Page 50 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

“Malakai,” Maksym snapped. “I won’t tell you to leave a third time.”

The man huffed, shaking his head, but he heeded the king’s command with a couple of lengthy strides. The doors pulled shut with such force, my skirt rippled against my legs and my hair fluttered around me.

Finally, Maksym vacated my personal space.

He walked back to the war table his mage was still posted at. With a casualness unbefitting a king who had cleared a room with such ease, he sat on the edge of the table, long legs swaying in front of him.

“So, Miss Wynn,” Maksym drawled with a look of amusement. “Your terms. Let’s hear them, shall we? Jasper will note them down, and I’ll let you know if I accept.”

Jasper audibly sighed before he rifled through some papers on the desk and sat with a stack.

Oh, Goddess, help me. I hadn’t been sure I’d make it that far, and it was a damned good thing another one of my father’s once-unappreciated teachings was circling at the forefront of my mind—never balk in a negotiation.

Speak true. Speak what you want. Accept no less.

“First,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster, “is my people. The ones down in your crypts. They get last rites, proper ones.”

Maksym nodded slowly. “You know we burn our dead here, right?”

“That’s fine.”

He nodded again. “What else?”

This one came far more easily.

“This might be some kind of marriage of servitude…but I won’t stand for being treated like you own my body,” I said. “My clothes. My hair. What I eat. I decide all of that.”

There’d been enough of that shit from my brother before I’d left Odessa, little comments to guilt me over my rough appearance, to pick me apart over how little I looked like the women at court. And while I’d thought I’d suffer through that with my future husband—when it had been Callum—there was no way I wouldn’t fight it, given the chance.

A hint of amusement flitted over Maksym’s face, his amber eyes glinting as he chuckled, “Mina, no. None of that is my place. I wouldn’t dare. But, ah—” He pushed off the table. “As you would be marrying a king, you understand there are a couple of necessities that require me to make use of your body, right?”

A bit of heat unfurled in my chest at the way his tone lowered. “And those are…?”

“Heirs,” he stated. “At least two, though I’d prefer three. All in due time, of course.”

Oh, my skin was definitely flushed now.

I knew this, as much as the entire idea brought me a mixture of embarrassment and unease. Pushing out heirs seemed to be one of the more important jobs of a king’s wife, after all. I just wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it being spoken about so transactionally, especially after never having put much thought into having children. Not outside of taking my annual contraceptive, which I’d done right before I’d left Odessa—just in case.

It should have brought me at least a little relief that Maksym wasn’t unattractive by any stretch of the imagination, but with my luck, he would prove as capable as a wet rag in bed.

Even with that miserable thought lingering in my mind, I nodded. “I know that.”

“Good.” He pursed his lips for a long, tense moment before he glanced back at his hurriedly writing mage, whom I’d almost forgotten about, compounding my embarrassment tenfold. “You’ve got all that?”

“Of course, my liege,” the mage muttered, not lifting his hooded attention from the paper.

Maksym glanced back at me. “I accept those terms. What else?”

It took a moment for his words to wash over me.

I swallowed. Fuck.

Just those asks were supposed to be a fight. I’d imagined all morning the uphill battle I’d have ahead, trying to get an ounce of agency in a marriage that was nothing but an alternative to my execution. I’d thought of other things I wanted, of course, but I hadn’t considered I’d actually get to fucking ask for them.

“My own horse,” I spat out, the first thing on my mind.

Maksym smiled, actually smiled, as he took slow steps towards me. “Grimmorian dyrehorses are nothing like you’ve seen, Miss Wynn, but you’ll have unfettered access to our stables. Your pick of the litter, so to speak. I couldn’t deny you that.”