Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“I do appreciate the break, however,” he says. “That conversation was excruciating.”
“Only because you made it that way. Can’t you forget that you’re the Archon-General from time to time?”
“Not easily,” he says. “I dedicated my life and a good part of my body to serving the Artifice. I don’t intend to forget my principles because some bore decides to say inappropriate things at the dinner table.”
He’s reaching for a shirt now, and he’s rippling in all the right ways. I suppose he’s right, really. Edward Idaho is talking to him as if they’re old friends. He’s provoking him, almost. I just wanted to have a nice night with Elizabeth.
“Tell me you at least think Lizzie is nice,” I say. She told me to call her Lizzie, and that is what I intend to do.
“She seems nice enough,” Arthur says. “A pleasant young woman.”
“Maybe she and I can go out and do things from time to time?”
“Certainly,” he says, immediately raising my spirits. “As long as Lydia is with you.”
They are dashed as quickly as they were elevated.
“Why? This entire city is full of people who are afraid of you. Nobody would ever dare touch me. Lydia looming around after me all the time is just weird.”
“Mila, you are starting to sound like a spoiled brat, and there is only one thing to do with spoiled brats.”
He is buttoning the shirt now, hiding his impressive torso.
“I just want to have one normal day,” I half-sob. Maybe I am being dramatic, but I have pinned all my hopes on this friendship. I miss my home. I miss the rolling hills and the house that smells of history everywhere. I miss the horses in the barn and the flowers in the fields, and I miss the freedom to roam where I please.
Arthur gives me a surprisingly sympathetic look. “I know you’re adjusting to a new life, and I know that adjustment isn’t easy. Elizabeth seems like a sweet girl and I am sure you two will be very good friends. But I am going to look after you as I best know how to. And right now, the best way to look after you is to ensure that either I am with you, or Lydia is. You can accept that, or I can spank you, and then you can accept it.”
“I don’t like being threatened all the time.”
“Then you have the option of behaving yourself and making the warnings, not threats, unnecessary.”
Arthur
She looks at me with that harmless fury that is uniquely her own. One day she might be an imperious creature, but for now she is a hissing, spitting kitten.
I kiss her petulant lips.
She might not like being reminded that she can be disciplined, but it is better to get a reminder than it is to have the experience itself.
Mila leans into me, sighs against my mouth, gives me that moment of surrender and lustful desire that always simmers beneath the surface. I have been watching Edward and Elizabeth, seeing how they superficially seem to match so much better than my bride and I. But the moment I feel her lips on mine, and our connection fires into life, I have no doubts about the Artifice’s judgment. She’s mine. She belongs to me. It is truly that simple.
“Maybe we should stay here, in the bedroom,” I growl against her mouth. “Would you like that?”
“We have to be polite,” she moans back.
“We should both remember that,” I reply.
The feeling of her lithe, warm body against mine is a pleasant distraction from the social unpleasantness going on in the dining room. I wish we had not invited anybody. Perhaps it would have been better to follow the wedding custom and take the weeks following with my bride.
But I cannot rest, and I cannot take a vacation, for any reason. All of my intelligence suggests that the rebellion is growing in strength and numbers. There are skirmishes on the West Coast, pushing into the heartlands. People in New Boston assume there’s nothing there, but the truth is there are millions of people out there. People living simple lives that aren’t as affected by the Artifice as they are here. They’re ripe for the rebellion, because the rebellion has human intelligence. The Artifice makes cold, hard, unpopular decisions. The rebellion always gives people what they want, or it at least pretends to. The further we get from the war that ended everything, the more people think they don’t need the Artifice. They’re wrong.
I do what I do because I know what the Artifice knows, that people cannot and do not make good decisions for themselves, or for the world at large.
The attitudes displayed by Edward Idaho are dangerous. I do not want Mila to have anything to do with him. I don’t know about his wife. She seems young and impressionable. But with that man making his impression on her, she will not be a suitable companion for long.