Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“Is she?” I couldn’t see him anymore, but his tone hadn’t lost its light joviality. “Well, seems the steward was mistaken. I won’t take up any more of your time, then. Enjoy your dinner.”
They didn’t move until the door closed behind him. I fell in beside Myrna while the others gathered around the table.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Who was that man? Why wouldn’t you let me talk to him?”
She gritted her teeth, staring at the door like he was on the other side. “He introduced himself my first day here as Kaelan Moontreader. I knew from that moment to stay away from him.”
My brows snapped together. “What? Why?”
“Look at where we are, shoua. They keep us in this room all day—bringing our meals to us and only letting us out to use the privy. At night, we’re taken to the abandoned servants’ quarters to sleep. Despite us stepping up to do our blessed duty, the palace has made us a secret. And yet, this young, handsome faeman comes to visit us, welcome every new woman, and bring us treats?”
“Maybe he’s kind.” My stomach grumbled in need of the saffron pudding. “He feels for you all being trapped in here all day.”
Myrna was shaking her head before I finished. “If there’s one thing I know to be true above all... it’s that a man gives with one hand, and binds with the other.”
My lips parted but nothing came out. Myrna suddenly beamed.
“I also know that he has yet to bring us anything poisoned, so eat up, shoua. You could hide behind a broom handle, you’re so thin.”
I went to eat, but not with the same speed I would’ve. So soon after the steward received word of a new addition, Kaelan Moontreader came asking for me. Despite Myrna’s reply, I was not leaving. My name would go down in a book that would make me available to every soldier and nobleman in Lyrica. Would he come back with smiles and treats then?
I shook the silly thoughts from my head. I was no stranger to men and boys coming around to ogle the war wife. Mama held her head high through many a town market while hooting and lewd offers followed her. When our curves filled out and breastbands grew tight, the same filthy offers came at me and Meliora. Meli more than me. They liked to tell us in disgusting detail what they’d do to us when we became war wives—as if there was no other path we’d take.
Moontreader may have used food and flattery, but he was no different from the rest. He came in here every day to pick his favorite. Once the faeriken were here, we had to be available to them, but no one said we wouldn’t be available to everyone else. That was not for me to worry about. There were older, prettier, more experienced war wives to thrill a handsome faeman like him.
I claimed a tray and took it to the far corner to eat. I wasn’t alone for long. Myrna and a few of the other women from Gutter Galley came to join me.
I wished they hadn’t.
My luxurious, royal meal turned to acid in my stomach.
“You must act as though you’re enjoying yourself, but not too much,” Shadi warned. She was twenty years of age with dark, shadowed eyes and a smoky tenor that sounded like music. Shadi was far and away the most beautiful of the girls I used to run around the Galley with. Within a month of becoming a war wife, she had three noblemen offering her broker obscene amounts to take her into their home. A month after that, she was back in the Galley.
Mykel Starsinger believed buying women took away her right to say no. One night, he forced himself on her and she beat him with a candelabra. They had yet to take away our right to defend ourselves, so she wasn’t punished. Unless of course you considered it a punishment that most of her callers disappeared after they heard what happened, and she was so in need of coin that she was in that room with me.
“If you get too boisterous, they’ll take it as an invitation to pump harder. The last thing you need your first time is to have some sweaty, grunting lump flopping and flailing on top of you while trying to shove his reed dick deeper.”
I flushed hot. Even the mental depiction of that made the food taste bad on my tongue. Why get mad that Shadi assumed I still had my maidenhood? This would be my first time, and that is what I had to look forward to.
Tamar, another girl from the Galley, nodded in agreement. “Also, if you want it to end quicker. Cup their balls and lick—”
“Thank you,” I cried, cheeks on fire. “That’s enough for now, I think.”