A Sinless Betrayal - Cherie Benjamin (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

quite sure I follow. Men are not allowed to see their children birthed?"

Cassandra laughs, her green eyes flashing with mirth. "No, silly," she laughs. The way she goes about it makes me feel like a complete idiot. "Men in this kingdom have never witnessed the birth of their children. It's always been a custom…and I'm sure men would not want to see that anyways."

I frown again. "Men back in my kingdom would be at their wife's bedside, comforting her through the process. I suppose it's horrid not having your lover there with you."

"Correction," Cassandra interjects. "It's not horrid, it's the barbarian way."

I tap my fingers on the cot, chewing my lip softly. A question has been inside of my mind for a while now and I don't quite know how to ask it. I know that we are in a harem, the girls are bedded often and most times quite quickly. "And what happens to a woman if she becomes impregnated?" I question.

Cassandra leans against the back of her pillow, leaning her head against the stone wall. She looks at me from under her blondish-brown lashes. "Do you know how many men have illegitimate sons and daughters? About every single one of the king's warriors have at least one or two. The women birth the children and then care for them on their own. That, or they leave them."

I scoot closer to her on the cot, my brow furrowed. "What do you mean? The mothers leave their children?"

She sighs. "You cannot expect much more from these people," she explains to me. "They know not of the customs and the so-called humane things from back in our kingdom."

I'm disgusted, and all I want is to rid my mind of it all. I find myself already longing for him. "Tell me all you know about our king."

Cassandra leans over to Evalyn's little sunny haven where her cot and her lush healing plants were kept and plucks a ripe, red berry off of one of the vines. "He's hard," she simply says, popping the fruit into her mouth and letting the colour bleed onto her pale lips. "He's a very difficult person to deal with in general."

Hard doesn't quite match my mind's image of Abigor when I think of him. I think of him as kind, gentle and…well, different from the others. "Expand on that," I tell her.

She pops another berry into her mouth, offering the extra one she had to me. I turn her offer away. She clears her throat before beginning to speak again. "Well, whenever I tried to…you know, get it up, it would take me like forever. I'd have to be really, really naughty for him to want me. And god, he wouldn't take me unless I begged."

My eyes widen. He doesn't have a problem getting erections when he's with me, and I don't even have to do anything to make him aroused. He just…does. "Tell me more."

Cassandra sighs. "He's a good lover. He's smooth and fluid in the bed, and I'll have to say Elizabella, that he's the most attractive man I've ever had the duty of bedding. No man back in my kingdom could have even come close to his beauty. But he sure does have a flaring temper. He rarely has bursts of rage, but when he gets angry, he lashes out instantly like a wildfire and burns everything around him. He's nothing like Iron Coyote. Dances With Wolves is strong."

This time I take the berry she offers me. I bite into it and the sweet and bitter taste floods my mouth. "I have another thing to ask. What is a claim speech?"

She gasps loudly and the berry that she was holding falls out of her palm and onto her sheets. "Why? Has someone made a claim speech on you? Elizabella, tell me. You must tell me now."

I hold up my hand to cease her chatter. "Alright! But you must tell me what a claim speech is first so that I might tell you whether or not the someone has made a claim speech on me."

Cassandra sighs. "It's really rarely ever done, so I doubt it could be…the real thing. Anyways, it's when a man chooses his woman and gathers his peers and all men that could pertain to Eliza in a room and claims his love, protection and ownership over the woman. Usually, the speech is passionate but often mistaken for angry and forceful with words. She is his, and to all others, she is referred to as his claimed mate."

I cock my head to the side. "Claimed Mate?"

"Yes," she gestures roughly with her hands. "It's called a claimed mate because once he claims her as his own, she can love no other. These people religiously follow their beliefs, and how they once ran as brothers amongst wolves in ancient times. And once a wolf claims his mate, their together for life. So the elders made up a rule that if a man wanted and loved a woman enough to claim her, he could make her his claimed mate. And they'd be together forever. Most men do not. But the tradition is not yet dead; some still do."

What she has just described really sounds like my earlier half of the day. Abigor's speech was angry. He kept glancing back at me and I knew that he was talking about me. And the heart of that man that tried to rape me, still lying on the floor, was still a reminder.

I swallow thickly and take a drink out of Cassandra's glass. Suddenly, Evalyn and two other girls burst in through the door. Evalyn is elated and her hair is dishevelled. "Sannu, ladies!" she squeals.

Ivona lumbers after her, her lip split but a smile still on her face. Evalyn welcomes her over to her healing station with the plants, water, and healing creams and potions. She slops some yellowish cream over Ivona's split lip and kisses her cheek. "It should be good as new in no time at all," Evalyn tells her. "I understand that Iron Coyote can be rough."

The sleek woman smiles softly. She is beautiful, with soft curves and a friendly glance and smile. She is foreign and exotic and I have never seen someone quite like her. "Iron Coyote loves me," she stubbornly replies. "And I will unconditionally love him back."

I frown. How could someone as beautiful and kind as Ivona love a beast like him? "He doesn't deserve your love," Sulpicia says for me. "If he beats you, he deserves no woman's love."

Ivona flops down on her cot. "Oh, but rough sex is what really gets him going. I'd do anything for him."

"And that's what makes you a fool," Arlena chimes in. The other harem girls laugh at Ivona's scowl.

She immediately lashes out. "You ought to just admit that you're just jealous because Iron Coyote's never shown any interest in you at all—"

Arlena throws her hands up in the air. "Yes! As if I would want that man's dirty cock stuffed up my most sensitive parts with his brutal hands around my neck. You are a half-wit for not seeing it!"

They both lunge at each other, but Arlena is yanked away by Sulpicia, and Ivona by Evalyn. Cassandra stands up on her cot. "Do you both even realize what you're fighting about? We shouldn't waste our time and friendship on a man. Especially not Iron Coyote."

Ivona stamps her foot on the ground like a little, spoiled child. "You are—"

"Hush," Cassandra growls. "No more out of you. I haven't got time for arguments about how innocent our prince is; we all know he's the exact opposite of an angel. It's just that you don't see that yet."

Sulpicia snorts, staring at her blunt fingernails while lounging on her cot next to Arlena. "She'll see it soon enough."

Ivona yanks Evalyn's hands off of her and storms off to her cot to pout. Cassandra sits back down and grabs back the glass of water that I'd been holding stiffly. "That's mine," she hisses at me before smiling triumphantly. "You're too easy, Elizabella."

Evalyn looks up from where she stood at her plant table, her spectacles shining brightly in the sun. "Who's been eating my berries?" she demands. Cassandra smiles, revealing glossy red-stained lips. Evalyn shakes her head in disappointment. "I should have known. They could have been poisonous, Cassandra. You're quite lucky."

She scoffs at Evalyn. "And why would you have poisonous berries on display in the harem?"

Evalyn narrows her eyes at Cassandra from beneath the rim of her glasses. "You never know what I might need for my concoctions."

The blonde drapes herself across my lap, spilling a little bit of water on her sheets. "Just tell me if the damn things are poisonous, will you?" Cassandra's hair tickles my thighs. She looks up at me and smiles, her tiny fingers beginning to toy with the silk that I wear. "I like this fabric."

Evalyn sets another pot on top of her worktable. "No," she announces to Cassandra. "The berries weren't poisonous. But if you try eating my ingredients again, I'll be sure to put the poisonous ones out on display."

Cassandra ignores her. "So," she begins. "You never even told me about the claim speech and all of that mumbo-jumbo. What's the deal?"

The door opens behind me, distracting me from Cassandra's chatter. It's him. The blonde girl instantly peels herself off of my lap and sits up straight. He looks straight at me and cocks his head out the door.

I stand up. I know that he means for me to follow him.

0o0o0o0o

He's brought the dinner into his room that night. It's dark outside and I'm hungry, but I'm also confused. Abigor's sitting at the table in the far right corner of his room with his face illuminated only by the fire.

I slowly walk to join him there, staring down at the plate of simmered, smoked meats and bread dipped in some kind of sauce. There's a goblet of wine in front of me. I look up at him and he just stares, waiting for me to sit.

He picks up a chicken leg and bites into it. He looks at me again. My eyes fly down to my plate. My fingers skirt over the piece of bread and I lift it up to my mouth, taking a small bite of it. It's not bad.

When I look back to him, I find him staring straight at me again. My face grows red in the firelight. "You have not spoken to me in over an hour," he says between bites of chicken. "What's the matter?"

I swallow the bread and sigh, brushing my hair behind my ear. "I want to know about that speech," I tell him. "I'm curious about it and you've given me nothing whatsoever."

He picks up his wine and takes a large gulp. "'Cause it ain't somethin' I feel that I need to explain right now," he protests, his voice husky and deep. It vibrates through my ears, filling the quiet room, overpowering the soft crackle and pop of the fire.

I frown and prod at my food with the tip of my finger. "Na riga ya sani," I tell him. "Amma ni ina son ka ka gaya mani da kanka." (I already know. But I wanted you to tell me yourself.)

He looks up at me, the chicken in his hand falling back onto the plate. "Who taught you?" I shrug my shoulders, refusing to tell him a thing. He grits his teeth, shaking his head and sighing. "Who told you?"

I groan loudly, my head falling backwards. "Oh, it doesn't matter who told me! It was you that didn't tell me." I push away from the table and go to stand by the fire. He's after me as soon as I step foot in front of the fire. He comes up and stands behind me, his heavy hands resting on my shoulders.

I flinch away from his touch. "What makes you think that I am yours?" I hiss at him. "I have known