Despite all of Madam Piper's training in how to speak and walk and eat like an elegant lady, elegance was not one of Cassie's innate qualities. Especially when she was over thirty weeks pregnant, no amount of screeching from the banshee would persuade her to even sit properly.
Disregarding the curious glances of a few passersby, Cassie sprawled out horizontally across a chaise lounge in the palace library, her heavy, rounded belly on display as she giggled through her fifth, or perhaps the fifteenth, reread of the latest letter from Dane. His calligraphy was a work of art, his bold, powerful script the embodiment of masculine beauty, yet the content was an utter load of crap:
We were victorious again last night. A few men wounded but no deaths or fatal injuries. Cannot wait to return when all this is over. Soon. While my men feast in the Great Hall, I shall feast between your legs.
Cringey as hell, but still made her laugh and blush. And she couldn't really fault him for it, either. The man may be thirty years old, but this was probably his first experience writing love letters.
While she kept her letters to him fairly bland and succinct out of fear that the steward or anyone else delivering the messages might see her 'sexting' things like "I miss your cock", it was obvious Dane did not share those concerns. By way of further example:
I couldn't sleep last night with the Ilien pair (or trio?) in a nearby tent screaming louder than pigs in a butcher house. Wish you were here, so I can show them all how much louder I could make you scream.
Of course, she'd facepalmed. It was difficult to reconcile the impassive, arrogant asshole version of him with this thirsty, lovesick puppy, but she kept every single one of his bullshit letters by her bedside and reread them almost every night just before she drifted off to sleep with the thought of his arms wrapped around her.
Over the months, she'd accumulated a tidy stack of letters from him. In more recent weeks, as the armies slayed their way through the beasts and pushed them off the lands, the birds and horses grew more willing to bridge the distance between them and their exchanges became more frequent. Safe to say, Dane abused the reopened channel of communication between them as much as he could. Though he was often corny and perverted, other times he was also cute:
Cassie, it doesn't make it any better that Lord Ofterings is 'Lord of the Rings', even if that makes no sense and sounds atrocious.
You're mine. Do you hear me?
No, you can't hear me.
DO YOU READ ME?
How strange it was, having a long-distance relationship with an ex-husband she had previously married for ten years, even though Cassandra's memory of those days was so hazy that it felt a lifetime away. All this immature sex-lettering was happening while she was pregnant with his child, no less, and she couldn't help but fall a little more for him with each letter she received from him.
Some days, he sent two or three tiny scrolls of messages attached to a pigeon, just to 'order' her to "eat as much as you can" and "don't work too hard". It was like he'd forgotten he was in the middle of a war against demons.
The thought of him had her grinning giddily to herself like a teenage girl who'd encountered her first love and in response, the ungrateful child she was carrying kicked her hard in the lower abdomen, as if to remind her that she was still in the palace library.
"Oof!"
"You deserved it," Lady Rivera teased as she emerged from behind a set of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
"That's not very nice, Mother," Cassie replied sweetly. Their relationship had improved leaps and bounds since the palace healer first confirmed her pregnancy.
YOU ARE READING
Bride to the Cursed: a Snow White retelling
Fantasy[COMPLETED] When a king makes an order, he expects it to be followed. When King Dane divorced his wife, he expected her to get out of his sight and stay out of his sight. Not reappear three months later in his bed, spouting nonsense about being a 'l...
