Contract (2)

“If it’s here...you’re saying you’ll give me back my arms and legs?”

“That’s right. I was beginning to get a little tired of motionless sculptures. And we’ll be holding the wedding soon. From now on, in public, you’ll be Viscountess Daker. Everyone in this kingdom will know that you belong to me. Though, of course, it’ll only be a formal wedding. You’ll be my work wherever and whenever.”

Kaelan’s words made my body go rigid.

A wedding. A viscountess.

It was, in its own way, a perfectly ordinary story.

If my circumstances had been ordinary, those words might have been a graceful promise. To me, they were a curse.

Until now, the only people who knew about my condition had been Marquis Beaufort’s people and the count’s people.

If I went through with the wedding, it would brand me as officially and forever his.

But above the fear, an irrepressible hope raised its head.

‘Arms and legs.’...