CHAPTER 99: NINETY NINE

Valka

My neck cranes back, eyes trailing the length of the tall door. It is smooth and a deep brown and familiar. The study. The woman whose name was Brenda had brought me here and left to draw me a bath and prepare my bedroom.

Fingers curling and uncurling, I hesitate before finally reaching for the knob and twisting. The world before me opens to a vast room, wide and open to the world outside as the walls on either sides of it is made of glass that over looks the cliffs of Anser and the stretch of the world beyond.

The stone wall beside me is lined with a shelf that runs down the length, with so many books, farther than my eyes can see. A memory tickles the back of my mind...

Toes wobbling on the ladder, I reach for the top section of the shelf to take the book of bawdy tales. Just as my hands finally reach its spine, the ladder tips sideways and I fall with a yelp. Right into thick, waiting arms.

Out of breath, I stare into violet eyes heavy with mischief. "How quaint," Lucien murmurs softly.

I lift the book and whack him in the head with it.

I pull out of the memory, taking one difficult step forward. My eyes snag on the right wall of see through glass, and another memory comes at me like a lance.

My bare back slams against the glass, my nails raking along Lucien’s scalp as I tug a fistful of his hair, tongue scrapping along his fangs, drawing blood that tastes like fire and nectar. "We can’t," I breathe against firm, sensual lips. "I can’t. I’m engaged." I pull back enough to look at him and clear the fog of lust from my mind. "I like this one. He’s been good to me."

Hot hands trail the length of my rib, a single claw ripping my robe open.

My chest swells with want, nipples peaking at his attention. Lucien has a way of looking at a woman with his undivided attention. Like nothing else existed. Like the world might have been falling apart around them and she’d still be the most important thing to him. And now, those eyes gutter with unholy light.

A gasp slips out of me as he cups my middle. "Good?" he muses, running two fingers along the slit of my pussy. "But you like them bad, Lyra." A finger pushes inside me and my head drops back against the glass pane, my teeth catching my bottom lip as he pulls out that finger to the tip, whispering against my forehead as he plunges it in to the hilt, earning a tight squeeze from me. "You like them vile. Older. Despicable. Sick in the head. And obsessed. Why else..." He draws out the word as he fucks me deeper with his finger. "would you be here, taunting me with the spectacular view of your legs, that ass, without wearing any underwear?"

I flee from the memory, panting, sweat breaking on my forehead. I start to back away. Can’t do this. Can’t handle this. I turn back to the hallway, but even there, draws me into another memory.

"Don’t marry him, Lyra."

I scoff, stomping down the hallway. "You’re being unreasonable. You do realize I cannot stay here and hide away with you forever? Our worlds are different. Far apart. My life is in Silvermoor. Yours is in Ebonheart. You have duties, as do I. I have never once asked you to forsake yours. Do not ask that of me. Much less when we do not have any commitments or feelings towards each other."

Lucien’s hand catches my wrist, the strength in his grip frightening, the dark look in his eyes murderous. "So you love him then? This puny little wolf named Malachy. You wish to spend the rest of your life with him, bear his children and then what? What happens when he dies and you live on? What happens when your children die and you carry on living? Will you return to me then and think I will remain here, waiting for the day you own up to your feelings and accept that there is no man out there on earth that belongs with you, except me?"

I lean in close. "I will not come back to you. You abducted me and brought me here--"

"And you willingly followed. Without screaming, if I might add."

My nostrils flare. "I’d much rather be with that puny, little wolf named Malachy, let him fuck me, bear his children, than have you dictate what you think I should do with my life like you own me."

Lucien’s expression smooths to the stillness of stone, and his next words are soft, yet filled with enough danger to make fear jump into my heart. "If you fuck him, I will hunt him down, castrate him and deliver his cock and hands to your father’s doorstep."

I’m wheezing now, hyperventilating. My back hits the wall, a pained moan pulling from me as pain thunders in my skull. The edges of my vision darkens and I blink past the tears gathering in my eyes, blink past the pain to clear it. But then, my gaze drifts to the broad mahogany desk off to the side where paint supplies are arranged with painstaking neatness, and I am drawn into yet another memory.

"Hold still."

The first touch of the wet, bristled brush is a shock. Cold. Rough. It drags across the sensitive skin just below my collarbone, leaving a wide, startling stripe of cool, vibrant blue. I gasp, arching instinctively away from the sensation, my back scraping on the polished wood.

A low rumble escapes Lucien’s. Approval? Warning? His free hand shoots out, pins my hip to the desk. "Still." The command brooks no disobedience. His grip is iron.

He paints, slow strokes. The bristles scrape, tickle, drag. He traces the outer curve of my breast, the blue stark against my skin. He swirls around the peak, the cold wetness making it pucker tightly, achingly. The brush moves lower, down the plane of my stomach, leaving a trail that feels like ice and fire simultaneously. He paints along the sensitive crease where my thigh meets my body, the brush slipping dangerously close to the heart of my heat with each pass. My breath comes in short, sharp gasps now, as my body becomes hyper aware of every nerve ending.

He switches colors. Red. A bold, screaming crimson. He paints swirling patterns over my hip bone, the pigment thick and warm this time. The contrast is dizzying. He dips the brush again, this time into viridian green. Bold strokes follow the line of my other leg, down to my knee. The scents mingle, paint, his ancient power, my own rising, undeniable arousal. It’s thick in the air, primal and sweet.

The brush, now coated in a muddy mix from the palette, trails back up my inner thigh. Higher. Teasing. The rough bristles catch on sensitive flesh just outside my folds. I jerk, a whimper escaping my lips. My hips lift instinctively, seeking... something.

Lucien’s gaze is molten. Fixed between my legs. His nostrils flare, scenting my readiness. A slow, predatory smile curves his lips. He doesn’t use his fingers. He lifts the paintbrush, the wooden handle dark with pigment. He drags the bristles, slick with paint and turpentine, slowly, deliberately, through my soaked folds.

It is with great effort that I pull myself from the throes of my own mind, at which point I fall to the centre of the study, trembling with the pain shooting from my head all the way down my spine, rendering me temporarily paralysed. I stare at the parts of the walls that aren’t made of glass, noting the rest of the portraits.

Every surface of this place has memories I am unsure if I wish to unravel just yet. I’d been eager to have them unspooled, I’d been so eager to find out what had happened, and now, I want nothing more than to run out of here. Because everything I’ve seen now shows that Lucien is no liar.

And the hardest thing ever for a person to accept, is that they might really be the villain. That they are not who they think they are. That there is something inherently dark and twisted inside them. That I’d been engaged to one man and let another fuck me with his fingers against a window. Had lived with said man. That I really wasn’t my father’s innocent daughter. I was never helpless, eighteen year old Valka. That I’d gone to that war camp, not just to protect my father, but to position myself where I would be found again, by Lucien--

I falter on that thought. Where did that come from--

A chokes gasp escapes me as another sharp ache descends into me. Something warm trickles down my nostrils and my sight blurs as I bring my fingers to wipe my nose and it comes away wet with blood, so much of it, it begins dripping against the tiles.

"Your Grace--"

I jerk at the sudden company, turning so fast, I sway on my feet.

Nath catches me before I fall, an arm on my shoulder, steadying me. I’ve never liked the man since he held up a whip and lashed at me with it, and even now, when his fingers close around my shoulder, it is purely instinctual to flinch and step away from him.

His eyes snag on the blood on my face and he withdraw a piece of cloth from his sleeve, handing it to me. "For the blood."

I don’t take it, wiping instead with my sleeve.

"Madja will see you now," he says, lowering his extending hand.

"And the king?"

"Resting," he answers, eyes lowered and never quite looking in my face. I often wondered if it was out of respect, or if he genuinely couldn’t stand seeing the prisoner he had taken, beaten, and punched on different occasions, being Queen. I highly suspect it is the latter. "The poison is flushed from his system, but he’ll need to sleep it off. Depending on strength, the recovery period varies."

I nod and step out the study.

"A missive arrived from Tellere, the city just beyond the borders of Voss." A rolled, sealed scroll is clutched tight in his hands. "It is tagged as urgent, and since his Majesty is... indisposed, I thought to bring it to you."

I take it, break the seal, and my eyes twitch at the sight of the Old Language. Can’t understand a damned thing. Not at all interested in sharing my very obvious embarrassment at my inadequacy in these affairs, I square my shoulders and try to behave like Lucien. I wave dismissively. "You may go, Nath."

The large man seems to stall for a moment, before nodding and stalking off.