A chill crept along my spine. Something was very, very wrong here.
“Leith…we have to get out of here. You have to help me-and these girls. There are horrible things going on here.”
“We can leave,” he said. “But not quite yet. Not until everything’s settled.”
I tested his hand to see if I could free mine. I couldn’t. “Until what’s settled?”
“Until then,” he continued, as though I hadn’t spoken, “you’ll have to stay here where no one can find you. But I promise I’ll visit you every day.”
“I can’t stay here! I have to get back to…anywhere that’s not here. Tucson. The Thorn Land. Anywhere! Leith, what the hell is going on? Why are you here?”
“Because you are. Because Art got you for me.”
That chill down my spine spread to the rest of my body until I felt cold all over. I tried jerking my hand away again but didn’t possess the strength. “How do you know Art? Oh God. Please tell me you aren’t working with him.”
He shrugged. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. I help him collect girls in our-in the Otherworld.”
“Girls from my kingdom,” I said, the realization coming suddenly. “That’s why none of yours were ever taken.”
Leith had the grace to look sheepish. “I don’t take important ones, Eugenie. Just peasants. No one notices they’re missing.”
“Their parents do.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. My soldiers help round them up, and I bring them to Art and Abigail to do what it is they do.” My soldiers. The soldiers who always wore red, just like Leith did now. Normally, red shirts made me think of Star Trek extras, but in this case, it was in tribute to the Rowan Land’s flag and emblem. The soldiers Jasmine and others had seen weren’t Aeson’s deserters. They’d been sent by Leith to help Art and Abigail with their abductions.
“They sell them, Leith! How can you stand by and enable that? They sell those girls to horny guys against their will. What can you possibly get out of it to justify having that on your conscience?”
“This.” He gestured around. “Art and Abigail share things with me…their knowledge from this world. I take it back to mine.”
I stared in disbelief. “And then you pass it off as your own. That’s why everyone thinks you’re such a technological genius. Did you really devise those irrigation plans for me yourself?”
“No,” he admitted. “I had help. But does it really matter? Look, you don’t know what it’s like. You’re strong. Your magic grows more powerful every day. But me? I’m a joke. I can’t inherit. Proving myself with my ‘genius’ was the only way to get any respect…and even that wouldn’t be good enough to let me inherit. Until I met you.”
“Leith-”
“I know what you said, but my feelings haven’t changed. I love you. And I know if you just spend a little more time with me, you’ll love me too. We connect. There’s something between us. It’s more than just about power.”
I leaned back. It was the only way I could put distance between us. “I’m not so sure about that. You think I’m your meal ticket to holding on to the Rowan Land.”
“Not just that land, but all the lands! This world too. Eugenie, when you bear my son, you’ll see that I’m right.” There was a zealous glow in his eyes, and I couldn’t decide if he was crazy or just really, really believed these things would be true if he said them. Maybe there wasn’t a difference. “I can make you happy-and I know you can make me happy. You’re so beautiful….”
He moved up to sit beside me on the bed and ran one hand along my velvet-covered leg. “Leith…don’t…”
“I just need to get you pregnant,” he said earnestly. “Don’t you understand? If I bring you back to our world carrying my child, everything will be solved. Art told me…he told me how you stop yourself from conceiving. How you take some potion every day.” His hand moved up to my hip while his other touched my face and stroked my hair. I tried to back away, but his grip was too strong in my addled state. “He said if you’re away from it long enough that you’ll be able to have a baby….”
I swallowed. My heart was threatening to pound out of my chest. “No…it won’t work. You can’t get me pregnant-because I already am.”
His caresses froze. “What?”
“You were right before about me being involved with Dorian. Kiyo was a cover. He’s not worthy-he’s no one I’d want to father my child. Dorian and I have been lovers for a long time now in secret. We were afraid of what his enemies would do if they found out. I’ve been pregnant for…” What wouldn’t show? “…two months. It’s too late for you, Leith.”
He had gone perfectly still, save for his eyes, which were searching my face thoroughly. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying. Everyone knows how you bicker with the Oak King. You aren’t lovers.”
“We are. He’ll kill you when he finds out.”
Leith shook his head and slid his hand from my hip to my stomach. “There’s nothing here. Not yet.”
Panic flooded me, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. Every other time I’d come close to being raped flashed through my mind-and there had been far more of those times than I would have liked. And every time, I had escaped the situation. Yet that never made the next time any less terrifying. This was no exception.
“Leith, please don’t do this.”
His hand moved fumblingly to my breast, and then he pushed me back against the bed. “It’s okay,” he said, speaking as one would to a child. “It’ll be okay. You’ll like it. I promise.”
“Don’t do this!”
His mouth was on my neck, and lovesick boy or no, there was definitely a man’s sexual need there. I struggled against him, trying desperately to free myself, but I might as well have truly been a child. With that fucking drug in me, both my body and brain were a mess. My body had none of its ability to fight him or stop him from pushing up my skirt. My brain had no clever ways to talk him out of this. And as he took off his own clothes and laid his body on top of mine, pressing me down, I realized he needed no handcuffs to keep me subdued. The strength of his hands pinning my wrists was more than enough.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There is no real way to describe rape.
Sex with Kiyo or Dorian, the men I loved…well, I could have described that for hours in exquisite detail. I could have elaborated on the way they stroked my hair or the way their lips touched my skin. Even with Dean-my cheating bastard ex-sex had still had its share of affection and joy, back when things had been good between us.
There was none of that with Leith.
Well, not on my part, at least. And I think that’s what made it especially bad. For him, with his crazy infatuation, it really was an act of love. He visited me often over the next few days, and each time he took me against my will, he’d tell me he loved me and attempt some sort of gentleness and affection. The horrible part was, I couldn’t even resist that. It barely required any force on his part to make me submit. Honestly, I wished it had been violent. I wished he’d been cruel and brutal. I’d spent my life in fights, dealing with pain and blows. There would have been something comfortingly familiar about that, like it was just another battle for me. The twisted love he showed for me during each act of rape, however…well, that made it harder to bear.
In that time, I only saw Art once. Abigail checked on me a number of times, and I learned that it was she who mixed the nightshade, though Leith had taught her the recipe. Cariena was the one I saw the most. She seemed to have been installed as the live-in maid and occasional sex toy for visiting guys. When I arrived, there had been three other gentry girls, but Isanna-the one I’d heard mentioned that first day-left shortly. She was very pretty, and Abigail seemed particularly happy at the price she’d gotten for her.