Darkly Wed (Darkly Devoted Series, Book 3)

Chapter 6 - Lust

Chapter 6

AFTER BRINGING her home, Blake drew her a bath. Vivienne finally started to wake up as he went to help her undress. She made her best effort to sit up while he peeled the blood-stained dress off her slender body. Blake adverted his eyes as he picked her up and carried her into the bathroom. Even though they had been married, these past few days — he felt as though he was meeting her for the first time. Vivienne clutched his arm, seemingly for dear life, as he lowered her into the waters of the recessed, rose marble tub. The sword had weakened her. Although she had no physical wounds to show for it, he imagined she would need days to recover completely. He cupped the back of her head with his hand as he washed the blood off her lips and chin.

Blake had never helped anyone bathe before, and it was a strange feeling like he was taking care of a small animal that was solely his responsibility. In his household, there were servants for everything. He had barely seen his own father and mother except at a formally orchestrated meal time. The closer he got to this woman in his arms, the more difficult it would be to keep his promise to Alesandra. He could have protected a simple girl like Vivienne Minthe from the other families but to protect Melody Balan, that was another task altogether.

At that moment, he couldn't think about all those pesky details. All he could focus on was the feeling of her breasts pressed against his forearm, the sensation of her wet, bare skin against his calloused palm. He couldn't meet her eyes as he washed the blood from her long swan-like neck and lush, delicate breasts. The steam of the tub water rose around them, enveloping her naked body like the morning fog. He could almost imagine she was still just Vivienne, his beloved wife, the sharer of all his secrets, and the guardian of his well-concealed heart.

She wasn't. Even at that moment, he felt the hardness and the conniving focus behind her icy blue eyes. Even as he took the washcloth and tenderly, caressingly, washed the cuts on her lower back. As he pressed down into the red flesh, she quivered with pain. Even then, he still sensed the Balan coldness inside her. He knew in letting his heartache for her he was falling once again into Gabriel Balan's trap. Her father was selling her to some cruel foreign aristocrat like a common whore as though that would send him into a rage to protect her, save her, as though she was still his wife.

But, despite the intoxicating beauty of her body and the persistent lovingness of her gaze, he knew the Vivienne he had known, had never existed. The words she spoke to him were not hers; it was all an act by a talented charlatan. How many times must she and her father have laughed at him? When Gabriel Balan came to visit his mother Odelia when he was a child, did the patriarch meet with Melody? Did Gabriel direct her to target him, to win his trust, and to poison his thoughts with revenge? She was only a child of eight years of age, how could she have played the part so convincingly? Oh, the irony, that even as Blake turned away from Eden Catesby out of his hatred for the Great Families, he was pouring his heart out to Melody Balan.

When he reached for her in his dreams after she was gone, did she speak to him with the voice of her father? When he married her after she came back to him, telling him, she didn't care that he was a cripple, was that all a ruse too? Was any of it real? Was it all for the purpose of Balan obtaining the Sword of Nüwal because Blake was too stupid as a child to conceal his abilities?

Blake wondered if Glenn was right when he assured him that she hadn't known. She thought she was actually Vivienne, the insignificant English professor's daughter. If that were true, Blake truly felt sorry for her. She was ripped from her family and friends, thrust into a harsh and brutal life she was completely untrained and unprepared for. Now, she was in the company of a man she had ruthlessly betrayed.

"You've never done this before; have you?" Vivienne asked, with a knowing look in her eyes. She always had that way of tilting down her chin and looking up at him with her large, innocent eyes that made him want to forget everything else in the world. She really had perfected her charade. Vivienne leaned against the side of the recessed marble bathtub as he went to retrieve a towel.