CHAPTER 245: SPURNED

"My fangs are not going to be a problem!" he snapped, and Aira swallowed, somehow understanding without him saying so that his hunger had changed.

It was not the familiar hunger that accompanied their ordinary coupling; this was sharper, more urgent—a need that sat under his skin like a coiled thing and made the air between them taste different.

Instead of rising and leaving, Aira leaned into the table, letting the solid wood steady her. She waited for him to come closer, to bridge the space with that slow, inevitable motion he favored, and she murmured to herself as she did, a thread of determination wound tight in her chest.

’It’s just sex. Just until you get what you want,’ she told herself, a small litany intended to keep her steady.

Her resolution shattered the moment Zyren’s hand found her. Pleasure ripped from her in loud, involuntary sounds; it burst from her mouth and rolled through every pore as if some inner fuse had been struck. Wherever he touched, heat flared beneath her skin and set her to writhing with a need that felt like flame. The sensation only magnified when his fangs sank into her and he finished inside her at the same instant.

"You’re mine," he murmured into the hollow of her neck as he drew his fangs back, his voice low and possessive. Aira could not answer; her body still trembled from the aftershocks of what had just happened, muscles slack and senses awash with the memory of him. When he began to thrust again, deliberate and relentless, she felt something inside her shift.

In that moment she realized with a crude, startling clarity that she did not care. A fierce impulse rose up: to bind herself to him, to call him hers, to claim him in a way that frightened her more than it tempted her. She fought the urge with everything she could muster, drawing on every scrap of will and stubbornness she had, because the thought of surrendering fully to that need was more terrifying than any wound.

With Zyren’s decree having been pronounced, the lords saw no reason to linger together. Conversation thinned into low exchanges and then dispersed into the hush of departing footsteps. Lord Virelle and Lord Noctare moved off almost immediately, their heads bent close as they whispered in tones so low it would take effort even for another lord to catch their words; the cadence made clear they were speaking in code.

Only Lord Drehk and Lady Lythari remained for a moment longer. As Lord Drehk prepared to leave, Lady Lythari fell into step beside him, making plain with her posture and proximity that she had no intention of parting company. When he climbed into his carriage with the intent of returning to his villa, she did not let him go without an attempt.

"Is there something you’d like to talk about?" Lord Drehk asked, his voice polite and measured.

Lady Lythari answered by shaking her head in a slow, seductive motion. She had intended once to wait—patient, expectant—until he showed interest or grew bored enough to seek her out. But whatever patience she had cultivated over decades had frayed; tonight she could no longer afford to be coy.

"I wanted to know if I could invite you over to my villa for the night," she asked outright, no hesitation in her tone. She used every ounce of her allure, letting the power she wielded wrap around her words and make them heavier with promise.

Her dress clung to every curve, the fabric outlining the shape of her body, and she gave her cloak the smallest of openings—enough to reveal the swell of her breasts pressing against the cloth. "We are immortal," she said, "but there’s no reason why we can’t take part in mortal pleasures." She invoked memories of nights years ago at her villa, trying to remind him of the reckless pleasure they once shared—a history she hoped would loosen his reserve.

Lord Drehk glanced at her once, then looked away, and the fleeting dismissal struck Lythari like a slap. "I’m not interested, Lord Lythari. You can find someone else," he said with flat courtesy. "I’m heading back to my villa." His words had the cool finality of a closed gate, and for the first time in a long while, Lythari felt embarrassed by rejection. Her cheeks burned; anger flared like a hot brand beneath her skin.

His refusal stung all the worse when he did not bother to engage her any further. He stepped into his carriage, ordered the driver to go, and the horses pulled them away. The motion of the carriage moving off left Lythari standing in the cold air, her fury coiling, her vision sharpening with crimson heat.

"My lady—I could find out more by buying his servants," her personal maid suggested, stepping near. The woman’s eyes glowed with the same deep red that marked their kind, and her manner suggested she knew how to pry open secrets and had the rank to do so.

"Do it," Lythari snapped, wounded pride and desire woven into the command. "I need to know why he would spurn me so! He’s a man—there’s no way he doesn’t use that thing between his legs!" The words were crude and blunt, but they were also practical; the maid bowed immediately, showing she would carry out the order without question.

Lythari drifted toward her own carriage and allowed herself to be taken back to her villa, already planning what she would do next to restore her standing or at least to exact a small reprisal.

Meanwhile, Rymora had turned to leave the throne room and return to her quarters in the servants’ wing, breathing a small sigh of relief at being alone. She had intended to slip away unnoticed, to let the day’s tension unspool into quiet routine. Instead she froze, stepping back with a sharp intake of breath when she found Lord Drehk’s butler waiting for her in the corridor.

It was obvious he had been there on purpose; his posture, the set of his jaw, and the formal, precise way he spoke made the reason for his presence clear. "My lord demands your presence tonight," he said, and the phrasing left no room for refusal. If there were nights when she could avoid Lord Drehk’s summons, this was not one of them.

Her heart began to pound harder than it had at any point that day. She had been grateful—nearly reverent that the lords had not sensed her transformation when she had shifted into a wolf; some benevolent oversight had spared her from immediate discovery. Yet the butler’s presence and the summons to the villa filled her with fresh dread. If Lord Drehk suspected anything, if he had begun to piece together what she was, she would be in grave danger.

’Does he know... does he suspect...’ the thought clenched at her mind, but she forced herself to act. She decided, in that instant, to halt whatever was unfolding between them before it could spiral. If he learned she was a werewolf, he would kill her before her pack could kill her for sleeping with him. Expecting anything less from a vampire lord would be foolish.

She nodded to the butler, her breath quick and shallow, and followed as he led her to the waiting carriage. Her pulse hammered as she climbed in, but she set a final plan in place like a shield.

’If he threatens to let everyone know that I can write something a servant shouldn’t , I’ll just tell everyone that Aira taught me,’ she thought, trusting that Aira would stand by her and that the secret would be buried in shared complicity.

’We have sex and that’s all. It’s time to end it.’ The resolve steadied her hands as she slammed the carriage door and ghe carriage began moving.