MAIVENA FONDALI
It is mystifying to surmise where you stand with someone when you are suddenly bound to them by an Intimacy Arrangement. The arrangement consists of so many possibilities—you receive the life you used to have before enslavement, and in return, the provider keeps you as someone to talk to, someone to make love to, someone to abuse, or all three.
His tears are nothing but gold emanating over my fingers. If he will not allow me to understand them, that is all they are and all they will be. Golden tears that give me coin, fare, clothing, sturdy roofing, and polished wood to walk upon.
There are moments where I presume I can tell him anything—I could speak the permanence of the world right into his ear, and he would nod and tell me to carry on.
Possibly I think this way only because of the security that envelops me by just looking into his eyes. Or, I only feel this safety because he was the only one to protect me when I was an absolute damsel all those years ago.
There is a strength that pulls into my shoulders whenever he nears. His presence is the unwavering reminder that I, too, can be just as strong as he is.
And just as simply as he makes me feel this way, I am prompted with every thought that I once felt this way with another. I have once had these emotions and more with someone else before I was brought here, concluding I am chasing that within Laven.
As often as I force myself to forget, I can see him. I hold sight of his bronzed skin that always hinted darker in the Summer, and his golden hair that lightens in the sun, his scintillating mind that enthralled me every waking moment. I have surrendered to forgetting his touch, his eyes, the feel of him. Even his traits I despised to the marrow of my bones made me smile, I had to forget that too.
Only one question stands as to how far I am willing to go for the freedom of myself and my family. How deep will I dig for Kaden and Ethel to go home and start the family they wish to have? How far am I willing to go for my father to see my mother again? He does not speak of it, but I know how much he misses her.
I would climb the steepest mountain if it just purported that my family may have freedom. And if I reach the top of that mountain and my liberty does not lie there, I would not mind.
Sacrifice can mean anything to anyone. Yet, me staying and giving my family freedom is not sacrifice. It is the right thing to do. It is what will always be right for me to do.
Even if it were not Laven, I would sell myself to anyone to get Ethel, Kaden, and my father far from the mainland and to Xenathi. I know how to force myself into enjoying sexual affairs with someone, and I would do it countlessly for either of them. I was consistently told of my beauty growing up, or as my mother would say, ‘you are exceptionally beautiful because of me.’ And I have learned to manipulate my beauty well.
Coming to Kaden’s aid when he was sought out to be castrated was the first time I had ever given my body over to someone, and the second was for my father’s saving. But the so-called doctors knew I would do it, which was why they came. That was the last time I laid in someone else’s bed other than my own.
My father is the only one of the four of us who knows how to mask scents of all kinds, so no one other than us ever knew what happened with the doctors.
At that time, I did not care what was done with my body. After being taken, a thought never returned of leaving. The royals have rules set in stone that servants and foreign Warriors could never marry nor be mated to someone—unless previously married and mated before arrival.
If this is what it can be called—the only prerogative I and others hold is being tied to someone by an Intimacy Arrangement.
Although, Intimacy Arrangements always end. They have no choice but to end unless the man or woman you are arranged with decides to keep you alongside the mate they find, which is a rarity.
I am on borrowed time with the High Prince of Vaigon.
There is only a matter of days, months, and even seconds before he finds the person he is fated to be with, and I am back to being trapped on the servant grounds as well as my family. But if freedom is in my grasp before my time is up, Ethel, Kaden, and my father have a clear chance of going home, and hopefully so do I.
Yet, I do not think whomever I am mated to would accept the sexual affairs I have been in. I am considered a befouled woman to the prestigious. Even after knowing the reasoning behind my actions, I am convinced that for me to be wanted by people is a hard reach.
Then there is Laven. He has a right to know whom I have laid with before he and I do. I could not carry on in this arrangement in lies; it would be up to him to decide if he wishes to continue after knowing of this.
I walk toward a mirror, looking over myself in the dress Lorena had made to fit me. It is white and sheer with a thin layer of orange satin beneath the nearly see-through fabric. It cowls across my chest before fitting at my waist and it flows loosely around my legs, barely gracing the floor.
It is hard to deny the small amount of weight I have gained within just a few days with Laven and his brothers.
Like a brisk wind, Laven moves from one end of the room, suddenly appearing behind me.
Roaner was not telling me a tale to make me feel like some special girl recruited by a Prince as his Intimacy Agrangee.
Laven has speed that I have never seen; maybe it was a gift from Hermes to be so agile when they were declared the High Four by Artemis. Or it is just the blood of the Orviantes in his family. The blood of an Original has high possibilities of making him so fast. His silver and white pieces of hair is the clear indication that someone in his family bloodline is a pure Orviante.
There is a smirk that pulls across his full lips as he comes to sight.
He is so pulchritudinous that it is painful to look at someone like Laven.
From the contrast of white in his dark curly hair to the beauty of his glowing brown skin, Laven could bring women to their knees, especially when that lazy smirk matches his hazel and blue eyes. One eye tends to flare in a light blue when his Wolf pushes for departure—like now.
Even in these tall shoes given to me by Lorena, I am still just below his shoulder.
“There is someone I want you to meet today; he is the Lead Healer here in Gordanta. He is looking for help developing a cure of some sort, an inoculation to protect the people. Would you wish to help him?”
Does he sincerely believe me to be so educated in healing that I could somehow help a Lead Healer?
I do not deny the opportunity. “I can,” I nod.
His eyes do not leave mine. It no longer feels as if he is looking at me. Instead, he is reading through me and latching onto the tiny flash of doubt that I allowed myself to show.
Terrible is not the word to use when it comes to trying to guard my emotions with him. I cannot tell if he is impeccable at reading someone’s feelings or if I am just this comfortable around him to allow my guard to falter.
“Maivena . . .” he says in that–that tone.
A vibrating, purring sound that moves down my spine, forcing me to stand straighter.
This is one thing I never experienced. The reverberations of someone’s resonance have never shuddered me alive as his does.
“Are you certain? You do not have to say yes.”
But I do have to say yes after the way I treated him those days ago. I am grateful not to have had my tongue cut out.
If they do not go to the Tree of Gods because of me, I have no choice but to help them find another way out of this havoc and create distance from the war we all know is coming.
“I am positive. I can help.” Bringing a smile to my face, he studies that as well through the mirror ahead of us.
I turn, and he is already looking down at me.
Moments pass before he speaks, and I do not mind using this time to stare at him for as long as I can.
“Freedom suits you,” he quietly speaks.
I reach, touching a silver button on his topcoat. “I am not free, entirely.”
“As long as you are arranged with me, your freedom is identical to mine.”
