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He didn’t fill it.

When she finally did, she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “I thought perhaps you might wish to meet some of the other Chosen?”

What kind of meeting did she have in mind, he wondered.

Oh, just a bit of high tea, the wizard chimed in. With cunnilingus sandwiches and sixty-nine scones and handfuls of your nuts.

“Cormia’s doing well,” he said, deflecting the meet-and-greet offer.

“I saw her yesterday.” The Directrix’s tone was kind but neutral, as if she didn’t agree with him.

“You did?”

She bowed low again. “Forgive me, your grace. It was the anniversary of her birthing, and I was required by custom to give her a scroll. When I didn’t hear from you, I appeared to her. I tried to reach you again during the day.”

Good Lord, Cormia’s birthday had come and gone and she’d said nothing about it?

She had told John, though, hadn’t she. That was what the bracelet had been for.

Phury wanted to curse. He should have gotten her something.

He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I didn’t respond.”

Amalya righted herself. “It is your purview. Please, worry not.”

In the long silence that followed, he read the question in the Directrix’s kind eyes. “No, it’s not done yet.”

The female’s shoulders sagged. “Has she denied you?”

He thought back to the floor in front of his chaise. He’d been the one who had stopped. “No. It’s me.”

“No fault could ever be yours.”

“Untrue. And trust me on that one.”

The Directrix walked around, her hands worrying the medallion around her neck. The thing was an exact copy of what he had on, only hers was suspended from a white satin ribbon, and the chain to his ball was black.

She paused by the bed, her fingers lightly brushing a pillow. “I thought perhaps you would like to meet some of the others.”

Oh, hell, no. He wasn’t passing over Cormia for a different First Mate. “I can guess where you’re going with this, but it’s not that I don’t want her.”

“Perhaps, though, you should like to meet another.”

This was clearly as close as the Directrix was going to get to putting her foot down and making a demand that he either have sex with Cormia or get another First Mate. He couldn’t say he was surprised. It had been five long months.

God, maybe it would solve some problems. Trouble was, taking another First Mate would be tantamount to laying a curse on Cormia. The Chosen would see her as having failed, and she would feel the same way, even though that wouldn’t be the case at all.

“Like I said, I’m good with Cormia.”

“Indeed . . . except might you perhaps be more likely to engage if it were a different one among us? Layla, for instance, is quite fair of visage and limb, and she is trained as an ehros.”

“Not going to do that to Cormia. It would kill her.”

“Your grace . . . she suffers now. I saw it within her eyes.” The Directrix drifted over to him. “And moreover, the rest of us are trapped within our tradition. We had such great hopes that our functions would return to where they have always been. If you take another as First Mate and complete the ritual, you release all of us from this burden of futility, and that includes Cormia. She is not happy, your grace. Any more than you are.”

He thought of her again on that bed, tied down. . . . She hadn’t wanted this from the very beginning, had she?

He thought of her so quiet in the mansion. He thought of her not feeling comfortable enough to tell him that she had to feed. He thought of her saying nothing about her birthday. Nothing about her wanting to go outside. Nothing about those constructions in her bedroom.

One stroll down a hallway didn’t make up for all he’d abandoned her to.

“We are trapped, your grace,” the Directrix said. “As it stands now, we are all trapped.”

What if he was holding on to Cormia because, if she was his First Mate, he didn’t have to worry about the whole sex thing? Sure, he wanted to protect her and do right by her, and those were honorable truths, but the ramifications protected him as well.

There were Chosen who wanted it, wanted him. He’d felt their stares when he’d been sworn in.