Bride of the Emperor (The Prophecy of Sisters Book 4) by Hayley Faiman (the gingerbread man read aloud txt) 📗

to see what she’s going to say next. When she doesn’t speak, I ask her. “He came to you?”

Laurentia nods her head. “He did. He wanted me to talk to you, to tell you about his people. I think he’s afraid to send Cassia or Tullia in to talk to you. They both are of your stature, so they should have been the ones. I am far below, but he said I was your friend and needed to talk to you.”

Well, at least Tiberius knows who my friend is. He pays attention, and I wonder what else he pays attention to. Although, I would consider Cassia my friend as well, but this is definitely not something I would want to talk to her about.

Picking up a nut, I don’t eat it right away, my focus on that nut in my grasp and nowhere else. Pinching my eyes closed, I inhale a deep breath, then lift my face and open my eyes, connecting my gaze to hers.

“The orgies,” I whisper.

She nods, though she doesn’t look embarrassed or even uncomfortable about the mention of them.

“Everyone does this here, in this world?”

“In this world?” she asks. She shakes her head almost immediately. “No, not in this world. Just in Savona that I know of. Possibly elsewhere, I am not versed in many other cultures.”

A sense of relief washes over me. My sisters at least aren’t doing the same things. Letting out a sigh, I reach for an apple slice. Leaning back, I let out a sigh and look up at the ceiling before I shift my gaze back to meet hers.

“I don’t like it and I don’t want it,” I whisper.

Laurentia frowns, then her gaze finds mine again. “I understand a little. It is hard to be thrust into a new way of living, new traditions, an entirely new world.”

The word thrust makes me think about those orgies, about Tiberius thrusting into another woman. I would kill her, and him, everyone. I don’t even know if I would be able to control myself, just thinking about it makes me want to scream.

“I hate so many parts of it, of this place. The slaves, the sex. I can’t handle those things at all,” I confess.

I can’t get the images out of my head. I can’t get the imagined scenarios of him with other women, the way the girl in the bathhouse dropped to her knees, as if this was some regular thing, and I know that it was. I hate it all, it haunts me and there is no way I will be okay with any of it. I don’t care that it’s his culture, I don’t think that I can accept it.

“You must talk to him,” she urges.

“I have.”

There is a moment of silence where we watch one another. Then she lifts her shoulders in a heavy breath and lets it out. I can tell by the look on her face that she is going to say something that I don’t want to hear.

“This culture is yours now. You must learn to accept it.”

Her words are not wrong. They are right. As much as I hate them, they are correct. “I know,” I whisper as I shift my gaze from her to the window.

The sun is shining, the cool breeze slides through and I even hear the birds sing, but I’m sad. I don’t know if my sadness can be cured, either. I can’t ask Tiberius to change all that he is for me.

“Why not?” Laurentia asks.

Blinking, I turn to face her. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” I whisper.

“Why can’t you. Haven’t you changed all that you are for him?”

Her words are like a punch to the gut. I have done this. Sure, the gods claim that I was created for him, but I lived a whole life before I was brought here. I lived in a whole other world, and I’m giving up everything that I have ever known to be with him, to be here.

“It’s selfish though, isn’t it?” I ask, more to myself than actually looking for an answer.

“Is it selfish to ask your husband to give up something that is part of who he is? Possibly. Is it just as selfish for him to force you to do something that upsets you so much and is so far out of your realm that it causes such distress? It is most definitely.”

Snapping my head around, I look at the man himself, standing shirtless in his man-skirt, his arms crossed over his sweaty chest, his eyes focused on me, his scars oddly red and angry looking in a way that I have never seen before.

Without a single word, Laurentia stands and slips out of the room, leaving me and my warrior alone. Right now, he looks exactly like that, too, like a warrior.

“Tiberius,” I breathe.

He shakes his head once, taking a step inside of the room, then another. Without a word, he closes the distance between us. My body moves without me telling it to do a certain thing. As always, since the moment that I laid eyes on him, I am drawn to him

Standing, I tilt my head back and look into his eyes. I expect them to be angry, but they aren’t. Instead, they look soft as he watches me.

“If it bothers you so, then it will not happen, it will not be done.”

Shaking my head, I lick my lips and search his gaze with my own. “It’s too great, me asking you to give up a piece of you.”

Tiberius smirks, then he lifts his hand to my cheek and I feel the roughness of his fingers slide along my jaw.

“You have given your entire world up for me, my people, and my world. It is the least I can do. Giving up the flesh of another is no sacrifice at all, as long as I have you, melculum.”

He dips his chin and brushes his lips across my own. I let out a sigh, waiting for