Chapter 50 Nameless #2
She wanted to take from him until he had nothing left to give—a small return for all the lies he’d told.
She didn’t touch him, but let him touch her. Her head tipped back, gasping into the treetops as she reached her peak.
It was so much—
She had to shove at him to get him to stop.
He seemed to love pushing her, hurtling her straight toward another pinnacle. She couldn’t stand the pleasurable abuse.
He pulled his hand from between her thighs. She shifted, feeling his hardness underneath her.
She reached for him, but his fingers wrapped around her wrist.
"Not tonight. I’m too high-strung for you right now. What I want is darker than you can give."
Ordinarily, she’d feel embarrassed, but the warning was said in pain, through gritted teeth. She inhaled sharply, nodded, and placed her trembling palms on his chest.
He tucked her head against the crook of his neck, holding her.
Her eyes closed as the rhythm of his heartbeat, rustling leaves, and rushing wind became a lullaby.
His hand traced over her wings, sending shivers down her spine. When he felt her tense, he paused until her trembling subsided, then he began again.
They spoke quietly—mostly him—about his youth. How he’d come to the treetops, leaping from the branches to trust the air beneath him. The conversation was always light, never delving into the depths of darkness that pressed between them:
The prophecy, the Tenebrae looming, and the fact that she didn’t trust him yet let him touch her and hold her like this.
A few days later, there was the ball.
Vale had come to her and told her about it, parchment in his hands as he’d stood at the threshold of her room. He said it was needed—to show strength. Not just theirs, but Queen Samil’s.
There had not been another attempt on Luella since that day, but Bastian had found tension in the Fallen.
Word of Luella’s abduction had been kept quiet, but they were sure others knew something had happened, for she’d suddenly disappeared for weeks as she healed.
It was only just recently that she was deemed well enough to leave Graves’s island.
She felt fine, but they didn’t want any markers of bruising or wounds on her body in case there were questions.
The mark on her upper arm was a thin, pale line now.
Tharen was almost too meticulous in his healing of her.
Her body was wound tightly from anticipation and trepidation, but most of all from exhilaration. Graves had shown her things. Things she never knew existed. The dark pleasure to be found in violent touches and harsh restraint. She loved it, but did not love him.
Luella doubted she could ever love him. Or Vale or Tharen. They were unlovable. But all in different ways.
Graves for his carefully built reticence. Vale for his indomitable cruelty. And Tharen for his icy harshness, like the crack of a whip against her flesh.
She loved Az. So much. He had been there for her when no one else had. She…
Could love Bastian.
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
Maybe love was too weak a word for what she felt for the vampire. What if she felt the complete opposite for him, and the two strong emotions were so closely entwined they blurred?
Luella shook the thoughts away, stepping into the lounge area as she passed the parted curtains. Sweat slipped down her back from having just come outside. But that wasn’t the only reason.
"Where have you been off to?" Bastian asked her, as he lay on one of the longer, plusher lounges, stone cup in hand and lips glistening red.
Her heart climbed up her throat. "N-nowhere," she replied.
The vampire arched a brow, sitting up and resting the stone cup on the low table. His red eyes took her in hungrily. "You don’t look like you were nowhere, pet."
She blushed, thighs tingling and lips swollen after her… lessons with Graves. "I was practicing my flying."
He stood and stalked toward her like a lethal, graceful predator. His scent wrapped around her as he reached for a tendril of her wind-swept white hair and brushed it away from her neck.
"Was flying all you practiced?" Bastian leaned down, mouth by her ear. The blood clinging to his lips brought the scent of iron. "You forget, we can feel what you do." He pulled away, fingers still brushing over the side of her neck and fluttering pulse. "Don’t lie again, pet."
Bastian let his hand drop, and without another word, he turned and left, swooping down to claim his cup as he did.
She stood there, speechless. "What?" she finally asked into the quiet of the room.
Footsteps echoed off the high, curved ceiling as Vale entered from the long hall that led to one of the study rooms. The dragon shifter saw her, paused, then canted his head.
"What happened?" Vale asked, nostrils flaring.
Luella shook her head. "I—Bastian."
The words seemed to be enough.
Vale huffed a smoky laugh as he walked toward her. He stopped well away, placing parchment on the cushion of a lounge. His golden hair fell into his eyes as he leaned over, and the midday light slanted in through the open archways, highlighting the faint golden shadow of hair along his jaw.
Vale straightened. "Come here, Princess Luella." He said her title like a promise. She hadn’t forgotten what he had told her, what felt like an eternity ago—she would be his Queen.
Luella took hesitant steps closer until she stood near him. Her fingers toyed with the chain of her bracelet.
"The ball is tomorrow evening. Emarelia said she wanted to come see you before then. She and Merath will not be in attendance."
Luella had seen Emarelia many times now. She’d grown to admire the other female, as well as Merath. It was a shame that their reason for coming to the Isles had been for naught.
Emarelia said Tharen was just as suited to help Luella, considering his mastery of the four elements.
She curled her hand into a fist and stared at it. What of her powers of Solis and Luna? She felt no call to the moon or sun. Not as she did the four elements… All she felt was the earth, wind, air, and sometimes, the smallest niggling of roaring fire, welling every day.
"Why?"
"Emarelia doesn’t agree with a ball," Vale sighed. "She has been able to stay at the Isles for so long by being quiet and keeping to herself, but she doesn’t have the stakes that we do. She can kill anyone who comes for her; Merath can take care of herself." Vale met Luella’s eyes. "You cannot."
The words stung so deeply, she rubbed at her chest.
Vale’s gaze dipped to the glittering bracelet on her wrist. His hand flexed by his side, as if he wanted to reach for her—instead, he sat, beginning to unfurl his parchments.
A pot of ink and a quill rested near. He dipped the tip of the quill into the ink and began writing.
The scratch of the quill’s tip on the parchment was hushed.
Luella perched on the edge of one of the lounges, a chasm between them. "What have you been studying so intently?" She stared at the flex of his hands as he wrote.
He glanced up at her. "Covert correspondence from Serpentis. The rebuilding of the castle has begun. I’m needed to write off on some ledgers to account for… losses."
Her eyes widened as she stared at the parchment. From this angle, she saw letters and numbers that made little sense to her, but knowing now what it was, she could only imagine the numbers—made up of the dead.
Because of her.
Harsh wind swept through the room. The curtains rattled on their hooks.
Vale tensed. "They are going to rebuild the throne room entirely, as well as the West wing.
" He tapped a finger on the paper, rings glinting as he turned it so she could see.
His strong fingers traced over the words.
"These rooms have been lost to water," he added, as if to settle her, "and these to flooding.
Since they are starting anew in this wing, I thought we could make use of it and cut down these walls here"—his finger swept over a part of the paper—"for you. "
She looked up from the paper, her eyes blurry. "For me?"
His words had been soothing, yet looking at him, she saw his taut shoulders. "A room fit for a queen."
Her eyes grew more blurry. Tears threatened to fall.
Luella rubbed a hand over the backs of her eyes and stood roughly. "Well, since you are making all of these plans without me, I’ll leave you be."
Feeling powerless, she left, her feet taking her to Az. She fell into her demon’s arms with watery eyes and a quivering chin.