Page 120 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

I had made it clear that we didn’t have to consummate our marriage if she didn’t want to…and she had made it clear both in words and body language that she very muchdidwant to. So this was about us.

I placed my hand under her chin, gently guiding it upwards until her tumultuous eyes met mine. She didn’t resist, which eased a small bit of the mounting pressure on my chest.

“Lemmikki.” I tried for a softer tone. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. Preparing to lie.

I didn’t give her the opportunity, having no desire to run in circles with her tonight. Or ever.

“And don’t say nothing, because as I have said, you are a mediocre liar at best,” I reminded her.

She looked away, confirming that was exactly what she had planned on doing. A muscle ticked in my jaw, frustration and disappointment seeping their way slowly into my bones.

Then she let out her breath, meeting my eyes once more.

“What happens after this?” she asked.

My eyes went unbidden to the bed. Was she asking me about the mechanics of it all? Or what followed in the wake of our consummation? Was this about children?

“Not…that,” she hastened to clarify. “After tonight.”

Well, I had assumed she was clarifying, but that wasn’t much more specific. I tried to answer her anyway.

“We return to Socair and have another wedding.” I slowly told her what she already knew.

She blinked irritably like I was the problem. “And then?”

After our second wedding? Was she asking me where we would live, when she had spent two weeks refusing to make that very decision? Or was she only irritated that so many guests had assumed it would be in Socair?

“Whatever you want to happen.” Again, I was telling her nothing she wasn’t already aware of.

Storms knew she had feelings about me making decisions for her, so surely that wasn’t what had upset her.

She averted her gaze once more, though this time there was more disappointment than chagrin. After a beat, she reached into the folds of her gown where a pocket must have been, retrieving a miniscule glass vial filled with a viscous, dark liquid.

Another stilted silence fell while she twirled the vial in between her fingers, staring at the swirling contents therein.

“Planning to poison me, Lemmikki?” I inquired with all the levity I didn’t feel.

There was nothing amusing about this moment for me. Whatever else we were, whatever plans we did or didn’t have, I had thought we would have at least this. This night. This wedding. This rare reprieve to pretend our lives were simpler than they were.

I still didn’t know what had happened to interfere with that.

“It’s to prevent...heirs,” she finally explained, looking back up at me with a thousand questions I couldn’t read brimming in her pale-green gaze. “You said you didn’t need them. Does that mean you don’t want them?”

I studied her expression, trying to figure out what exactly she wanted from me that she wasn’t getting. There were tonics in Socair to prevent children. It was a…controversial topic, to say the least, after the plague had made children so rare. But given the food shortages, no couple was forced to create another mouth to feed. Even among the aristocracy, large families had always been unusual, and it certainly wasn’t from chance.

Perhaps she was unaware of that, being that she had stayed so intentionally ignorant on so much of Socairan life, but surely she didn’t think I would try to push her in one direction or another regarding the vial.

“It means,as I said,” I couldn’t help but emphasize, “that it makes no difference to me.”

If I had expected her to be appeased by that response, I would have been disappointed. Since she had already subverted all my expectations for the evening, though, I wasn’t particularly surprised when she let out an irritable huff of air.

“Of course it doesn’t.” Bitterness soaked her tone like snow melting into the earth.

As the intent behind her many questions finally became clear, I raised my eyebrows in a challenge, taking a breath for patience before I spoke. Not only had she been furious that I had dared make any choice on her behalf before, but she had pushed for the terms of the marriage contract we both signed to leave the decisions of her future kingdom of residence and the potential for heirs entirely with her.

“Am I to understand that you’re both upset with me for making decisions for you and upset with me when I don’t?” I spoke slowly in an effort not to snap at her.