Betrayer: (The Cursed Bloodstone Book 1)

The mattress dips in as Gabriel sits near me. “Something has seriously shaken you. Tell me, so I can mend it.”

“You cannot mend it, Gabriel,” I say, my tone soft, heartbroken.

Mending it would mean changing his people, and I learned a long time ago, you cannot change people who have no wish to be different.

“At least give me the opportunity. Tell me what has upset you?”

Grittiness burns my eyes as I roll over to see him sitting at the edge of the mattress, close enough to reach out to touch him if I wish.

I don’t.

“Your people,” the words fall like venom from my lips, “stoned a woman today. They threw rocks at her until she ceased to breathe, to feel, to hope.”

A muscle jerks in his jaw as he lowers his hand to my arm, his touch tentative at first, as if he fears me ripping away. I don’t move.

He doesn’t reply.

How I wish he would. How I wish he would assure me he sees things the way I do.

“Do you not care?”

“I care,” he says, his voice low, hoarse.

“Then why don’t you do anything? Why doesn’t Luc?”

“I’m a stranger to them.” The muscle jerks faster as he looks away, pinning his gaze beyond my shoulders. “And their hate is deeper than a ravine. I don’t know how to change it.”

“Surely, the council can change things.”

“The council is new. Most of the Bloodstone people don’t accept it. At least, not yet.”

“What do they accept?” I ask, needing to understand them.

Again, Gabriel’s focus shifts beyond my shoulders, pinning to a different place. Perhaps, a different time. “Roland.”

My chest squeezes at that name. Said curtly. Said, as if it pained Gabriel to speak his leader’s name.

“Where is he?”

Gabriel stiffens and stands. “Not here.”

“Obviously, he’s not here. I want to know why.”

“There are other cities,” Gabriel says, his tone flat.

Where is a map when I need one? I must learn about these other cities.

“Are you saying you don’t know? How are you on the council, and you don’t know where your leader is?”

“Why do you care?” Gabriel asks.

I shift to sitting and pull my knees forward. “Because I am living here with you. I want to know the world I may someday bring children into.” The last words sour against my lips, the lie even hard for me to say. To breathe life into. To give voice to something that was only a thought before now—a thought I never planned to be a reality.

It would be wrong to have a baby with a man I don’t intend to stay with.

“Children?” Gabriel hikes a brow and allows his gaze to slide over me.

“Yes.” I smooth my crumpled surcoat over my legs and make myself stare into those silver-blue eyes. “Have you ever thought of yourself as a father?”

He smirks, and my first thought is to kick him. My second thought is to look away from the obvious mirth in his eyes.

I do neither.

“Are you offering to give me children?” he asks.

“I am your wife.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You ignored mine,” I say with a lift to my chin.

“I have thought about being a father.” He moves to the table and pours us both a goblet of wine. As he hands mine to me, he speaks. “I think six or seven children would do.”

I gasp, as he smirks again.

One more smirk, and I will pour my wine all over his arrogant face.

“I’m jesting with you.”

“Of course.” I shrug. “You will not bed me. Therefore, you will not give me a baby.”

He taps his thumb against the edge of the stoneware and studies me for several breaths. “It would only take once.”

Is he offering?

I shouldn’t react. Shouldn’t feel.

My body doesn’t care what I should or shouldn’t do.

Warmth floods my stomach at the thought of him climbing on the bed with me. It deepens as I imagine his mouth against mine. His hands pulling away my clothes.

“Once?” I allow my gaze to slide over his body. Slowly. Thoroughly. “You must have a remarkable set if you think you can give me six children and only bed me once.”

He returns the thoroughness of my gaze, staring long enough to cause more heat to flood my stomach. “We would start with twins.”

Twins?

I cough my wine back into my goblet as his smirk reappears.

Shift this conversation.

Shift it now.

I don’t listen to my own reasoning. “Do you have twins in your family?”

“Not yet,” he says so confidently, so assuredly, I think he means it.

He doesn’t.

He’s jesting with you.

“Now you’re the tease.” I walk to the basin and dump my wine into the pottery.

He moves to stand next to me and reaches for my left hand, the one with my binding tattoo. Gently, his fingertips brush against the raised skin as he brings me around to face him.

“You don’t know me. Nor do you know what I want, so don’t think I’m merely teasing you.”

“But you said you would never bed me.”

“I know what I said.”

This is foolish, a conversation meant for a couple who intend to stay wed.

It’s not for someone like me. Or someone like him.

If he were normal, he would have already bedded me.

“Gabriel…”

He brings me into the cradle of his arms and meets my eyes. “You and I are at the foothills of our journey. Neither of us trust each other. When we do—” his fingers wrap around my wrist, right where that binding tattoo sits, “—everything will change.”

My pulse throbs in my throat. Is he talking about forever with me? Promising a future different than the one we have right now? Or is he pledging to someday bed me?

As quickly as he touched me, he lets go, and turns away. Leaving behind his warmth and the hint of something else. Secrets?

Gabriel is keeping things from me as ardently as I keep things from him. I feel it in every fiber of my being.

I sink to the edge of the mattress. “I don’t understand you.”

The shadow of the doorway frames him as he pauses near it. “You will.”