Kamara nodded; her eyes dazed in memory. “Very blue. Deep blue, like the sea. Many people have blue eyes, but only a few have ones so deep they can easily captivate.”
“Like the king’s.”
“Huh?”
Danika shrugged. “The king’s eyes are that same deep blue.”
“Yeah. I noticed immediately when I stood in his presence. But unlike the king, this man stole my heart.”
“What?” Danika started. That was completely unexpected.
Kamara’s lips curved sadly. “I fell in love with him, Danika. He wasn’t a man of status; he lives in a small hut in a secluded part of town, and he was ill for so long. Henna and I took care of him most of the time, and we nursed him back to health.”
“Your father allowed it?” she asked, surprised. Her own father would have trounced her for something like that.
Kamara shook her blonde hair. “No, he didn’t. I visited him in secret.”
It started making sense to Danika. “Let me guess, your father found out and matched you with the king.”
Kamara nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m so sorry.” No wonder she kept herself holed up in her bedroom, Danika thought sadly. She understood Kamara’s plight on a very personal level.
“So, that was it. I understand what it’s like to be in love. You’re in love with the king.”
Danika’s mouth opened and closed. Her jaw dropped. She never thought Kamara would find her out. She bit her lips, worried. This was not a good turn of events.
“Do not worry. I have no intention of being a ‘bitch’ about it. That is why I told you my story.” She paused. “Falling in love with a peasant is as dangerous as falling for the king. My father found me out and I’m paying for it. You keep hoping that the mistress never finds out about it. She might use it as the perfect opportunity to have your head in a spike.”
“I know. Thank you, Kamara. I avoid the mistress like the plague. She doesn’t like me very much,” Danika confided softly.
“No, she doesn’t. Loving the king is dangerous; a lot of things can go wrong.” She shook her head. “Besides, you already have so many problems on your hands without me adding to them.”
Danika’s steps faltered. She turned her head and glanced at Kamara.
Concern marred her face. “The second most dangerous thing a slave can do is to fall for her master. The first and foremost is getting pregnant by her master.”
Danika felt a wave of dizziness. Kamara’s hand was around her immediately, steadying her.
“Oh, heavens.” She felt cold on the inside. She had always known that, but hearing Kamara say it out loud reminded her of how dangerous a needle she was threading.
Kamara let her go gently when she found her footing. She turned to face her completely. “Maybe that is why I feel a little bad about going home. That mistress will eat you up and spit you out if she finds out about your condition. That is, if she hasn’t found out yet. If you escape being murdered by the king, that mistress will do the job. You tread a dangerous ground, sister.”
“Y-you know?” Danika couldn’t believe it. Kamara knew she was pregnant. She knew.
Kamara nodded her head solemnly. “I would be a fool not to realise. I watched you from afar. The symptoms are written all over you. The fatigue. The sleeping. The day you had to vomit your guts out in the backyard.” She paused. “I know, Danika.”
Danika was speechless; she didn’t know what to say about that. It shocked and scared her. “You’re not… mad? About it?” she forced herself to ask at last.
Kamara shook her head. “No. I love Callan so much, and I would carry his child anytime,” she informed her proudly. “You love the king. It is only fitting that you do not have the heart to rid yourself of his child, even when your life is hanging by a thread because of it. I will feel so happy that I will see my Callan again after so many months. You do not know how happy I am,” Kamara continued. “But I worry for you, Danika. That mistress will do anything in her power to make your life hell if she finds out. Beware of her.”
“Danika is carrying the king’s child. She is pregnant,” Vetta announced in a voice that was deceptively calm.
Karandy watched the woman who was seated in the wooden chair at the other side of the room, looking at him with a cool expression that revealed nothing. It had been two months since he last saw the king’s mistress, and it surprised him to hear her impatient knock on his door that morning. Another surprise were the words pouring from her mouth.
“It is not possible for her to be with child for him. Why would she risk herself so dangerously? The former princess is smart,” he said.
“Oh, she is very smart. And that is why she got pregnant by the king. It is a dangerous game. Either the king kills her for it, or he accepts her. If the latter happens, her status might change for the better and she will be a very important person in his life. She is smart,” Vetta conceded, before she added, “But very foolish.”
“How do you know she’s pregnant?”
“I have my maid keep an eye on her; she reports everything to me. She is with child,” she repeated with certainty.
Karandy watched the king’s Mistress. It surprised him she wasn’t raging and mad as hell. Calmness was an oddity to the woman he knew both physically and intimately.
“You are calm about it. Does that mean you are okay with it?” Karandy asked carefully.
Vetta laughed then. It sent a chill down Karandy’s arms. The sound was hollow and icy.
“I wouldn’t be here if I was okay with it, would I?” she growled at last.
No, she wouldn’t. Karandy watched the beautiful woman with deceptive calmness in her countenance. No, she wouldn’t be here if she was truly okay with it. After the day he drew sexual pleasures from her body, she disappeared. That was two months ago. He missed her; he missed her body. Eating from the same plate the king eats from was a definite turn-on. The feeling only intensified because the mistress didn’t like him at all, and she despised his status. Yet, she spread her legs for him.
His dick jerked in his pants, and he adjusted himself and walked to the other side of his small hut to mask his reaction to her. He had no plans whatsoever to do something about it. Not today. Not when the mistress was behaving so out-of-sorts with her calmness over a finding that was supposed to make her blow with rage and shout to the moon.
They become deadly when they are quiet, his father always said to him.
Vetta got up then. “I have to go. I have an appointment with a healer.”
Why would she have an appointment with a healer? Was she sick? Why did she come at all when she wasn’t going to give him a plan?
He watched her warily and realized that there was something different about her. She looked… colder, meaner.
“The courting week is ending tomorrow morning. I plan to be in the king’s bed tomorrow night,” Vetta informed him.
“Wouldn’t he want to spend that time with Danika?” She’d told him once before how the king favored Danika’s bed to hers. He wouldn’t blame the king. Princess Danika was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life, and not to mention that air of royalty around her wherever she went.
It had been almost a year in slavery for her, but that had never changed. Her elegance and royal sophistication remained as obvious as if she still had the expensive clothes on.
“Wouldn’t the king want to spend tomorrow night with Danika?” he repeated to her.
“I won’t be giving him a choice,” she replied simply as she put her black mass of hair into the hood she hid herself in when she arrived.
Her hand found the hood behind her back, and she covered herself with it. He watched her as she walked out of the door.
They become deadlier when they are quiet.