The Vampire & Her Witch

For a time, conversation lapsed between Owain and Jocelynn while the former devoured his meal and the latter picked at hers while she struggled to overcome the feeling that anything she did or tried to do would only be futile.

This, she thought, must be what the fish feels like when it’s placed on the chopping block. Gasping, its gills desperate for water, unable to breathe, and its struggles reduced to helpless flailing in the final moments before the end.

Did the fish yearn for the knife to fall? She didn’t know, but she imagined that, to the struggling, gasping fish, the sharp blade of the butcher might be a mercy.

”Is the food not to your liking?” Owain asked, frowning when he realized that she’d only take a few bites of the fish and had yet to touch the ’Ship’s Bell Pudding’ that had provoked such a strong response from her servants. ”Perhaps the cook isn’t so talented after all,” he began, only for Jocelynn to quickly interrupt him.

”No, no, that’s not it at all,” Jocelynn said hastily. Master Baden, the previous Master of Kitchens who had helped prepare the meals she served Bors when sickness ravaged his body, had already lost his life because he was a convenient scapegoat for Percivus’s Inquisition. The last thing she wanted to see was another tragedy playing out in the kitchens because she didn’t seem to like the food that Owain had thought would brighten her mood.

”My stomach has been unsettled since... since...” she tried to say, only to falter and fail when she couldn’t find a word to describe what had been done to her. Or, more accurately, when she realized she didn’t have the strength to admit what she’d endured. Not to Owain. If he came to see her as broken or defective because of what Percivus had done, if he knew the other man had stripped her naked in front of his acolytes and decided that she was no longer pure enough to be his bride...

Jocelynn didn’t know what Owain would do to her if he no longer wanted her, but she knew she’d lose the only opportunity she was likely to ever have to find justice for her sister, Ashlynn, and so she fought back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes so easily these days and tried to find a different way to explain.

”After the cold and hunger of the dungeons,” she said carefully. ”High Priest Aubin has advised me to eat light meals and to eat slowly while my stomach recovers from the ordeal,” she explained.

”I’m sorry if I worried you,” she added, looking up at Owain through her lashes and giving him a fragile smile. ”But I won’t lie and say that I’m unhappy that you noticed,” she offered in a ghost of her previous flirtatious tone.

”I see,” Owain said darkly, dropping his fork onto his plate in a clatter that felt loud in the stillness of the small dining room.

For a moment, he barely moved. His eyes gazed in Jocelynn’s direction, but he didn’t look like he saw her as much as he was looking through her while he wrestled with some great decision. His jaw tightened, and his right hand unconsciously tightened on the hilt of his dining knife as seventeen different curses ran through his mind, though none of them felt foul enough to be applied to the Inquisitor, his failure of a father had unleashed on Jocelynn.

Jocelynn was about to speak up, to ask what burdened his mind so, when Owain stood up abruptly, his chair nearly falling over as its feet caught in the thick pile of the dining room’s rug.

”Since dinner is too difficult to manage, perhaps what you need is something to brighten your mood and dispel the darkness of those days,” Owain said confidently, as if he had worked everything out. ”Come with me,” he said with a smile that was brighter and more charming than the tone that accompanied it. ”I have a surprise for you.”

”A surprise, my lord?” Jocelynn asked, her voice carefully controlled to sound curious rather than apprehensive, though her stomach twisted at the thought of what Owain might consider a gift that would ”brighten her mood.”

”Yes,” Owain said, extending his hand toward her with the expectant confidence of a man who had never been refused. ”Something I’ve been working on since I returned from Hurel Village. The results of the very first order I gave after learning of my father’s death. Something I think will help you... put certain matters to rest,” he said, keeping things deliberately vague.

The phrasing sent shivers through her body. Put matters to rest. What did that mean? But she couldn’t refuse, couldn’t even hesitate too long without raising his suspicions, and so she placed her hand in his, allowing him to draw her to her feet.

”Anne, Mary,” Jocelynn said quickly, turning toward the sitting room where her maids waited, hoping that by reaching out to the other women present she could at least keep him from taking her toward his bed chambers. If that was what he intended...

”They can come with us,” Owain said magnanimously, though something in his tone suggested the permission was temporary. ”At least part of the way. But my surprise requires a certain amount of... privacy.”

The word hung in the air like a threat. Wherever he was taking her and whatever he wanted her to see wasn’t something meant for the eyes of the public, or at least, it wasn’t yet. It could still be something innocuous, perhaps a part of the preparation for the upcoming grand ceremony, but somehow, from his tone and the fierce look in his eyes, she doubted it would be anything so... pleasant.

Jocelynn’s fingers found the edge of her veil where Owain had pushed it back earlier, and with a delicate, practiced motion, she drew it down over her face once more. The black lace settled into place like a knight donning a helm before battle, and she felt at least a little bit safer behind its sheltering shadows.

”The candlelight is fine,” she said when Owain frowned at the return of the veil. ”It’s very thoughtful of you to keep the lighting dim for me,” she added, placing a hand on his strong, muscular forearm and looking up at him through the lace of the veil. ”It’s just that I find the corridors rather bright after so long in dim rooms,” she said softly, offering Owain an excuse for her behavior because he knew he wouldn’t accept the truth from her lips. ”The veil helps.”

”Of course,” Owain said, though she could hear the faint note of disappointment in his voice. He’d enjoyed seeing her face, watching her reactions play across her features. But he didn’t press the issue, which somehow made her more nervous than if he had...