Once Bitten: A Dragon-Shifter Fantasy Romance Read online

  “Only the sovereign.”

  Eloisa could barely get her next words out. “He knows?”

  “Calm down,” she said through gritted teeth. “Of course, he knows. Why do you think he was willing to loan a fortune he will surely never see repaid in order to have you as his bride? You’re not that pretty.”

  “He wanted me for my au—”

  Jedora cut her off with a sharp shush. “Enough of that, here. If this night has taught you anything, it is that you should never rely on the ignorance of those around you. We’ll talk in private, later.”

  Although she tried her best, Eloisa couldn’t manage to regain any semblance of calm while she sat at the table. Caleth cast her several concerned looks, and then finally ran his thumb down the back of her neck. The gentle sensation took the edge from her anxiety.

  “Sashalshta, Eloisaja?”

  She told him she didn’t understand, and rather than waving for Jedora, he rephrased the question.

  “Metrushta ka kesa ka anjru?”

  Do you want to go to bed?

  “Vayt,” she told him.

  Was it so horrible that she hoped he would come, too? Her head was spinning and filled to bursting with questions, but she knew that in his arms her crowded thoughts would ebb away.

  To her disappointment, Caleth summoned a servant to take her back to her room. Eloisa managed to make it from the dining hall before she slumped against the servant and allowed the woman to help her walk. Eloisa asked her how long the effects of the wine would last, and how many days it would be until the floor would stop tilting, but the woman spoke only Cal’derache.

  Her room was blessedly warm, and so was the bath that had been prepared for her in her bathing chamber. Like the bath she’d been given in Atolia, the surface of the water was covered in flower petals. This time, they didn’t seem like a lavish indulgence, though in the back of her mind she knew that they must have cost infinitely more, given the climate.

  Eloisa went to the bath and ran her fingers over the warm surface, humming her pleasure. The servant came up behind her and patted her on the shoulder. She must have been one of Lidia’s proteges, because she was able to speak to Eloisa in broken Atolian.

  “Help you, asejana?”

  Asejana.

  She really did like the sound of that. Not the title. She could have done without being an empress. She just liked the way it rolled off the tongue. She informed the servant of this as the woman helped her to undress.

  “Asejana,” she said, giggling to herself. “Ah-say-ja-nahhh.”

  She was wrenched from her musings as the servant let out a shrill scream.

  Eloisa whipped around, and then slipped and fell backwards into the tub. The woman looked down at her, her hand covering her mouth and her eyes wide with horror.

  My back.

  Eloisa would not have made the connection, if the look the servant was giving her wasn't the same one Milara, Lidia, and the palace servants had given her.

  Shock and horror.

  No.

  “Please, nesh.” Eloisa reached her hand out, but the servant was already fleeing. “Nesh! Don’t tell him!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Eloisa stood naked in front of the mirror, water still dripping down her back. With the aide of the blue spheres in the room, she analyzed her reflection and tried to see her back as she’d seen it a week ago.

  She couldn’t.

  She could remember seeing the scars on other Children and Daughters and finding them to be banal—simply another fact of life. Now, she could see what the outsiders saw. After seeing Caleth’s smooth, unblemished back and the radiant skin of the women she’d encountered, her perception of what was normal had been corrupted.

  Or had it merely been adjusted to fit her new reality?

  In her new reality, a scar was a source of shame, a blemish on her scorecard of beauty. A hundred scars were something else entirely.

  There could have been more than that. Eloisa couldn’t count without losing track of them. Some of the parts of her back were so crowded with lash marks that they’d been layered, mark upon mark. She remembered relishing when the lash would strike against the deeply scarred areas, as the pain was more bearable that way. But while some parts were worse than others, there was not a single region of her back that had escaped the lash.

  As she stood naked, waiting for the maid to return with someone—probably Caleth—Eloisa fought back tears of the deepest shame she’d ever felt.

  This was her fault.

  Each scar was a lie she had told, a candy she’d been caught with, or a fantasy she’d been unable to keep to herself.

  If only she’d been more obedient, or at the very least, more careful, as Selia had been. Maybe the sovereign could have overlooked a lash or two, but this… This was grotesque.

  As she heard several footsteps rapidly approaching, Eloisa snapped from her stupor. She ran to grab her slip from the floor, managing only to cover her front before the servant returned with both Caleth and Jedora.

  Having the sovereign there was horrible enough, but Jedora’s presence only served to compound her misery. She didn’t think she could bear the horrible things Jedora would surely say.

  “What’s going on?” Jedora demanded. “She says you’re injured.”

  “Kta ka grena,” the servant said, pointing frantically at Eloisa and appearing on the verge of tears herself. “Hak’ta ka jasfalstredren.”

  Eloisa could only imagine what she was saying, and Eloisa instinctively backed away from the three of them, until her bare back was pressed against the wall.

  Caleth started to approach her, but Jedora ran ahead of him and grabbed Eloisa’s shoulder.

  “Turn around,” she said sternly.

  She spoke as though giving a command, but didn’t bother waiting for Eloisa to comply. Eloisa tried to resist as Jedora wrenched her from the wall, but she was no match for the other woman’s strength.

  Her face and chest pressed against the wall, Eloisa heard both of them express their shock. They didn’t scream, but she heard their sharp intakes of breath and a flurry of harsh words in Cal’derache.

  Tears rolled down Eloisa’s face as she listened to them. Never, even during her beatings, had she wanted so badly to curl inside of herself and detach. But try as she might, some pitiless force kept her anchored to the present, her attention fixed on the words they were saying, of which she understood almost none.

  In Atolian, Jedora demanded, “Who did this thing to you? Your brother?”

  “Yedrekancre ka kta,” Caleth spat.

  Jedora released her grip on Eloisa’s shoulder, allowing her to turn. She almost didn’t, as it somehow felt more shameful for them to see her tears than her naked backside.

  “Philomen didn’t do this,” she said quietly. She kept her eyes on the floor, unable to look up at Caleth. “He didn’t know about my scars until he met me.”

  Jedora started to translate, and then abruptly stopped. “What do you mean, met you?”

  It had not been a slip. Lidia wasn’t here, and even if she was, Jedora would see through her lies and obfuscations. It was well past time that Eloisa told the truth. The ability to finally be honest was a small relief in a sea of fear and sadness.

  “Up until the day you met me in Atolia, I hadn’t seen Philomen since he was a boy.” She waited for Jedora to translate before continuing. “I haven’t spent the past century in my observatory, tinkering with astrolabes. I was sent where all Atolian girls with my abilities are sent. To the Order of Light.”

  Jedora ordered the servant from the room before proceeding with her translation.

  “Order of Light?” Caleth repeated, speaking the foreign words slowly. “Cues ka so?”

  “Hatenesh ka cre,” Jedora said. To Eloisa, she began, “What is—”

  “It’s a convent, of sorts,” Eloisa said, rubbing her face. “A tower where we’re trained to be Maidens of Light. Maidens are the great scholars and adjudicators
of Atolia. They worship Phaeda, goddess of light and truth.”

  Jedora translated, and then asked, “And you were one of these Maidens?”

  “No. Becoming a Maiden takes at least three centuries of training. First you are a Child, then a Daughter, then a Sister, and then a Maiden. I was a Daughter, though I was only a few weeks away from taking my vows as a Sister when Philomen had me taken from the tower.”

  Jedora continued to translate everything she said, but the sovereign seemed at a loss for words, and so Jedora filled in the gaps with questions of her own.

  “You were in this tower for a century? You haven’t left?”

  Eloisa shook her head. “Until last week, when Philomen had his men come and collect me in the night, I hadn’t seen the outside world since I was ten. We were completely isolated within the walls of the tower. We knew nothing of the outside world, the wars, the death of…of King Kiryos.”

  She swallowed. “There were… I took certain vows. A vow to never speak an untruth and a vow of chastity. That is why this situation, this courtship, has been so stressful for me and why my manner must seem so strange to you.”

  Eloisa had been so nervous as she spoke that she’d forgotten to pause for Jedora to translate. Jedora seemed to manage regardless, and once she’d finished talking, Caleth remained silent for a long time.

  Working up the nerve to look up at him, she found that his face offered little insight into what he was thinking. There was only a faint crease in his brow, and his aura was a kaleidoscope of conflicting colors.

  “Shta ka grena…” he finally said.

  “What happened to your back?” Jedora said. “Did they do that to you? How did you survive it?”

  As she stared into Caleth’s eyes, Eloisa did her best to blink back tears, but it was no use. “I didn’t get them all at once. They were punishments for disobedience. We all have them but…but to tell it true, mine are worse than those of others. I was…willful.”

  His hands came up to brush away her tears. “Yajdranesh.”

  “Stop crying. It’s annoying him,” Jedora said.

  Caleth put an arm around Eloisa’s shoulders. “Drushta.”

  He led her back into the warm room and had her sit on the sofa nearest to the hearth, where she became aware again of her nakedness. Before she could do anything about it, Caleth put a blanket over her shoulders, securing it at her neck, and then sat beside her.

  Eloisa searched his aura, but still couldn’t get a read on him. She squinted at his aura, trying to get a glimmer of what he might be thinking.

  “Don’t bother,” Jedora said, taking a seat across from him. “He doesn’t know what to make of this. Neither do I, frankly. I can tell you’re not lying, but it’s so bizarre.”

  Eloisa glanced at Jedora’s aura. “You look angry to me.”

  “I am angry. What did they do to you, to stop those lashes from healing?”

  Eloisa described the paste of pepper and acid that was applied to the wounds, which earned more shock from Jedora, and Caleth once she’d translated. The pair began another angry exchange in Cal’derache which set Eloisa’s heart back to hammering.

  “Does he find it hideous?” Eloisa cut in.

  Without consulting the sovereign, Jedora said, “Of course he does. Anyone would. Now, tell us everything about how you came to be here. Leave out no details. Start with the day you were taken.”

  Eloisa wiped at her eyes. “It wasn’t day, it was night, or early morning, perhaps. It was dark and I was in bed when I woke to Sister Verity entering my room.”

  She went on to detail her encounter with High Maiden Ionia and finding out about her father’s death and the Atolian Wars. She told them about her flight to Kryta, and of meeting her brother and Milara for the first time. She did her best to paint them in a sympathetic light, explaining that they hadn’t meant to deceive Caleth, but rather they’d been unaware of her scars and it put them in a difficult position. Jedora had interjected to remind her that they’d lied to Caleth from the start, telling them that Eloisa was a reclusive scholar, and Eloisa could not refute that.

  She skipped over the first time she saw Caleth in the atrium, not wanting to admit how frightened she’d been of him. She finished by explaining that even though the adjustment was difficult, the Cal’dara was not as frightening as she’d thought it would be and she was sure that she would have been quite happy there, under normal circumstances.

  When she finished, there was silence for a time.

  Jedora was the first to speak.

  “You speak fondly of this convent? Is it your wish to go back? Or to return to Atolia.”

  “Cues?” Caleth asked before Eloisa could formulate a response.

  Jedora said, “Hancre sek ka kets’hta—”

  “Nesh,” he said firmly.

  “Toj ka—”

  “Nesh,” Caleth said again, the word striking like a whip. “Nesh ka trona. Nesh ka Atolia. Resune.”

  Jedora’s shoulders slumped. “Apparently, your answer is not needed.”

  Eloisa hadn’t been able to make sense of what he’d said, but she’d heard the word Atolia. Panic gripped her at the thought of being sent back to Philomen.

  “I can’t go back,” she said, a fresh wave of tears falling. “The tower won’t have me back now that I’ve become worldly, and Atolia is relying on this marriage.”

  She wanted to go on, but anything more would feel like begging and she was already carrying more shame than she could bear.

  “Can you please stop crying?” Jedora moaned. “You’re like a wounded little rabbit. Do you honestly think he’s going to send you away after what you just told him? That he’ll send you to a place where they beat you worse than a slave? That he’ll hand you over to your brother who will sell you off to another man? Stupid girl, you’ve had him wrapped around your finger since the moment you arrived here and you don’t even realize it. Your shy looks, your soft voice, and your little smiles—of course he’s still going to marry you.”

  Eloisa let out a shuddering breath. She didn’t think it had been Jedora’s intention to soothe her, but her derisive words had calmed her more than anything else could have.

  She looked to Caleth, but he was staring at Jedora, waiting for a translation of what she’d said. Jedora was not forthcoming.

  Caleth sighed and turned to Eloisa. He put a hand on her chin and gave her a tender look.

  “Etsajan ka shta ka jetsdren haknesh ka shta ka renataj. Toj, sek Atolia ka kansekt hak’an ak tretadren, hak’an ka shta eshtajcre?”

  There were far too many words for her to make sense of. She looked to Jedora.

  “You can go back to Atolia, if you want to.”

  Eloisa frowned. “Is that really what he said?”

  She hadn’t seen Jedora’s aura gray, but she knew that the truth could be twisted in many ways.

  Jedora smiled, her aura flaring with challenge. “No.”

  Eloisa sighed. “Do you have to be so difficult?”

  “Do you have to be so Atolian?”

  Eloisa ran a hand through her hair. She looked to Caleth, but he was still staring at her expectantly. For all Eloisa knew, he could have asked her to marry him and she looked as if she were vacillating.

  While she tried to think of a way to get through to him, she remembered something. After a flash of revelation, she got up and cast aside her dignity as she ran to her writing desk.

  Opening the topmost drawer, she pulled out a pen, a sheet of paper, and a small bottle of midnight ink. Popping off the lid, she dipped her pen in, tapped off the excess ink, and then began writing.

  When she was finished, she blew on the page and then brought it back to the sitting area. She handed it to Caleth, holding her breath as his eyes scanned the words. He glanced up at her, his brows drawing together, and then he stood.

  Eloisa followed him back over to the writing desk.

  “Cues?” Jedora said. When Caleth ignored her, she asked Eloisa, “What is it? What di
d you draw?”

  Eloisa didn’t answer. She peered down at the paper as Caleth picked up the pen. Her eyes went to where she’d written in neat, Ye’derache print.

  ‘Do you understand Ye’derache?’

  And beneath it, in the same archaic language, Caleth wrote, ‘Yes.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  During her time with Goldrech, the tutor had detailed the seven different languages he spoke with fluency. He had been Jedora’s teacher since she was a child and had trained her in the nuances of every one of those languages.

  Not one of them was Ye’derache.

  Eloisa and Caleth wrote back and forth, until they were nearing the end of the page. Jedora moved between them, peering over their shoulders and issuing huffs, complaints, and questions both in Atolian and Cal’derache.

  ‘Keep ignoring her,’ Caleth wrote. ‘If you give in to her whining, then she won’t stop until you give in again.’

  Eloisa could hardly believe that she was communicating with him privately, and in full sentences. She did her best to appear nonchalant, but really she wanted to squeal with delight.

  ‘I feel badly excluding her,’ Eloisa wrote. ‘But I also feel justified, given how badly she’s been translating for us.’

  She wasn’t sure how Caleth would take the insult to his daughter, and she watched him nervously as he took the pen and wrote his response.

  ‘At least you can see when she is lying. I have spent the past few days wondering if anything I’ve said is getting through to you.’

  So he did know about her aurasight. Eloisa hadn’t seen Jedora gray with a lie as she’d told her that Caleth knew, but it had still felt impossible that he could know and not immediately reject her. What sort of man would want a woman who knew when he was lying?

  “What language is this?” Jedora growled, reaching between them to jab a finger at the paper. “Tell me!”

  Caleth set the pen aside and then turned to Jedora.

  “Jedoraja. Metrunesh ka cre ka shta,” he said, speaking gently as if to a child. “Hakshta ka roa.”

  Eloisa tensed when she saw Jedora’s hands clench at her side, but in the ensuing silence she saw that Caleth looked unimpressed by his daughter’s display. A moment later, the steam seemed to leave Jedora and her shoulders slumped.