Chapter Six – Altair
Chapter Six
Altair
I stand in front of the mirror and examine my reflection with a critical eye. The advantage of being a wyvern is that even though I’m exhausted and in pain, it doesn’t show on my face.
I reach for my shirt and pull it on, then grab my jacket. The moment I shrug it on and it tightens around my body, I wince. The pain flares across my back. I have to force myself to straighten.
I unfurl my wings, letting them spread wide despite the way it makes every nerve ending scream.
The wings tremble slightly before I manage to control them, and I tuck them back against my spine.
I comb my hair with my fingers, smoothing the golden strands into place, and then I run my hands down my clothes to make sure everything is perfect.
When I’m satisfied that I look exactly like the cold, imperious lord everyone expects, I leave my room.
I don’t know what to do with myself. My thoughts circle back to Tressa and her rage earlier. The way she touched me when she cleaned the wine from my lap, how it nearly undid me completely. I walk quickly through the palace corridors and emerge into the rose garden.
It stretches before me in the late afternoon light, beautiful and romantic.
Ancient stone statues rise between the rose bushes.
They are covered in climbing vines heavy with blooms. I pass a statue of a wyvern frozen mid-flight.
There’s another that depicts coiled snakes emerging from a fountain, water trickling from their open mouths into the basin below.
The copper has turned green with age, giving everything a strange, otherworldly quality.
The scent of roses hangs thick in the air, almost overwhelming, and thorny vines creep up the iron trellises that line the paths. Shadows fall across the cobblestones as the sun begins its descent, making the whole place feel gothic despite the spring warmth.
I walk for a while, following the winding paths without any real destination in mind. I look up at the sky. A flight would be nice right now, I think, feeling the urge to shift and take to the air. But my back is in too much pain for me to shift.
I’m not mad about it. This is what I wanted.
The only way I can survive each day is if I put myself in enough physical pain that I can ignore the mental and emotional torture I’ve been feeling for years, since I was a child.
The physical acts as a buffer, a distraction, something I can control when everything else spirals beyond my grasp.
I still don’t know what to do with myself.
I have work to do, paperwork that’s been waiting for me in the library for days now.
I should go and work on the estate accounts, on the correspondence from other noble houses, and all the tedious responsibilities that come with being the heir to House Aurellion.
But I know I won’t be able to focus. Every time I try to think about something else, all I can see is Tressa.
I wonder constantly where she is in the palace, what she’s doing, whether she’s thinking about me the way I’m thinking about her. I have to fight myself to not go looking for her, to not summon her immediately just to have her near me.
Eventually, I give up on the pretense and decide to just go back to my chambers. As I cross through corridors and rooms, the servants shy away from me.
I pull a book from the bookshelf – some dry tome about the history of the Kingdom of Aurumveil that I’ve been meaning to read – and I settle into my favorite armchair near the fireplace. I open the book and stare at the pages, but it’s impossible to focus on the words.
All I can think about is how delicious it was when Tressa got so angry at me that she insulted me and hurled the leftovers at my face, and stormed out of the dining room. The way her eyes blazed with fury, the way she refused to be cowed by me no matter how much I pushed her…
It’s only been a day, but I already feel like I’m addicted to her. Addicted to making her angry at me. Every time, she ends up giving me exactly what I need. Her hatred, her rage, her defiance – all of it feeds the dark, hungry thing inside me.
I’m afraid I might have made a mistake bringing her back to the palace. Her presence might end up destroying me. But at the same time, I can’t fight it, I can’t resist the pull she has on me. And if Tressa does end up destroying me, then maybe that’s good. It’s exactly what I deserve.
Hours pass, and I’ve read half the book, but none of it has penetrated my consciousness. I just need to see her. The need is overwhelming, consuming, impossible to ignore any longer.
I close the book and set it aside, then I close my eyes and focus on the gold cuff around her wrist. I visualize it in my mind and send a pulse of magic through the connection.
I can feel when the cuff starts burning her, because I feel a burn in my chest, right over my heart.
I connected the cuff to my own magic, so I can control it with a simple thought.
Ten minutes later, there’s a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I say.
I watch as the door opens and Tressa enters my chambers.
I can see how tired she is. Her skin is flushed from the hours she spent in the sun washing my clothes, and her light brown hair has come loose.
The old uniform hangs on her body in a way that makes her look smaller than she is, even though she’s not necessarily a thin person.
There’s still anger in her eyes as she approaches me.
“What do you need?” she asks.
Some of her bite has left her, but not all of it. Never all of it.
“Make the fire,” I tell her.
She sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes, and I have to suppress a smile. She walks to the fireplace and kneels to arrange the kindling and logs. Within moments, she has a fire crackling to life. She stands and turns back to me.
“What else?”
I relax deeper into my armchair and prop my legs up on the ottoman in front of me, getting comfortable.
“For now, I don’t need anything else, but why don’t you go ahead and stand there in case I think of something later.”
“You just want me to stand here?” she asks, disbelief in her voice.
She huffs out a breath, but she moves to the window and tucks her hands behind her back as she stares outside.
“Of course,” she whispers under her breath.
I shoot her a glance, then return to my book.
For the next hour, I pretend to read while trying my best to ignore her presence.
Which is impossible. I can smell her skin from across the room.
Her scent makes my head swim. She smells of flowers and spring, of detergent, of fresh air and perspiration from her hard work today.
It’s intoxicating, maddening, and I want to drown in it.
No matter how hard I try not to look at her, my eyes sweep toward her constantly.
But she’s not looking at me at all. She’s staring out the window at the front of the palace.
I specifically chose these chambers because I wanted to keep an eye on everything, to see who’s coming and going at all times.
She’s uncomfortable, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
She’s tired and probably in pain from standing for so long.
I hear her stomach rumble, a low growl that carries across the quiet room.
I remember she didn’t eat anything today.
I myself ordered the servants and the cook not to give her anything to eat.
She’s supposed to eat with me and only me.
I close my book and look at her.
“Go and bring me dinner,” I say.
She throws me a glare that could melt stone, but she leaves without argument.
While she’s gone, I go into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, trying to clear my head. I straighten my back and notice with disappointment that the pain is gone. My body has healed itself, as it always does.
When I go back into the sitting room, Tressa is already there, setting up the table for me in front of the fireplace.
I sit down, and she begins serving me. The first course is a hearty soup garnished with thin slices of mushrooms. The second is seared duck breast with a cherry reduction, the meat tender and pink in the center, served with roasted root vegetables glazed in honey.
The third course is a rich stew made with wine and tender cuts of beef, accompanied by fresh bread still warm from the oven.
And for dessert, there’s a tart filled with berries and topped with spun sugar that glitters in the firelight.
This time, when she pours me wine, she doesn’t spill it onto my lap.
I’m almost disappointed. I’d give anything for her to touch me again.
It doesn’t matter how she touches me. I’d be happy if she hit me, slapped me, dug her nails into my skin – as long as she gives me her attention and I can feel her hands on me.
Tressa becomes increasingly uncomfortable as I eat my dinner, standing there and watching me consume course after course while her stomach must be eating itself from the inside.
“Sit on the floor,” I order her.
She hesitates for just a second, and I see her glance at my tail where it rests coiled beside my chair. Then she does as I say, lowering herself to the floor with her legs tucked underneath her. She sits close to the table.
She’s become scared of my tail, I realize, and that’s the only reason she follows my orders now.
She knows that if she doesn’t, I can easily make her.
That knowledge makes my chest ache. I hate myself for making her feel so scared and threatened by me.
But at the same time, I can’t help myself, because the only way to make her give me her attention is to push her.
Once Tressa is settled on the floor, I pass her my plate, which I fill with my leftovers.
Tressa hesitates again, staring at the plate with something that looks like despair crossing her features, but eventually she accepts it.
“Eat,” I say.
She looks at me, and there’s so much humiliation and anger in her gaze that it nearly makes me flinch.
“I will eat because I am hungry,” she says. “But don’t think you have broken me.”
I grin at her. “I hope I haven’t.”
Then I watch her as she eats my leftovers. Even though she’s hungry and ravenous, even though she must be desperate for food after not eating all day, she eats as slowly and elegantly as she can. She refuses to show me how desperate she is, maintaining her dignity even in this humiliating position.
After she’s done, I tell her to clean up.
“Take everything back to the kitchen, then when you return, you will run me a bath.”
Tressa gets up and starts clearing the table, stacking the plates and gathering the silverware.
“Can’t you run your own bath?” she mutters.
“Not once since I was born have a run my own bath,” I say. “Why would I start now, especially when I have you?”
She scowls at me and leaves with the dirty plates balanced in her arms.
While she’s gone, I go into the bathroom and remove my jacket and my boots.
When Tressa comes back, she finds me standing in the middle of the palatial bathroom in only my crisp white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to my elbows, and my light pants. I am barefoot on the cool marble floor.
I cock an eyebrow at her when I catch her staring at me, then I motion to the massive tub that dominates one side of the room.
Once again, Tressa rolls her eyes and goes to turn on the water. She checks the temperature and deliberately turns it as hot as she can, so hot that steam rises from the surface.
“If that would be all, I will retreat for the night,” she says.
“Why would you think this is all?” I ask, moving closer to her. “You are to help me undress.”
Tressa stares at me in shock, her eyes going wide. She shakes her head.
“I will not help you undress. You are not a child.”
“I am your lord,” I say, my voice dropping lower. “And what I ask you to do, you will do.”
“I may be your servant, but I am not your slave. And I don’t appreciate you treating me like one.”
I smile at her and start unbuttoning my shirt.
I look at her as she looks at me. Her eyes trace the path of my fingers moving down the row of buttons.
As each one comes undone, I reveal more of the pale skin of my chest. When I get to the last button and shrug the shirt off my shoulders, letting it fall to the floor, Tressa shakes her head.
It’s as if she’s regaining her senses after being caught in some kind of trance.
“I will not be humiliated like this,” she snaps at me. “This is where I draw the line.”
She turns on her heel and walks out of the bathroom, then out of my chambers. She slams the door so hard that the walls shake.
My first impulse is to run after her and make her come back. Force her to undress me and assist me with my bath. Because there’s nothing I want more than for her to be with me, near me, looking at me and touching me.
There was something in her eyes when she watched me remove my shirt, something that looked almost like interest. I wonder if it was attraction… If only for a moment…
I know what I look like. No female – human, wyvern, or dragon – can look away from me when I’m in her presence. It’s just a fact of my existence.
But does Tressa find me attractive? And even if she does, to some extent, does the way I look excuse my awful personality? Does it make up for the cruelty, the humiliation, and the pain I keep inflicting on her?
With a sigh, I finish undressing and step into the tub. I submerge myself in the hot water, letting it rise to my shoulders.
I feel it caress the healing welts on my back.