eye open and felt a sliver of light stab at the back of his head.  The curtain of her hair around his face simply took the sun beyond the window and broke it up into a thousand little daggers.

“I promise,” he mumbled.  But between her tone and his hangover that promise was easy.  Whether or not he’d keep it next time he saw Robin would be the true test.

“And did it ever occur to you that she knew you would take this poorly, and that might be why she asked you to trust her?”

“She lied to me. 
She told me her father was killed, and then I find out she’s heir to Verill.  Denrick’s daughter,” Nathan said.  He heard his tone growing more angry, felt his hand clenched at his side, and the increase in his heart rate punished him for it.  His headache throbbed more fiercely with each new beat.

Adara
looked down at him with some mix of pity before she shook her head and rose, and the reintroduction of sunlight sent his face back into the pillows.  When he managed to look up again she was gone from the room.

Nathan made
it out of bed and hauled himself to his study.  He had no appetite and it was anger that drove him back into his books today, though no amount of reading would dull it.  It had gotten into his blood.  Adara stayed clear of him, like she could sense it too.  She came and went a few times, but after lunch she left again and by dinner she had not returned.

At least, by
evening, the majority of his headache was gone.  Nathan paced the main room and let the thought of seeing Robin be the reason for his irritation.  The guards didn’t come for him though, and Nathan was forced to admit he was disappointed.  He wanted to see her, despite it all.

He felt stuck there in the living room, anchored to the back and forth pattern of his pacing by his disappointment, that maybe they would
still come and if he stopped he somehow killed any chance of that.  But it was already well past dinner and it was Adara’s return that finally stilled him.

She nearly collided with him upon entering.  She looked surprised, like she had been lost in thought the whole way back and expected to have one or two more room’s worth of time to sort out whatever raced through her head.  But in the few seconds they stared at one another she picked a course, Nathan saw it in the way she pursed her lips together.

“Yes or no Nathan.  Don’t think about it, just answer.  Do you still trust her?”

“Yes,”
he replied.  It was out and he couldn’t take it back, and the longer she was silent the less he understood his answer.  “Why Adara?”

She dug a satchel out of her pocket and handed it to him.  “Jeremy told me to
make you tea and mix that in.  I have no idea what it is, or what it will do, but Robin was there.  I swear she nodded.  She wants you to, I think.”

Nathan poured it out into his palm and sniffed the dried leaves in his hand. 
The smell was familiar, sharp, but he couldn’t place it.  He closed his fist around it and felt the tiny points prick into his skin.  Anger or not he wouldn’t disobey her.  She had his trust, even if she didn’t deserve it.