Chapter 80: Eighty
Lucien
The lunatic was half-naked--
in my shirt, no less. My custom silk, tailored to perfection, now clinging to her damp skin like it was made for her instead. Her hair was soaked, dripping down her neck, ruining the fabric, and she was eating like a starved beast. The maids had barely turned their backs before she’d devoured half the tray meant to feed a small battalion.
I watched, equal parts horrified and intrigued, as she inhaled a pie whole, crumbs at her lips, not a shred of shame in sight. No decorum. No restraint.
Graceful as a mountain cat, wild as a heathen.
"Is your name really Lyra?"
"Hm-hmm," she hummed with a mouthful, scarcely sparing me a glance.
"You are no mercenary, are you?"
She shook her head. "Fighting was the only way to get rid of the anger. Spent three days knocking men around and getting paid for it, and I decided, why not?"
"Interesting." I swirled the wine in my goblet, watching her suck the strawberry filling off her fingers. It’s a careless action, but I find that something cramps in my belly anyway. I brought the goblet to my lips, averting my gaze. "And if I may ask--"
"You may not--"
"What maddening anger could have driven you to a pit of killers to vent?"
She brought the chocolate cake to her nose and sniffed. She seemed to like them a lot. "Father was trying to marry me off. Didn’t want to. Ran away from home."
That cranked up my eyebrows and curiously, I asked, "And? Did you wed?"
"I went straight to his home from the pleasure house. Told his family I was no virtuous maiden. And I’d been fucked by one of the beasts we’d spent years warring against. I must have smelled enough like you to sell the story because in the years that followed, the men called me a whore and no one sought my hand."
There was a lot to address in that, but my body tightened upon the third sentence, a deeply seated hatred freezing my blood. "You’re from the other side of the wall. You’re one of them."
She stopped chewing, amber eyes lifting to mine as she finally seemed to remember her side manners and wiped her mouth and hands with the napkin. "Why?" she asked. "Will you kill me for being the enemy?"
My jaw clenched, flashes of dead bodies slamming into me. I unfurled from the couch, a slight shake to my bearings as the grief swarmed into me in waves. I’d lost my entire family, an entire line of Draemonts to one of them. And I’d kissed one of them, dined with one of theirs.
It tasted like a sin. A betrayal.
"Once you’re done with the supper, get out. Be glad that I do not wring your neck and tear it off your shoulders for your deceit--"
"Deceit?" she echoes, up on her feet and peering me down her nose even if she was much smaller than I. "When did I? You knew what I was when you stuck your tongue down my throat. What difference does it make if I am from within the walls of your kingdom or from the other side of it? Does it make me less of a person? A peasant, maybe? A barbarian? A demon? Does it make me deserving of the deaths you force upon us every year..."
She went on and on, raging about how our war was a useless, bloody and barbaric one with no end or explanation. Understandable, since they hardly knew our history, but at some point, her words faded out.
Striking. She was rather striking. Her chin was delicate yet proud. Her clear golden eyes were enthralling, the shape reminding me distinctly of the tales of sirens. They narrowed. They sparkled. Full lips, lower one plump and rosy.
Those lips were moving but I didn’t have the darnest idea what the fuck she was rambling about, because my thoughts had taken a dangerous road into a sensual fantasy that involved Lyra’s flushed flesh, that smart mouth and the sound she’d made when she’d sucked my fucking neck twenty whole years ago.
The roar of blood pounding in my ears must have deafened me. I struggled to focus on her words, which faded back just in time to hear her say, "And if I’d deemed to tell you upon our first encounter that I was from Silvermoor, would it have deterred you from wanting me?"
"Want you?" I bit out, flustered and irritated out of my fucking mind. "You are far beneath me. I could never want the likes of you."
"That’s not what it felt like when you were thrusting--"
"I was drunk! I never would have kissed you of my own right mind!"
The lunatic, gods forsaken wench reached for the hem of the shirt and pulled it smoothly over her head.
She was utterly bare, paler underneath and my nostrils flare at the unwelcomed thought of perfection.
Only one woman ever pulled that thought from me and it disturbed me greatly that whenever this half-breed mad woman was around, I was too busy trying to predict what she might do next to think about Ilya. It was like she encompassed all of your senses, riding you of every other thought but her.
I averted my gaze, but then wondered why I was trying to be a gentleman when I was anything but. So I stared. And immediately wished I hadn’t, because I knew that her nakedness, the dizzying curve of those small, firm breasts, the smooth arcs of wide hips and lower, they would haunt me for a long time.
"You’re not drunk now," she said, staring directly at my groin, at the growing bulge there.
"Put your godsdamned clothes back on," I snarled.
She tossed the shirt on the ground instead. "Say please."
Frustration chewed away at my usual cool and unending patience. "What is your goal? You were just trying to kill me!"
She made a guilty expression that I don’t buy. "I get antsy when I’m close to my monthly cycle."
"You’re lying to me."
Her expression instantly changed and her eyes grew distant. "You wouldn’t believe me, but I’m having a bit of an identity crisis and I came to an epiphany that the only way I can survive and stop this thing from consuming me whole is if I killed what it considered ’home’. Then it’d have nothing left tethering it here."
She sounded like a blathering mad crone. "And I am that home?" I asked, bewildered.
Her golden eyes lifted to mine ever so slightly, searching them intently for something, and for a moment, I thought she might really believe the crazy thing she just spat out, but then she dissolved into feats of laughter, holding her mid-riff. "Got you for a moment there, didn’t I?"
The snarl that ripped from me was anything but cordial. "Get. Out."
She had the audacity to scowl at me before tugging the shirt back on. Then she raised her hand in surrender, crossing my bed chamber liked she owned it. I glared down at her as she dramatically wrapped her hands around my arm, uncaring that I could freeze her to death with half a thought. "Father kicked me out. So, I’m... temporarily homeless. Let me stay for a couple of days. You won’t even notice I’m here." She batted her pretty lashes at me. "Please? Pretty please?"
She was lying again. It would seem all she ever did was lie. When my mouth formed around a stern no, she sprang up like a damned cat and pressed those warm lips to my cheek bone, the brief contact temporarily stripping me of thought. "Thank you, Luke!"
My cheeks flushed.