Chapter 21 Whispered Through Tears
WHISPERED THROUGH TEARS
LUELLA
Cold and weighed down by anguish, she drifted down the darkened halls, without a path, letting her feet take her wherever they might lead.
She stumbled in the dark until she came upon a small room.
The wooden door gave way under her palms. As she entered, she was greeted by the sight of shimmering glass bottles, stacked atop one another, fitted into symmetrical holes in the wooden panels.
Thick netting kept them secured, so they would not shatter on the floor with every wave.
It smelled of dust and thick liquor; the burn was unfamiliar to her.
She had drunk before at Solis, and a few glasses had been forced upon her in Serpentis—but nothing so heady.
Breathing deep, she felt the urge to sneeze.
But there were no windows. No light, not even a candle.
It was perfect.
Luella let the door fall closed behind her, the wood rough under her bare feet as she wobbled into the room. It felt just like when she had been sightless. Her hands were before her, searching, reaching.
She wasn’t sure why she had sought out utter darkness, but her time robbed of her sight was something that she often thought of. It haunted her. Tempted her with the memory of giving in, relying on her other senses, feeling weightless—if only for a moment.
Her hands ran over the dust-caked edges of the glass bottles, and she found herself sitting heavily on the ground, wings behind her, crushed against the wall.
Her fingers traced the shape of what must have been wooden crates, caged on either side of her.
She fit herself deeper between them. Nestled, hidden.
"I am the Princess of Luna." Strangely, her voice did not waver, but it was soft. Not a broken sort of softness, however. More akin to resignation.
Among the scent of liquor and shrouded in darkness, time passed.
After a while, the burn in her nostrils faded to a dim memory. She wanted to have it back—it distracted her from the emptiness inside her.
"No, not emptiness," she breathed. She was far from empty.
She was full.
Of everything.
She fumbled for the glass bottles, and they clinked slightly, rolling against each other from her touch. Pulling one free, she felt the shape of it in her hands, skimming up to the corked top.
She shouldn’t. But she did.
Luella tugged the cork free with effort, feeling the muscles in her shoulders and back twinge as she finally got it free with a quiet pop.
Rich liquor wafted from within, and she brought it up to her lips, nose wrinkling when she tasted the dust stuck to the glass on her tongue.
She wiped it away with the pad of her thumb, then she fit the lip of the bottle to her mouth, tipped her head back, and let the burn of the liquor slide down her throat and wash away the truth pounding inside her like a war drum.
Bottles clinked on the floor as the ship rocked, but she was too far gone to care.
Voices pierced the hazy darkness, and she bundled a bottle close to her chest, hearing no liquid slosh within—empty. Like what she wished she could be.
Light filtered onto the floor as the door creaked open, bringing with it a wash of voices.
"Luella. There you are. Fuck. We’ve been looking for you."
She knew that voice.
"Tharen," she mumbled lazily.
Her head lolled against the wall, the wood brushing uncomfortably against her wings, but she was too cozy to move. She wished she always felt like this.
Something tapped against her cheek. "Luella, did you fall asleep? Why are you in here? Let’s get you to a bed."
Hands fit against her shoulders, poised to move her, and she waved them away. "Leave me alone."
The hands stilled. "Open your eyes, darling."
That was Vale. She felt him before she saw him. Embers.
"I don’t want to. I want to stay in the dark. Just leave me be. Please, Vale?" she whispered, slurring slightly.
It was that slur that made the two voices near her curse.
"You’re drunk?" Tharen lightly tapped her cheek.
Luella grumbled, finally opening her eyes. "Maybe." She covered the empty glass bottle in her lap with her hands.
Through bleary eyes, she saw Vale and Tharen both kneeling before her in the dark. Thin strips of amber light from the hall illuminated their backs, making them both appear angelic. She raised a hand and traced the shadows surrounding them. "You look like me."
Vale’s hand moved from her shoulder to the side of her neck, gripping it. "You drank yourself into a stupor so you would not have to deal with your emotions?"
With how he held her head, she couldn’t look away. The liquor was stronger than any she had had before, and she wasn’t sure how many bottles she had indulged in, but it had been enough to make everything hazy and her lips loose.
Sadness clawed inside her, the magic she had called back roaring to life. The darkness, the way Tharen loomed by her side, his hand still hovering in the air before her, made her recall that day—when her whole life had changed. The nightmare clung to her. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.
"You know, I realized why this whole time, I’ve been struggling to understand you when you say you won’t f-force me," she started, feeling their confusion. "It’s because I remembered. And I keep remembering."
"Darling, are you well?" Vale’s voice shivered over her flesh.
"No," she sobbed. "I’m not."
Tharen sighed, and she watched his icy eyes in the dark, throat tightening as it brought more memories to the surface of her dazed mind.
"How much did you drink?" He grabbed the bottle from her lap, tilting it to see that it was empty.
The ship rocked, and another bottle rolled, hitting her hip.
Tharen took that one, too. "Do you know how strong this is?
What were you thinking?" Concern laced his words.
"Don’t pretend to worry about me. You know you don’t care," she hiccuped.
Tharen’s hands tightened around the neck of the bottle.
"You want to know something, Luella?" He said her name like a curse, like he hated the feel of it in his mouth and wanted to spit it out. "I do care about you. I care about you so much it makes me fucking sick, and I wish I didn’t." He shifted until his face was all she could see, even with Vale’s hand on her neck. It was too much like her time in the Temples, with both of them crowding her. Her body filled with heat. "But I can’t stop. So don’t make me try, and for the love of the gods, don’t question it. "
Her heart stuttered in her chest. "I wish… I didn’t remember any of it." Because then maybe his words wouldn’t feel so hollow.
Tharen searched her eyes, but it was Vale who quietly asked, "Remember what?"
"That night, when Tharen came for me." She shuddered, staring right into the eyes of the male himself as she spoke.
"When you dragged me through the halls, and it was dark, but I could still see flashes of images.
Females on the ground with b-blood on their bodies and torn gowns.
" Tears blurred her vision as she looked at Vale, finding his brows low, etched with sorrow. "Your soldiers r-raped them."
She exhaled raggedly, the words filling the room, unable to be ignored.
It had taken her a while to remember. She had endured so much in such little time.
The horrors she had faced had stacked on top of each other, compounding until it was one thick mass, and she couldn’t discern one nightmare from the next.
But the liquor made it easier to wade through the broken pieces of her soul.
"That is what you think happened?" Vale asked her, his hand still on her neck, trapping her.
Luella nodded, unable to speak. All of her words had been used up.
She wanted to press closer to the fire inside of Vale. Even drunk, she knew it would burn her. Maybe she wanted to be burned.
"Luella." The sound of her name told her how serious this was. "That is not true. I thought you knew," Vale stressed, shifting his hold to grip her hands. "We thought you knew."
The magic within her pulsed, and she felt how desperately it wanted to break free; a small whimper fell from her lips as she struggled to keep it caged.
They must have thought it to be a sob, for Tharen moved back until he sat on his haunches at her side, head tipping against the wooden wall, leaving Vale in clear view.
The King’s expression was unreadable to her, but she did not need to read it—not with how she felt him.
Their thread was wrapped tightly around her heart, tugging.
Each tiny pluck of the strands of their bond was filled with wretchedness.
Possession. Consuming ownership. And an inner turmoil that reminded her of her own.
A constant war to keep something greater than yourself leashed.
His dragon. Vale knew what it felt like to cage an untamable force.
"Solis was corrupt. We did not realize how much until we understood that the King and Queen made a deal with the Tenebrae for you.
Immunity from his Umbra, in exchange for harboring a glamored fae babe.
But the Umbra still snuck through the cracks.
They were in hiding. Only a few. But that is all the Tenebrae needs.
Just one." Vale held her eyes as he spoke, the darkness giving the three of them a strange home to speak their innermost thoughts.
"One turns to two, to three. Until there is nothing left, and you will never know because they hide so well. "
She shivered, finding her body leaning closer to Tharen. His snow-like scent burned her nose with every inhale, but she relished the sting. It woke her up.
"It wasn’t your army that hurt the females?" Luella whispered.
"No," he said emphatically. "I will not lie and tell you the army of Serpentis is all good. They are not. They’re soldiers.
Made to fight and hurt and conquer. I cannot tell you that one of my soldiers has never hurt an innocent before.
Because they have, but they are dealt with.
" Violence tinged his tone, but it made her feel safe.
His words rang true in a place deep within her.
"That night, the females you saw, that was not my army acting of their own volition.
It was the Umbra trying to turn others."
"Turn? You said something before… I thought they bite.
Are they like rabid animals?" Her sluggish, drunk mind worked to remember the day when she and Az had fled.
When she had come face to face with a shadow-eyed Umbra.
Graves had found her and been so worried that she had been bitten.
And again, in the chaos of the throne room, when revelers had turned on each other.
"Not quite. They can hide, completely unknown, and come out whenever the Tenebrae demands it."
That was terrifying.
Tharen spoke, and she jolted. She had almost forgotten he was there.
"They can turn another through bodily fluids.
Biting is the easiest." Her head felt too heavy for her neck as she stared up at him.
Even seated, he was still so much larger than her.
She blinked to clear the darkness at the corner of her eyes. "Sex is another way."
An invisible weight released her from her shackles. "Oh. That makes sense. I may still be naive, but that does involve… fluids?" The words kept spilling out, and her eyes widened with every one.
"That was supposed to be an inside thought," Tharen commented. Maybe it was the liquor, but she sensed fondness in his eyes, displayed in how his side leaned into hers, holding her up, wrapping around her, and keeping her safe.
"I didn’t mean to say that," she agreed slowly. "You’ll keep me safe, won’t you?" She looked to Vale, then Tharen.
"We will keep you safe, darling," Vale murmured. He moved until he sat at her other side, and she was trapped between them both, but in her inebriated state, found she wanted for nothing less.
Her pounding head dropped to Vale’s shoulder.
"You don’t want to hurt me?" she asked, her voice barely above a breath.
The dragon shifter hummed, a sound suspended between yes and no.
"Not in the way you’re thinking," Tharen answered lowly. "If I hurt you, it’ll be with your permission, even if it’s whispered through tears. And you’ll love it. I promise."
"Tharen." Vale’s voice sharpened. "Mind your tongue."
Luella scooted down until her head could rest on Vale’s chest, her legs outstretched, with one foot settling on Tharen’s thigh. "You’re so grumbly," she murmured, cheek pressed into Vale’s shirt. He smelled of salt, wind, and smoke. "You smell better than the alcohol. I could get drunk on you."
"You have to admit, she’s so much more fun like this."
Vale’s hand landed on top of her head, and she sighed as his fingers sifted through the strands. "I will not admit anything."
"It’s okay, you know. She won’t remember come morning." Tharen rolled up the hem of her flowing pant leg as his calloused fingers brushed over her calf in soothing strokes.
"But I will."
The steady rocking of the ship made her heavy lids flutter shut, and nestled between a dragon and a warrior, she drifted off into sleep, only just aware enough to feel how the well of magic within her grew content in the presence of these males.