Chapter 71: Seventy One
Valka
Lucien slams my wrist into the door. Once. Twice. Thrice, until my fingers go numb and the knife clatters to the ground. A collective cheer erupts beyond the chamber walls. Someone mutters something about not being able to walk straight for a week.
My knee jerks up hard into his groin, and he hisses through his teeth, breath sharp and pained. "Stop that."
"Why?" I rasp, thrashing beneath his weight. "Does it hurt?"
His hips grind forward -- not intentional, I think, but enough that something hard brushes against my stomach. My heart jolts. "On the contrary," he grunts, eyes flashing gold, and then black. And then gold again. Like he’s glitching. Like something inside is trying to claw its way out.
"Let me go." I twist, snapping against the restraints of his hand. One hand. Just one clasps both my wrists like manacles, caging them above my head to the door.
"I..." His voice is thick and layered, sounding nothing like him. His nostrils flare as black eyes drop to my neck, to the frantic flutter of my pulse. He shakes his head as if wrestling with himself. His fangs elongate, something frightening crossing his features. The sound that escapes him is something between a bay, a snarl and a plea. "Stop... moving. I do not want to hurt you."
"You already have," I bite out, risking snapping my arm out of it’s socket to get him off me in an impossible twist that uses his weight against him.
But Lucien catches me before I can get away, an arm banding around my waist. The world flips. The breath is punched from my lungs as my back collides with the mattress.
I roll off, grabbing at the first thing I can reach and hurl it at his head. It is a whip--why is there a whip in the consummation chamber in the first place?! The crop slaps him against the arm with a harsh ’twack’.
The next thing that flies for him as he advances on me like a man possessed is the set of candleholders, and they light his tunic on fire.
"Shit," he cusses, turning around in wild circles to rip off the shirt and the sight of his bare chest temporarily fries my brain. It’s not the first, second, or third time I see him like this, but it catches me in the gut more this time.
This beautiful, stupid, infuriating creature is now my mate. The gods be damned. They knew they couldn’t get to me, so they fashioned the very weapon built to ruin me in the body of the hottest man alive, and I am somehow supposed to ignore the way the sweat clings to his skin and how edible he looks while killing him.
Even my thoughts don’t belong to me anymore. Neither does my body. My traitorous body wants to fly towards him, not away. Wants to rip what’s left of his clothes off and sink my teeth into him.
The last of the flames die and Lucien looks up. He’s annoyed. And aroused. And losing control. "We can try for a civilized conversation any time now, Valka."
"Fuck civilized," I snarl and hurl the vase at him. He catches it right before it nicks his jaw and ice shoots from his fingers upon contact, freezing the glass, and with a clench of his fist, it turns to small particles of dust-like snow.
I blink, horrified at the display. He pulverized the glass. With one touch.
That thick aura spreads throughout the room, making it hard to breathe as he prowls forward. "If you had been presented the option, you never would have taken it."
"You don’t know that! "And even if you’re right, it doesn’t make it right!"
"Right?" He tilts his head. His hair lengthens, bones shifting subtly beneath skin. Or maybe I am seeing things. "You mistake me for your puny wolves and their little notions of morality. I do not do what is right. I do what I please."
"You’re a selfish bastard."
"Correct." His lips peel back from his fangs. "I am not a good man. I never claimed to be. You fantasized that I was and that is your sin to bear." Another step. Another. My feet skid backward. "When I want something, I take it. Steal it. Kill for it. Make it mine. You knew that. Why does it surprise you now?"
"Because you took the one thing I have ever fought for in my life. My will. Since the day I was born, even the gods have tried to shape me into something I never asked to be, my entire life predetermined for me. But I thought, at least," My voice cracks, fury and heartbreak bleeding together. "He never tricked me like anyone else did. At least he never pretended to be on my side. At least, he was truthful about wanting to use me, sad as it fucking was, and against my own judgement, I trusted in that. I trusted you!"
My tears fall hot and fast. "And you have made me your fool, because you are no different. For all your lofty speeches and disdain for the wolves, you are just as much a savage. A filthy, barbaric animal who takes what isn’t his because the thought of being denied terrifies him. And perhaps it burns you, kills you to know that I would never have chosen you of my own free will."
The last word barely leaves my tongue before his control shatters.
Lucien crosses the distance in a blur, one hand closing around my throat and hauling me off my feet as if I weigh nothing. My toes barely scrape the floor, the burn of his grip sending a rush of terrified adrenaline through me.
"Say that again," he growls, voice low and dangerous, eyes blackened to the edges.
I bare my teeth through the pressure on my throat, nails digging into the iron band of his wrist. "Gladly," I rasp. "You are pathetic. Insecure. Broken. And that is why you break everything you touch."
The moment I say those words, I immediately hate them. And want to take them back.
Something snaps behind his eyes. His growl vibrates against my skin, and the next moment I’m slammed back against the bed. The mattress dips under his weight, his free hand pressing into the bed beside my head as he all but strangles me. "Shut your godsdamned mouth."
"Fuck off and die."
Lucien’s breathing hard, eyes flashing into a permanent black that swallows the white of his eyes as well. He whips his head once, his fingers tightening and loosening on my neck, and he jerks forward, forehead collapsing against mine, breath hot against my lips. "It’s...been...s-so...long since he’s been out. You have no idea what you’re waking, what you do to me--"
He releases a pained snarl, and suddenly, exhales deeply. When he raises his head, I find myself staring into an abyss of complete darkness. The eyes that stare back at me have no recognition in them. It is as though I am staring at a completely stranger in whose eyes rest depthless hunger.