Bound to the Alpha King novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: One Bed

Locked in the king's tower for seven nights, Hedda is caught with a vial of black-root, and Rorik tells her to use it; then Embla bursts in to say Tobren has a sword in the yard.

They locked me in the Wolf Tower with the man I was supposed to hate.

The rite-keeper's last term was the one nobody had mentioned before the cup.

For seven nights the bound pair had to sleep under one roof, in one room, until the bond set.

"Or it won't set," the old woman said, flat and matter-of-fact.

"And then what?" I said.

"Then you will both feel it," she said, and would not say more.

So here I was, at midnight, in a round stone room with one fire, one window, and one very large bed.

Rorik Stane stood by the window with his shirt off and his left arm in my bandage.

He had refused a physician.

He had refused a glass of water.

He had let me wrap the arm only after Embla, his sister, told him in front of six guards that he was being a fool.

Now he watched me.

"You can sleep on the bed," he said. "I'll take the chair."

"You're the one with a hole in his arm."

"It's a small hole."

"It's the size of my thumb. Take the bed."

"I don't sleep," he said.

"That explains the temper."

His mouth moved, though I would not call it a smile.

I sat on the edge of the hearth stones and unpicked the knot of my braids so my head would stop aching.

I was careful with my left hand.

I had been careful with it all day.

"Show me your cuffs," said Rorik.

My fingers went still.

"My cuffs."

"Your sleeves. Both. Hold them out."

"They're wool."

"I can smell what's in the left one from here."

I had never wanted to throw a poker at a man so badly in my life.

He crossed the room in three strides and stood over me.

I felt his heartbeat then, slow and heavy in my own chest, and I felt mine race up to meet it.

It was the strangest feeling.

Like someone else's drum under my ribs.

He took my wrist, turned the cuff over, and found the seam with his thumbnail.

It split.

The little glass vial rolled into his palm, dark as a plum.

He held it up to the firelight.

"Black-root," he said.

"It's medicine."

"For what?"

"For people who can't sleep."

"You said that too fast."

"You asked me too slowly."

He did not laugh.

He looked at the vial for a long time, then at me.

"My father died of nightshade at his own table," he said. "Nine years ago. Black-root is what the Fen use for the same trick."

"The Fen use it to set bones," I said. "You can't set a bone while the man is screaming."

"You sewed it into your sleeve."

"The elders told me to bring nothing sharp. I brought nothing sharp."

"Why bring it at all?"

"Because I was afraid," I said, and was angrier at myself for it than at him.

He looked at me.

I held his gaze, and I hated that my chin shook.

"I wasn't going to use it on you," I said. "If I had, I'd have used it on myself first."

That was true, and it was the stupidest thing I could have said to a man I had known for a day.

He took my hand and turned it palm up and put the vial in it.

"Use it, then," he said.

I stared at him.

"If you came to kill me, you have your chance," he said.

"I'm standing here with a hole in my arm and my back to the fire."

"Drop it in the wine."

"See what it costs."

"What does it cost?"

"You tell me. You're the one the rite-keeper says dies when I do."

I got up.

I walked to the fire.

I held the vial over the coals and, for one breath, I let him see me think about it.

Then I let go.

The glass popped in the flames and a thin purple smoke rose up the chimney.

"There," I said. "Now it's costing me a good sleeping draught."

Rorik's shoulders came down half an inch.

It was the first time I'd seen any part of him relax.

"Take the bed," he said again, quieter.

"We'll argue about it tomorrow."

"We'll argue about it every night for seven nights," he said.

"Then you'd better get used to losing."

I lay down on the left side of the bed in my dress, with my back to him, and I did not sleep.

He did not sleep either.

I heard him sit in the chair by the fire, listening.

I felt his heartbeat all night, steady as a clock in a house that is not mine.

Near dawn, someone pounded on the door.

Rorik was up before the second knock.

Embla Stane stood in the corridor in her green riding coat with her hair still tied up from yesterday, her face white as paper.

"Rorik," she said, and then she looked at me and said, "You as well."

"What?"

"Your brother," she said. "He's down in the lower yard with a sword in his hand and four of the Chancellor's men."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend