CHAPTER 38: THIRTY EIGHT

Valka

Air cracks through my windpipe and I sob helplessly as it fills my lungs.

The King tsks, his scowl deepening as he watches me gulp down mouthfuls of air greedily. "I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?" He peers over his shoulder at a still screeching Rhea, whose bloodshot eyes haven’t left my face. His lips part on a single word.

"Sleep."

Her eyes glaze over instantly, lids dropping shut before her body slumps, boneless, into Leander’s arms.

"Don’t hurt her," I whisper, voice raw. "Please."

Lucien’s perfect, silver brow arches, the circlet on his head askew, as though he’d donned it as an afterthought. "I quite like you this way, Valerian. Pleading, at my feet."

I start to push myself up on shaky hands, but my limbs won’t support my weight and I slip, nearly crashing into the shards of broken glass littered across the floors.

Strong arms grab my shoulder, breaking my fall.

The contact is a small seismic thing. But a frightening current erodes me, forcing my spine into an arch and a gasp from my lips. And my mind, for the lack of a better word, splinters.

--blood soaked the sheets. My trembling hands pressing against her little belly, trying to mend her. Stitch her together. Someone was screaming and as the walls ragged and I saw the light leave my daughter’s brilliant gaze of violet, blood matted against her auburn hair, I knew it was me--

The image is gone as fast as it came, but it tears through me with enough force to shred me in two. "Get your hands off me!" I snarl, skittering backward.

He wrenches himself away from me, face slackening, completely stripped bare as if the world caved in on itself. "What..." His voice fractures. "What was that?"

My back presses against the wall, chest heaving. "I don’t know." Because it hadn’t been his memory. I hadn’t been in his head. I’d drawn him into mine. A sob parts from me. "Gods, I don’t know!"

He rises to his full height, shadows bending around him as if the room itself knew who ruled it. "Take her to the cells," he says, not sparing Rhea another glance. "Keep her muzzled until I decide what to do with her."

His command is no louder than a breath, but the soldiers move without hesitation.

Then his eyes fall to me, unreadable. "You’ll come with me."

*****

I’m too drained to ask where we’re going and he doesn’t bother as he leads me through hallway after hallway, his shoulders bristling with tension, hands folded behind him, his maroon robe sweeping the floors behind him.

Eyes follow where we go and with the blood staining my light blue dress and the corset hanging in rips, the only thing keeping my chest covered being a layer of fabric and the chemise underneath, it’s not hard to tell why.

But if Lucien notices--well, he doesn’t really care.

Soon, we enter a small chamber fitted with tasteful furniture, shelves and discarded scrolls. A small map rests on the wall behind the desk, the words in writing I don’t understand.

But he doesn’t head for the desk. He moves for the shelf, grabbing a red-tomed book and the floor beneath my feet rumbles. And I watch in awe as the shelf splits in two, revealing a wall--no. A trapdoor, so seamlessly merged with the bricked wall slides to the right.

A passage appears in the doorway and Lucien grunts an order to follow him. I hesitate, fists clenching at my side.

He gazes at me from over his shoulder when he notes that I’m not moving. His eyes narrow. "A fear of tight spaces?"

My breath stutters as I stare at the pathway ahead and the vastness of the man in front of me. It isn’t that it frightens me. It’s that it feels... oddly familiar. "You’re asking me to follow you through a narrow passageway, alone, and I bet the door closes behind me." I lick my lips. "That’d be a rather stupid way to die."

His lips curve in cruel amusement. "If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t need to do it in private."

I manage a smile of my own, though it’s a teeth and sweet poison. "Maybe you don’t want your subjects seeing how much of a turn on you get from carving up helpless, beautiful women."

His eyes rake down my body and I can’t help the shiver that races down my spine when they flare. "On the contrary, I only carve up women who want me to. The ones who bleed the prettiest when they beg for it."

Oh, but that doesn’t sound right. My cheeks flame with mortification. "You’re disgusting."

He laughs. "Do the skirts and corsets come with a new found sense of modesty? If that is the case, then I must admit that you were less dull when I thought you a lad."

With that, he leaves me standing in the center of his study, staring pointedly at his broad back. Perhaps it is his way of asking me to trust him or he merely doesn’t think me enough of a threat to show me his back. It is possibly more of the latter than the former, and ire crawls up my ass like a bug, propelling my feet forward.

As usual, he ignores me, shoulders brushing against walls too thin to contain him, it’s nearly ridiculous. His footsteps are silent, the swishing of his robes non-existent. He moves with the gracefulness of a dancer and recalling what he’d looked like on swinging that sword of his, I’d predict he was excellent in the ballroom.

We enter a round chamber at the end of the hallway. A circular table of black stone occupies the center, while the largest stretch of uninterrupted white stone wall continues, the walls covered in a massive map. One the left is Ebonheart. On the right is Silvermoor. Ahead is a different place I’ve never heard of and beside me are the lands beyond the Great Sea. None of which I knew existed, and all of which are flagged and mapped for whatever reasons.

It is a war room, that much is obvious, but I don’t understand why he’s brought me here.

I remain by the door, shoulders stiff as he halts by the map of Silvermoor. "There is quite the mystery around you, Valka. The more I tell myself to rid myself of you, the more I uncover. It unsettles me. I do not like being unsettled." He tips his chin at me. "When did you begin dream walking?"

I frown at the question. "A couple of months ago."

He cocks his head at that and seems to take a deep inhale. His eyes suddenly light up in surprise. "You seriously believe that."

I stare at the mad man. "Is there any reason I should not? It is my life, after all."

Lucien just stares at me. "What we saw at the infirmary, you couldn’t have possessed that memory. Not if you weren’t me. And the alternative is impossible."

"What, pray tell, is the alternative?"

"That you are my dead Erasthai."

Oh

.

I shift uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze and he shakes his head, seeming to find something lacking in me. "Obviously not."

"I received a missive," he says after a moment. "I thought I might gain some insight from you. Silverthorn tells me you were quite close with the new Wolf King."

My brows furrow. "Wolf King?"

"Rafaelle Draemir." His eyes rove my face, seeking my reactions. His brows arch with interest with whatever he finds. "He has been coronated. And mated."

My fists clench again at my sides, nails ripping into my palm. Good that his life went just as he planned and oh, would you look at that. He’s mated. I’m more irritated than jealous, quite frankly. Good, fucking riddance.

Okay. Maybe my chest does feel a little tight. Is this what heartbreak feels like?

Fuck.

"You look pale," Lucien notes.

I swat the cold sweat off my neck. "Being stuck in a room with a cold blooded murderer would do that to anyone."

His eyes narrow. "You smell like rage."

"Must be the new perfume Margot gave me. Or maybe it is the way you make me feel."

Sensuously curved lips part to reveal pretty, glinting fangs."I make people feel a whole lot of things, and I do assure you that rage is none of those things." He blinks, as if at the edge of a ground breaking discovery. "You were closer than Silverthorn realizes, I see."

"Are you so obsessed with me you’ve resorted to gossiping about my love life? Careful, Majesty, you’ll sound like an old aunt with no hobbies."

His lips curve. "Oh, so you were in love with him?"

"Fuck off."

"Why so testy?" Lucien asks.

"None of your fucking business, Your Royal Depravedness."

He laughs richly at that, before turning to grab the sole scroll at the center of the table. He tosses the parchment to me and I catch it before it hits me across the face. "My General seems to believe this might be worth giving a chance. I say they all die. What do you say?"

My eyes scan the scroll. "You want my opinion on whether you should accept a truce, or slaughter my people?"

"I’m asking, Valka," he says softly. "If Rafael Draemir is as much of a lying piece of shit as his ancestors are."

The answer comes out before I can think it over. "Oh, he most definitely is."