20. Preparations （Tied Up）
20
PREPARATIONS (TIED UP)
H er bare skin pebbled in the damp chill of the room.
Osa vigorously scrubbed Luella’s back with a rough towel coated in lavender-scented suds—the very same soapy foam that clouded the water of the bathing pools she was currently in. She leaned forward, hands scooping foamy bubbles and skimming along the tops of the water, gathering them to her chest to cover where her breasts peeked out of the water, ripples of blue cascading over her bare skin and hinting at the rosy flush from the warmth, traveling all the way down her stomach and to her thighs and legs.
The silent maid, Ina, held out a hand, scales glinting on her thin cheeks as she silently instructed Luella to lift one of her legs from the water so she could wash it.
Carefully lifting her right leg—thighs squeezed firmly shut to preserve a hint of modesty from the small spaces where the bubbles and white foam dissipated—Luella shivered from Ina’s gentle touch. Soap was lathered over her calves, the cloth making soothing, circular strokes down to her ankles and over her feet, between her toes.
She flushed a deeper scarlet at the touch against her toes. Toes that Tharen had spoken of owning. As if it were an honor to own her. She could still feel his touch on her, still feel phantom zings of pleasure throughout her body from where she had pressed along his thick, muscled thigh.
Osa started washing her hair, fingernails scratching along her scalp. "Close your eyes," she all but barked.
Luella obeyed, eyes drifting shut as Osa forced her head to tilt back, cool water pouring over her scalp, rinsing the last of the soaps from her wet hair. The female sat down the empty water cup, wringing out a cloth and laying it out to dry over a gilded towel rack. She urged Luella to stand, and Ina silently held out a fluffy towel for her to step into and wrapped it around her wet shoulders. Luella’s finger curled in the softness of the towel, knuckles white as she held it to her chest, a foot lifted as she stepped up out of the pool, allowing herself to be plucked and prodded and made into a perfect little trophy by the two maids.
Her hair was dried and styled into a half-up-do, a few pieces of the hair around her face woven into silky braids, showcasing her arched ears, and clipped back with a golden hair ornament of a serpent twining around a horizontal rose stem.
She turned her head, watching her reflection in the mirror before her, inwardly seething at the sight of the gilded serpent in her hair. Another piece of her, made to be owned by someone else. Another piece taken.
Ina dusted scant face paint on her—a light line of kohl along her lashes and the barest covering of rouge along her cheeks and lips—before urging her to stand.
The whole affair was quiet. And Luella was too riddled with nerves over what she was getting ready to face to voice the questions welling within her.
Court loomed. The captive Princess, forced into a den of dragons and serpents. Much like the little lamb Tharen called her, in their lair, she would be inconsequential prey. They could take her and kill her with a mere thought.
Luella’s throat closed up.
The two females dressed her, not taking their time, but not too swift, either. It was obvious Ina and Osa were following a schedule. All so whoever was charged with coming to get her could lead her into King Vale’s midst and the preying mass of fire-breathers.
The dress was…
She grimaced.
Scant, pale blue fabric, with a plunging neckline so low it dipped almost to her stomach. Her heartbeat was so fast it fluttered the skin above her navel, a spot just waiting to be taken and devoured. Twin slits up either thigh were cut to her hips, with a small piece of fluttering fabric between her legs to preserve at least some modesty. She knew there was an undergarment covering her, but with the way the dress was cut, it still didn’t leave much to the imagination; she might not have been wearing anything under it at all. The sleeves were small straps, and Luella shivered with waves of cold in the room and nerves. She had never exposed so much skin before. Felt far too vulnerable for what awaited her. The shoes were thin slippers, and ribbons of blue wrapped around her calves, exposed with every step from the slits in the gown.
Ina gave her a soft, encouraging smile, scales glinting along her cheekbones as she packed up. Osa’s hair caught the warmth from the candlelight as she headed for the door, the female looking Luella over with poorly concealed disgust.
"Pretty things never last long here. The King will grow tired of you eventually, fae bitch. Those of shadows or sun never did play well with serpents," she quietly seethed, shooting poison-filled daggers with her eyes, red hair swooshing over her shoulders as she left.
Luella staggered back, corners of her painted lips tugging down in a frown from the words. She never thought of Osa as a friend, knew her to be scathing, even, but the words cut deep. The last line lingered, etching a furrow into her brow: shadow or sun?
Solis was the sun, but what was the shadow?
Luella sighed, the sound echoing on the heels of the soft snick of the door shutting as the maids left.
And now, she must wait for someone to fetch her. In her feared anticipatory state, she was almost tempted to place a bet with herself on who it would be this time.
Silent Graves? Untamed Tharen? Sinful Bastian?
It certainly wouldn’t be King Vale.
She hoped it would be Bastian—or even Graves would be better than Tharen. The mage unsettled Luella. He was too wild. Too unpredictable. At least Graves’s silence was a surety, and Bastian’s protection made her weakened toward him.
A weakness that he could never find out about, or else Luella feared he would use it for personal gain—prey on that weakness, lean into it, making her all but putty under his sensual and cold touch.
The door to her room creaked open; whoever it was didn’t even bother to knock.
Graves entered silently, dressed in finery. The finest she had ever seen him. But that finery was cut with a lecherous, secretive edge. His grey shirt was form-fitting, sleeves lined with laces done up from his wrists to his shoulders, where they puffed slightly at the wrists and kept close to his skin with little hooks secured around his fingers. The collar was low, so low it might have shown his navel if the laces weren’t tied so tightly. He wore the same amulet she had noticed earlier, the purple stone almost pulsating in the dim of the early night. The pants were high-waisted and fit with a thick buckle; chains of woven gold were secured to his hip and fell to the side, matching the gold-tipped boots he wore.
Her eyes tracked up to his face.
As usual, Graves’s head was covered, but not with his normal dark hood and cowl. This eve, the male wore a gorgeous piece of silk that acted as a cowl, pulled over the lower portion of his face and obscuring his features entirely. His head was shielded by a thick, black hood, the edges lined with gold. Eyes of lapis lazuli stood out from the shadowed recesses of his garb.
Sinful.
Yet still as untouchable and enigmatic as ever.
She didn’t understand why he covered himself. It surely had to be more than mere shame over his scar. She didn’t think the male to be so vain.
No. This was more than a matter of vanity and appearances.
Secrets clung to this male, and he seemed so untouchable standing there that Luella took a step back, unbidden.
Graves took her in with the same intensity in which she did him, deep blue eyes roving over every inch of her, from her red cheeks—reddened from more than just the rouge—to her slippers, the laces that crawled up her calves. The exposed cut of her gown bore almost everything to him.
Steeling herself, she took a hesitant step forward to his awaiting palm. His cunning eyes shifted along her legs, the faint breeze in the room causing the fluttering fabric to sweep to the side, showcasing the long expanse of her legs, all the way to a spot high on her hips. Attention snagging on the fabric, he waited like the patient watcher he had proven himself to be—focus on the thin strip of material between her legs, covering the apex of her thighs, where she felt a strange sense of awareness.
"King Vale sent me to retrieve you," Graves announced, voice scratchy with disuse.
Her breath hitched as she placed her hand in his. He wrapped his fingers around her flushed skin, thumb pressing into the pulse point below her thumb, where her heart pounded with nerves.
"Very well," Luella breathed. "Let’s get on with it."
"Not so fast." Graves tsked, quickly grabbing her other wrist and switching his hold on both of them to one hand. With his free hand, he pulled something from his pocket.
Not just anything, but a long chain. Golden. Similar to the chains on his hip. He looped the cool chain around her right wrist, and as soon as it was secured, it glowed a faint yellow, similar to sunshine. It warmed her skin but did not burn. Not as she thought it might.
"What did you do to me?" she asked, watching as he moved to secure the free end to the chains along his belt.
"Order of the King. For your protection."
She gave a tug on the chain; the length was long enough that she could stand and not feel crowded by him but short enough that she was forced to where he could reach out and touch her with ease. "For my protection, or so I won’t flee?"
Graves released the chain, the length falling between them and striking his thigh was a soft clink as it hit the collection of swooping chains adorned to his belt—more than just mere decoration, she realized, but there for a purpose, to keep her tethered to him.
"You won’t flee," he commented. He started for the door, and Luella was forced to follow, the thin soles of her slippers padding along the floor as she tripped after him. She wanted to ask him how he was so sure she would not try to escape, but before she could, he spoke again: "The chains were another gift from Bastian. Tharen wanted to use less than pleasant means of keeping you tied to us, but Bastian proposed something a bit more agreeable. You should thank him."
"I will do no such thing."
"You should also be thanking me." He barreled on as if she had never even said anything. "I volunteered to oversee you tonight. It could have been Tharen. He certainly tried to get his hands on you."
He was talking more tonight than she had ever heard. She wondered why he was being so forthcoming. Almost as if he were addled by the prospect of her entering the dragon’s lair. But it couldn’t possibly be. For him to be addled would mean he cared—and he most definitely did not care about her .
Luella tripped along after him, her free hand securing the pieces of fabric of her gown together so she wouldn’t flash more skin in her stumbling haste. With his height and size, Graves’s strides were long, and she struggled to keep up.
They finally arrived at the doors to the throne room. From within, a manner of sounds emitted. Calls, cheers, and raucous laughter, accompanied by the faint, mellow sound of a harp. Her palms grew clammy with sweat as Graves nodded to the two soldiers posted on either side of the doors, in an order to open.
Graves led the way inside, not giving one moment of pause as Luella was thrust into the pit of predators.