Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
“I don’t think like that. I don’t have a problem with the fact that she’s slept with other men.”
Taggart stopped, settling himself on an unused bench. “Good, because that would make you a really heinous hypocrite and I might decide you need assassinating.”
They were in a scene space that had three walls around it. It looked a bit like an exercise room, except the barbells were alongside a number of paddles and crops. He understood why Taggart had chosen this space for his impromptu conversation about hypocrisy. Kash could hear him easily over the music, but they could still see the large stage.
“Would Day get to stay queen if you died?” Taggart asked, his eyes narrowed.
He had the sudden suspicion that only the truth might save him. Taggart often believed he was smarter than anyone else and that the world should work according to his rules. “No. That would be against the rules of our primogeniture. My cousin Chapal would become the king.”
And then they would have the problems of succession because Chapal would be stubborn about divorcing his husband and marrying a female simply for procreation. A female who would be required to provide a son. He and Day could have ten daughters but if one son was born, he would supersede all his sisters.
Why was that the rule? Because some asshole a thousand years ago decided men were more important than women? That a man—any man—could lead better than a woman?
He had a sudden vision of a young girl. She would have her mother’s silky hair and serious eyes. She would love science and she would be told to study housekeeping. She would be taught to wave and smile and defer to her younger brother because he would be king.
He’d made progress. He’d been the one to push for women to get their degrees. It had been in his coronation speech. He remembered writing it even when his father’s advisors had told him not to push. He’d done it for Day. He’d done it because he’d been in love with a girl who’d wanted to discover the secrets of the universe.
And then his lab had blown up and the guilt had eaten away at him for five long years. He’d turned away from truly leading, and a whole group of nasty old men had gained power in his absence. They’d tried to turn the country back, tried to tell all those little girls who they should be.
The only person fighting them had been Dayita.
While he’d been off drinking his guilt away, she’d been quietly fighting for the next generation. So that both boys and girls received everything their country could give them. So when they became men and women, all were strong.
“Besides, dude, you’re like the king and shit,” Taggart pointed out. “What the hell does it mean to be the king if you can’t tell everyone to fuck off about a couple of things? I get it. You can’t behead people anymore, but you have some power. You can protect your wife. Unless you think your wife is wrong because she’s not a simpering flower who needs you to protect her from everything life throws at her. Unless you think she’s wrong for needing what she needs and being strong enough to ask for it.”
Kash clung to the one thing he could be righteous about. “Ah, but she didn’t. She didn’t ask for it.”
Why had he said that? He’d bloody well outed himself.
If Taggart was surprised, he didn’t show it, which led Kash to wonder if this hadn’t been the point of his conversation all along. “She tricked you into submitting to her?”
“Yes.”
Taggart thought about that for a moment. “How does that work? Did she get you drunk? Blackmail you?”
“No. She didn’t tell me what she was doing.”
“She didn’t give you instructions?” There was a suspicious tone to the question, as though he didn’t really believe he had asked one at all. As though it all should have been obvious. “Because those are usually the norm in a D/s relationship. In vanilla relationships you sometimes fall into bed together and one partner naturally takes the lead, but you can usually tell who that is. Did she fight you for it?”
Nope. He’d lain down the minute she’d turned that sexy-as-hell voice on him. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Did she tie you up when you were asleep or something? You know that’s assault and we should really talk about that.”
Taggart was twisting his words, the bastard. “No, she didn’t do that. And yes, she gave me instructions.”
“She asked you to get to your knees? She asked you to let her take control? How was this confusing to you?” Taggart asked in a rapid-fire interrogation.
“I understood the instructions.”
“And it seems as though you followed them,” Taggart surmised. “Did she tell you she would stop the sex if you didn’t obey her? Is that how she blackmailed you?”