The Empire (The Lover's Opalus) by Grayson Reyes-Cole Read Free Book Online

silently considered setting fire to the curtain.
    Then she stared at the curtain until it did catch fire. Glee tickled her as she watched flames lick quickly higher. Glee was replaced by despair as the blaze died abruptly and even appeared as if it had never been. Instead of smoke, she inhaled Lanus’s Spirit.
    Something coursing through her like the dancing light in the bottle caused her to take another drink and imagine the Emperor’s possible expressions when he had noticed the burning fabric. She saw terror, which didn’t ring true, humor, which was more plausible, and an overabundance of patience. Never once as a child had she disobeyed or purposely rebelled, but now defying her husband intoxicated her. She could not stop doing it.
    Raeche took a final sip then did something she had never done before. She went to the edge of the curtain against one wall and pulled layer after layer of heavy fabric back until she could skirt around it, let it drop, and look directly at her husband.
    Lying on his side, one elbow propping him up, he read by the light of five fresh avla eggshells. His daystar-streaked hair was pushed over his shoulder, hanging down to the white covers, strands catching dark fire from the flickering glow. His chest was bare. Flat planes contrasted with the rounded muscles of his arms. The build of a warrior yet his hands turned the pages with the lightest of touches. He tensed and looked up, right at her.
    “Raeche.” Her name flowed over perfect lips. “I am surprised to see you come around the curtain.”
    “I tried to burn it down.”
    “The Spirit of Luck is with you,” he congratulated her.
    The barb stung, for all knew there was no such Spirit.
    Raeche swayed with the longing to lay her hands on his chest. She wanted her fingertips and palms to warm against his flesh. The urge to touch him caused her to say, “You did not enjoy it.”
    “Yes, I did, Raeche, but you did not.”
    That he knew her thoughts should have amazed her but Raeche understood what no one else did–the Emperor could hear the thoughts of most in his presence when he chose. He had picked directly from her mind the vision of their first night wed. Of her being carried to his bed by his father and brother. Of him being ushered in by her mother, his aunts and cousins, with a ceremonial sword pressed into his hand and petals sprinkled over his head.
    Born for him, given to him, given to his pleasure, Raeche felt shame as she reflected on that night. She had not pleased him, had failed in the only task she had ever been given. He had done his duty, done it quickly and found release, then left her immediately. After one more such encounter, he had never returned to her bed.
    In an act of pure impulse, Raeche reached for the haphazard bows tied at her shoulders to keep her soft white nightgown up.
    “Please, do not.” Calm, voice modulated, not a trace of change on his face, and yet the tiniest spark leapt in the air. It arced and shot through her like an arrow. Sizzling power singed her senses. Her body hummed.
    “You are angry with me.” Raeche did not like to pout yet she had done much of this in recent times.
    “How would you know that, little dark one?”
    Such reverence and sweetness marked the endearment. She had always liked him most at times when he used those words. At least twice he had called her “my sweetest little dark one” and she had felt warmth in her belly.
    “I find I am able to read your mood, Emperor. When you are angry, I feel sparks. When you are happy, as you are with Rucha, I feel as if clouds lift my feet and warm syrup courses through my veins, though I still feel sparks.”
    “And when I am aroused?”
    Raeche blushed, looked at the floor.
    His quiet, seemingly involuntary groan transformed the blush to a burn.
    “Go back to bed, Raeche.”
    Instinct, combined with breeding, demanded she do as he commanded. Yet her feet stayed rooted to the ground as she searched his face, then the tendons