Chapter 84: Eighty Four
My fingers grip hard against the woman’s scalp, my eyes fluttering shut as she takes my cock into her full mouth. Her hair is short enough. A botched, dyed black with strands of blonde. Her tits were slight enough--not as slight as I might have liked, but it is close enough. Her eyes though, I couldn’t quite find any woman with the right colour of amber and gold in their eyes.
But she will do for now.
She looks close enough to Valka to make my heart race and my cock swell with need. I can remember the last time I’d seen her, the trusting expression in her eyes, the small laugh she gave and the fear, horror and anger that flashed on her face as she fell.
I grunt, the warmth of her delicious mouth sucking me dry. I keep my eyes closed. If I thought about her hard enough, I could pretend it was her throat I was fucking. That smart, insolent mouth.
The door swings open, bringing in the music and breaking my concentration. Before my eyelids part, I recognise the soft scent of licorice.
Astrea stands in the doorway, her fingers clenched around the knob as she watches me. Anger lights her eyes and the doorknob crushes in her grip, wringing a dark laugh from me.
I didn’t think she could get any angrier. She has indulged her fair share of lovers in the last few months since we wed, as have I. I barely darkened her door, save for when it was the best time for conception. Not that it ever worked.
I’m almost certain she is barren. Useless.
Her family’s status bit the dust upon the realization and my Council clamours that I take a new mate. I would, if I found anyone worth more than a few rolls in the sheets. Not that I ever had a taste of the same woman twice.
"Get out," Astrea snaps at the human maid, but I cup her head tighter, never taking my eyes off Astrea as I finish with a sharp exhale.
The girl swallows, licking her lips as she stares upon me fondly, sweat shinning on her small breasts. "Would you be needing anything more, Sire?" she says, spreading her legs wider. The heady scent of arousal fills the air and she whimpers, reaching up to fondle herself.
I grin. "Alas, my Queen needs me. Another time, perhaps."
The girl--I didn’t care to ask for her name--bows and takes her clothes from the floor before slinking past Astrea, taking no small pains to avoid brushing against her.
Astrea storms in as I pull up my pants. "Even now, you humiliate me before the humans. It’s only been two days since we arrived here and you’ve fucked the whole castle!"
I tilt my head. "I wouldn’t, if you didn’t bore me so."
"Nothing seems to interest you any more than spilling blood and your twisted obsession with feeble women who remind you of him." Her eyes line with silver. "I do not know what’s come over you, Rafe, why you’ve changed into this person I do not recognise anymore, but the least I deserve is respect and you owe me that for everything you’ve put me through!"
I tilt my head. "What, pray tell, have I put you through? Do you not enjoy the power that comes from being Queen? The wealth? No such shortage of lovers--"
"No." Her lips quiver. "I have been nothing but faithful to you. I don’t do anything with them. I invite them over in hopes to draw your attention but you have never cared. Never looked my way. Even when you’re inside me you call me by the dead man’s name."
I do not bother correcting her presumptions that Valka was a man. Only grandmother knows the truth and it is humiliating enough.
My nostrils flare. "Do not speak of him."
I’d hoped and cursed at the gods to rid me of the useless bond. I got what I wished for more than a week ago. Only, it left in me a void too vast to fill, an emptiness that simply ached. As if I didn’t have enough of that already. I didn’t need anyone reminding me that I’d dealt the killing blow and as such, I didn’t get to miss the dead girl.
Astrea’s dark eyes catch as she draws nearer. "If you knew you liked him that much, maybe you shouldn’t have killed him. It doesn’t matter how many whores you bed. They’ll never be him, because he’s a rotting ghost that exists nowhere else, but in your sick mind. And it’s driving you mad."
My hand closes around her throat before the word ’mad’ finishes leaving her lips and she chokes, feet dangling above the ground as I slam her up the wall, cracking it.
"Rafe," she wheezes, slapping at my hands. "R-rafe. Y-you’re hur-rting m-me."
"Would that this is the only way you can get me up," I murmur, pressing my nose against her cheek, breathing in deeply and a sneer pulls back my lips. Of course, she doesn’t smell like her. They smell nothing alike.
A knock resounds outside my door and a moment later, Sebastian enters. He looks between Astrea and I for a moment before bowing. "Your Majesty. They have arrived. The King and Queen of Ebonheart are at the revel."
I drop Astrea and she collapses to the the ground, clutching her throat and coughing. "And?"
They’d sent their retinue ahead of them and kept us all waiting, like they were more important. It angered me to no end, the insult of having to wait because... what had the blonde one said? Ah. Yes. The Lycan King doesn’t like to be rushed.
The humans had seen no offense with that, glad for the tributes offered, but it had sunk deep into my bones, the irritation of being made to wait. For two whole days. Like they weren’t at my mercy. Like they didn’t need this truce. Arrogant beasts.
Sebastian looks like he’s seen a ghost. "It’s... He... They..." He shakes his head. "You might have to see it yourself."
***
Astrea’s hands clutch my arms a little tighter as we near the front of the great hall. There is a great divide in the human court. On the left, the puny humans stand huddled close to each other, as though that would help protect them if either races chose to break our truces.
On the upper right, my entourage stands. Grandmother, in a black dress and a veil. And a few others from my guard and Council. The latter had insisted on coming along, even if she had never been inclined to show her face to the public before. I didn’t understand why, but I didn’t care enough to ask, either. So long as she stays the fuck out of my hair.
The real reason for Astrea’s stiffened composure is... them. The dreadfully beautiful monsters on the lower right of the hall. Theirs was a small party--though, I knew for a fact the rest of their guards were hidden somewhere in the rafts above, in the shadows, waiting to nock a bow at the first sight of betrayal, and as thus, there were only five of them present.
A voluptuous redhead whose jade green eyes glowed with unholy fire. The slight blonde who had stared me down her nose earlier like I was little more than a bug underneath her boots. The peasant turned General and confidant of the Dark King, Trenton. A burly man, who happened to be the largest I’d ever seen. He stands like a living boulder, staring me right in the eye like there could be no consequence to staring a King in the eye.
The last of the group had been unexpected. The one-eyed brute I’d tossed in the pit during war. He was hale and hearty and seemed to hold a grudge.
Neither of them bow as we walk. No. They bowed to no one but their king and--
A gasp ripples in the air as something ominous swells. My gaze snaps forward in search of the ruthless aura encompassing the hall. It feels and breathes like death, slipping through my nostrils without consent and dropping a healthy dose of fear into my blood.
I catch it by a fist and try discarding it, but that thing only swells higher and higher, and Astrea seems unable to take another step forward beside me, her skin growing visibly pale.
Everything, every living breathing thing in the hall gravitates towards the source of it and I hear the whispers before my eyes ever find him.
"The King..." "By the gods..." "...beautiful..." "His... eyes..." "Terrifying..." "His... Queen..." "...looks so little beside him..." "...how does she survive him..."
I stop by grandmother and Astrea settles beside me, her clutch on me harder as her legs wobble. The former spares me a chiding look before tilting her head forward, too eager to catch a glimpse. It seemed everyone wanted to catch a glimpse. Of the beastly king.
I see him first.
In a room full of people, he is the tallest. The crowd parts around him. No. Not parts. They flee from him just as quickly as they stare, transfixed by him.
Astrea’s breath quickens and lust rolls off her in waves as she stares wide-eyed at him. "Gods above..." she whispers.
Grandmother loosens a breath close to a whimper.
And I stare as well. Because I’d never seen anything in my life that looked like him. Hair pale as moonlight. A face that was both beautiful and masculine in the way that apprehends your senses, even as a man. Shoulders that were both broad and lean, a ceremonial black jacket hanging off them in a way that said he’d rolled out of bed and picked the first thing he could find off the floor and it so happened to still fit right.
On the inside where there should have been a shirt or a tunic and sash, he didn’t bother wearing a single thing. His chest is bare. Skin running down into a pair of pants that were neither loose nor tight fitting in a style I’d never seen before. He drips arrogance and nonchalance, his face set in a perpetual scowl like he didn’t care to be here. Didn’t care about... anything.
One hand tucks into his pocket and the other--
My eyes jerk down abruptly as a familiar scent hits me.