Betrayer: (The Cursed Bloodstone Book 1)

Kassandra leads me to an oddly shaped tent near the fringes of the camp. Instead of being tall and square, it’s shorter and dome-shaped. Instant heat engulfs me the moment she guides me inside. Two square grass mats lie on either side of a square pit in the center of the room. Steam rises from the heated rocks inside the cavity. It clings to my skin like a humid morning after it rains.

Kassandra frees my hand. “This is the purification part of your binding ceremony with Gabriel. The Bloodstone people believe the first step to a peaceful union is releasing all your past sins. You’ll spend a short while here with Gabriel.”

I know the Bloodstone people spend a lot of time inside sweat lodges like this. However, I didn’t know about this part of their binding ceremony.

My stomach clenches at the thought of being trapped here and forced to spend time alone with Gabriel.

From the satchel on her shoulder, Kassandra pulls out a narrow strip of cloth. “You’ll wear this around your waist.”

My brow rises. “That’s all?”

“Yes. It’s all you’re allowed.” Compassion sparks behind her blue eyes. “You can cover your breasts with your hair.”

She leaves me to the silence of my thoughts and the frustration bubbling inside me. I hadn’t considered all the Bloodstone’s traditions when I decided to wed one of them.

I grumble under my breath as I undress and tie the cloth around my waist. It only covers me to my upper thighs. Obviously, this tradition was created by one of their men. It had to be. No woman would think this is a good idea.

As I sit on a grass mat and crisscross my legs, I pull the ribbon from my braid. Sweat beads across my brow as I unweave the dark strands and allow two sections to cover my breasts. It doesn’t cover enough. I’m too well endowed.

My pulse races as I glance at the tent flap and brace for Gabriel’s arrival. He had stared so openly during the council meeting. My stomach tightens at the thought of him doing it again.

Sunlight floods the lodge as the flap lifts, and Gabriel steps into the room. Like me, he only wears a strip of cloth. Luckily, it covers him to mid-thigh. Otherwise, I’d see far more of him than I’d like.

His firm body glistens with sweat as he moves to the opposite side of the lodge and sits on a grass mat. I try not to stare, to compel my gaze to the ground. It’s incapable of lifting off all those tight muscles and the tattoo etched into his right arm. It covers him from wrist to shoulder. The ancient words and symbols must mean so much to him.

He no longer wears his battle marks. It’s strange to see his face without those black smudges. Without them, he seems younger and more approachable.

The lone torch casts wavering light on the walls of the lodge. I watch the shadows and try not to think about how miserable this is. Everything sticks together. Sweat trickles down my back, my neck.

“Kyanite,” Gabriel says, his tone brittle. “Come here.”

My skin bristles at the command. Maybe he’s used to speaking this way to women.

The stubborn Kyanite woman inside me wants to deny him. The woman who knows she cannot, stands, and moves to the others side of the pit. He watches me, his thoughts veiled behind shadows.

He pats the space next to him. I sit and curve my legs to the side, trying hard to keep my thighs tucked close. Those silver-blue eyes flicker over me, trailing my body as if I’m goods in a shop he’s considering buying. I swallow but don’t shy from his stare.

“Do you like what you see?” I ask when I can no longer bear the silence.

Father hates my bold tongue. I find it serves my purpose. I’d rather be bold than shy.

“You will do,” Gabriel says, his voice flat.

“I will do?” I roll my eyes upward.

I may be too skinny, and my eyes are brown instead of blue, but it doesn’t make me any less desirable.

Or maybe it does.

His stare lingers a moment longer, then shifts away. I swallow through the sourness in my throat and try to think of something to say.

“Thank you for…” The words stick in my throat, like everything else in this lodge.

The image of that night overcomes me, blinding me with its memories. The man with the bone necklace entering my tent. The darkness stirring behind his eyes. The way he picked me up as if I were simply air. I weighed nothing to him.

Another memory inks its way through. Esmund poisoned me. It made me sluggish and sleepy.

Why did he go through such efforts to overcome me?

Maybe he feared my magical abilities. He wasted his time. Even if I did have Kyanite magic, it’s incapable of being evil.

It’s light and goodness.

My stomach twists as I remember how helpless I had been. As a child, I was taught to defend myself. Everyone had to with how often our villages were attacked. Then, I trained with a mercenary army. I shouldn’t have been so easy to overpower.

“You do not need to thank me. I was simply guarding a prisoner,” Gabriel says.

I jerk my gaze away and study the steam rising from the rocks. “You could have harmed me too.” In truth, Gabriel could have done many things to me that night, but he didn’t. Instead, he rescued me, aided me, and he stayed on the other side of the tent.

“Oh,” he says in a sarcastic tone, “because I am a monster?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s written in your eyes. You think I am beneath you. That I’m a savage.” Gabriel’s words come out in a stream of unveiled bitterness.

“You’re not a savage.” I run my fingers against the stitches. “A savage wouldn’t have tended to my wounds as you did.”

The muscles in his shoulders flex as he folds his arms. “Perhaps not, but I am still Bloodstone.”

Still Bloodstone.

Those words ring in my ears as I try not to think, to not remember what the Bloodstone did to Mother.

A half smile touches his mouth. “I see my words hold truth. You cannot stand the idea of being wed to a man like me.”

“I am processing.” I jab my thumb into my palm. “As you are doing, I’m sure. Two days ago, neither one of us thought of marriage.”

His gaze lowers to my hands as I jerk them apart and settle them against my thighs. “Do you do that to cause yourself pain?”

“It is nothing,” I say.

He reaches out, snags my left hand in his and flips it over. The indentation in my palm stands out like a red flag.

“Why do you hurt yourself?”

“Let me go.” I try to pull away, but his grip remains firm.

“Every time I touch you, you get angry. Why?”

“I don’t like…” To be touched by you. The words freeze against my tongue as I inhale and exhale, desperately seeking my calm.

“What are you hiding?”

“Please,” I say. That one word desperate. “Let me go.”

Almost as quickly as he grabbed me, he frees me. “There’s hate inside you. It’s deep, like a canyon gouged into the earth, yet you agreed to this marriage.”

“I need to belong,” I say, my words tender, raw against my throat. There’s truth there. Real truth.

“You didn’t belong with the Kyanites?”

I lay my hands against my thighs, palms facing up. “No. I could never do what they wanted. My hands were useless. My spells nothing more than dust.”

“So, you came here to live with the Bloodstone people. For what purpose? What do you think we could give you that they didn’t?”

Revenge. I lick my bottom lip and speak. “A new beginning.”

“Then you’ll be sorely disappointed. Astarobane isn’t where you go for new beginnings.”

“Astarobane?” I brush sticky strands from my cheeks and grimace as sweat drips down the small of my back. I’m going to need a bath after I leave this lodge. “What is Astarobane?”

“My home.” He rolls his neck and stares into the pit. “At least, for a few months.”

Inwardly, I assess the name, testing it against my tongue. It doesn’t sound familiar. Is it in Tarrobane? Surely, these Bloodstone people don’t live outside of Tarrobane.

“Is that where you’re from?” Why are the Bloodstones so secretive about their homes? Even the patrons who visited the alehouse were tight-lipped.

“No.”

“Is Astarobane the only Bloodstone city?”

Instead of answering, he stares blankly.

All right. So, he obviously doesn’t want to divulge that information.

I decide to shift the subject. “Why did you agree to this marriage?”

“The Seer,” Gabriel says plainly.

“Do you always obey the Seer?”

He studies me in the low light for several moments before speaking. “You don’t understand my people. If you did, you wouldn’t have asked that question.”

How can I understand when they’re so guarded with their information.

“Help me understand.”

“No,” he says bluntly.

“Why is the Seer so important to you?” I ask, trying to get him to open up to me.

“The Seer is important to all Bloodstone people.”

“Why?”

“She guides my people’s Fate.”

“You don’t decide for yourself?”

A smirk pulls at the upper corner of Gabriel’s mouth. “You’re naive if you don’t think the high gods control yours.”

I shrug. “I control my Fate.”

Mirth glints in his eyes, as if he silently laughs at me. He probably does. “So, you say.”

Father said don’t come here, and here I am. I alone prepared for this moment, and I alone will carry out my plan. Not the high gods. Never the high gods. They don’t care about me. They don’t care about anyone. If they did, they would never allow such violence to exist in the world.

The tent flap shifts, and Kassandra peers into the sweat lodge. “The purification part of the ceremony has ended.”

Relief surges through me. Finally, I can escape this man.

When she smiles and speaks, my breath catches in my throat. “It’s time for the next step.”

The next step?

There’s more?