TheRedKing Read Free Page B

apparently offended him and she might have tried to
smooth over the insult, but she decided it was best to find out now what sort
of man she’d married. She refused to spend the rest of her days in silent
misery, like her mother. Urion was an arrogant, demanding and sometimes violent
man. From the very little time she’d spent with her parents over the years,
their situation had been the same, with her mother cowering and attempting to
pacify an ogre.
    Areus was probably like her father. Wouldn’t most kings be
inconsiderate, especially virile young warriors?
    Delia wanted him to know that, unlike her mother, she
demanded at least some respect.
    “Indeed you don’t,” he said and stood. He walked to the
other side of the bed. Fully clothed, he stretched out on his stomach, his face
turned away from her.
    She remained still, chills coursing through her as she
waited for him to speak or make a motion to claim her.
    After several moments she heard a soft snore.
    Delia sat up and stared at him in disbelief. His back rose
and fell with slow, measured breaths.
    He had fallen asleep.
    On their wedding night.
    She realized she wasn’t a beauty, but was she that unappealing?
    He was the one who demanded an heir. How did he expect to
get one?
    Delia pulled the covers over her, turned her back to him and
curled up as far away from him as possible.
    Katerina had told such stories of what would happen
tonight—some horrible, but others wonderful beyond words, if her husband proved
to be a good lover.
    Queen Elissa had expected the worst and the sisters—well,
they hadn’t spoken of it directly, but they had warned her of the selfishness
of men overcome by lust.
    No one had mentioned that her new husband—the warrior king
most feared by Zaltana—would roll over and snore without so much as kissing
her.
    Tears of frustration filled Delia’s eyes. She might as well
have remained at the convent for all the excitement of this wedding night.

Chapter Two
     
    Delia opened her eyes and gazed at the firelight dancing on
the stone wall. She couldn’t have been asleep for long because when she rolled
over to look out the window, it was still dark outside.
    Areus was not in bed. Her gaze darted to the hearth across
the room. He squatted in front of it, prodding wood with a poker. He had
removed his leather shirt and wore a billowy linen one. His green gaze, eerie
in the firelight, fixed on her.
    “Did I wake you?” he asked.
    “No I don’t think it was you. I just…woke.”
    He placed the poker aside and as the fire sparked more fully
to life, she noticed that what she had thought were shadows on his shirt were
actually bloodstains.
    A twinge of alarm shot through her and she sat up. “You’re
injured.”
    He glanced down and touched a hand to his side. “I told you.
There was a skirmish.”
    She left the bed to kneel beside him, reaching for his shirt.
“Take it off so I can see.”
    He looked perplexed, then did what she asked. As he
stretched to remove it, a restrained yet guttural groan of pain escaped him.
    Even as he discarded the shirt, her hands hovered over the
bloody bandages swathing his lean middle. Her gaze swept his torso, noting that
the broadness of his shoulders hadn’t been an illusion created by the leather shirt
he had worn earlier. His sinewy build reflected years of training and battle.
Several old scars marked his shoulders and arms. A jagged scar, clearly visible
beneath a dusting of reddish hair, ran halfway across his chest. At the convent
she had helped the sisters tend soldiers wounded in battle. Some had been quite
attractive, but none had ever aroused her as this stranger—her husband.
    She couldn’t spend much time admiring him or wondering about
his scars, not when he required healing.
    “Come sit on the stool,” she said. “It will be easier to tend
you.”
    “It’s not bad.”
    “That should be for me to decide.”
    An amused smile tugged at his lips. “And what, pray tell,
makes you