“He’s also the one who’s going to keep you in line and make certain you don’t leave the compound again, little mouse.” Baslik smirked at me. “He’s waiting just outside to meet you—think of him as a bodyguard slash masseuse.” He gave me a lecherous wink. “And believe me, I’ve given him permission to touch every part of you, my dear.”
“You…you hired someone else to try and bring on my glow?” I looked at him uncertainly. “Some other man? But I am your wife! You aren’t truly going to let some other man touch me, are you?”
“Why shouldn’t I? You think I’m jealous?” Baslik demanded. “You think you mean anything to me at all—that I give a damn if some other man touches you other than me? Ha!” He laughed, as though the very notion of infidelity was enormously funny.
“I thought…the vows we took, about fidelity and honor—” I began.
“Fidelity?” Baslik snorted as though I’d made an excellent joke. “My dear, any appeal you held for me faded after the first night when you refused to glow for me. I don’t give a damn for fidelity or who brings on your glow as long as I get to breed you at the end of it. To me, you are nothing but a life support system for the womb that will bear me the perfect son. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” I said bitterly. “I understand you’ve hired some thug to come fondle and molest me every night and watch me every day so I can never get away from you!”
“Watch your words, little mouse.” Baslik lifted one hand warningly. “That sharp tongue of yours is going to get you into trouble. How does your wrist feel?” he added, nodding down to my left wrist, which still bore the last ghosts of the bruises he’d inflicted when he had broken it.
“It’s crooked,” I said, holding it up. “And it still aches.”
“What a pity you made me do that to you,” Baslik sighed and shook his head sorrowfully, as though he actually regretted breaking my left wrist. “And what a shame it would be if I had to break the other one to match it.”
I understood his meaning well enough—I would have to go along with this bizarre new routine he had dreamed up—would have to endure this strange new man’s hands on my body every night until I started to glow.
But what if I can’t? whispered a little voice in my head. My greatest fear—the worry that maybe my failure to glow really was all my fault—haunted me. Most days I could tell myself it was due to Baslik—how could any woman warm to his clammy touch? But what if it wasn’t him? What if the fault was mine?
Or what if this new man was as ugly and cruel and harsh as Baslik? A bodyguard—a hired mercenary no doubt—wasn’t going to be gentle and kind. Most likely I had just traded one nightmare for another.
But there would be no refusing this new man’s touch—that I knew. With Baslik threatening to break my other wrist or possibly do worse, I would have to fall in line and do whatever he told me even if it meant submitting to the touch of a total stranger.
All this time, Baslik had been watching my face as these thoughts flew through my mind. Perhaps he saw my resignation, for he nodded in apparent satisfaction.
“I see we understand each other, my dear,” he remarked. “Oh, and if he mentions your wrist or any other marks you might still have from our last encounter, just tell him you’re clumsy.” He pointed a finger at me. “If I hear you’ve said otherwise, there will be hell to pay. Do you understand?”
“I understand, my Lord,” I said bitterly. “I’m not to tell the thug you hired to molest me that you beat me.”
“I never beat you!” Baslik actually looked shocked at this idea. “Sometimes I have to punish you, but that is a husband’s prerogative—to discipline his wife until she corrects her behavior,” he said primly.
He could tell himself all the lies he wanted, I thought, but deep down he knew the truth—we both did. Baslik Le’rank was an abusive bastard and I hated him with my whole heart. Still, there was nothing I could do about it now—I was stuck here in this dreadful situation and it didn’t seem I would get free anytime soon.
“Well then, shall we let your new man in so that you may meet him?” he asked, as though he was offering to introduce me to a new social acquaintance rather than some stranger he’d hired to fondle me.
“Of course.” I nodded mechanically. “Let him in.”
“Very well.”
Baslik went to the door of my bed chamber and threw it open. Standing just outside with an impassive look on his face was the biggest man I had ever seen in my life.