Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Elara
Seventy-six. Seventy-seven.
We think we have her.
Heritage. Original translation.
Curse.
Wax drips from the candlestick onto my thumb, hot and stinging. Maybe Kael isn’t the golden-haired, pitiful hero he paints himself to be, still hunting an angle to break this curse while letting the crown mend him. What does that mean for me?
I pause, leaning against the damp curve of the wall, the stone weeping old fog and last night’s rain. The flame judders against my ragged breath, and my mind goes back to how he found my boot near the door. How he looked at me…and said nothing.
Instead, he gave me a kiss that should’ve felt warm, but felt more like a warning…
If he wasn’t suspicious before, he might be now. If I’m going to defeat this stupid fear of mine once and for all, it has to be now, before Kael posts someone to watch me more closely.
A cold sweat prickles my skin. How can these brothers be so different, yet alike in the worst of ways? Vale lies blatantly. And Kael? I’m starting to fear he might be lying beautifully.
I can’t tell which one is worse between the two. Vale is a scheming cunt, but apparently, so is his brother. Not that I can hold it against them. After all, I am one, too.
I push off the wall and lift my tired leg. Seventy-eight.
These stairs eat breath for breakfast. They wind up the eastern tower in a mean, narrow spiral, each step a shallow grave for ankles that I step into gladly.
Getting distracted by whispers I wasn’t meant to hear won’t change my goal.
Worrying about hidden agendas won’t bring it to fruition any faster.
I tilt my head back, looking up into the gloom where the stairs twist out of sight. My stomach twists right along with it, but I keep on climbing. I’m not here for the memory of his thumb bruising my lip…nor the heavy, dark heat of his breath. No, I’m here to take what he offered.
The rest of the map.
I reach the landing with a swallow that scratches on the way down, the corridor smelling faintly of dust and…yes, carnations. “Vale?”
I lower my candlestick onto a nearby chest and tap my knuckles on the scarred wood of the door. It eases open under the force of my hand, unlocked. Uncared for.
When I step inside, the room beyond is less a chamber and more a forgotten storage closet that found a bed. A place where the castle keeps its unwanted things—like a leftover prince who has no purpose.
Stacks of books teeter like drunken soldiers against the walls, climbing halfway to the ceiling, while an armoire leans crooked on three legs. In lieu of a proper hearth, a squat iron stove chugs in the center of the room, radiating a dry, fierce heat.
It shouldn’t, but the sight amplifies Vale’s insignificance so loudly it almost hurts to look at. To go from heir to…to this? I’d be angry, too.
“Well…” That word is a long drawl, coming from where Vale leans one shoulder against the window jamb, as if he’d been poured into the morning’s dim, a book in hand which he holds angled toward the sparse gray light.
He closes the cover with a snap that sounds like thunder in the quiet room, turning to face me with a slow, predatory curl of his lips. “If it isn’t the little saint.”
Molars grinding together, I let the door click shut behind me. “I’m no saint.”
“You don’t say.” Book tossed onto a nearby table, he pushes off the wall, stalking toward me.
The space is so small that two strides bring him into my personal orbit.
He stops just shy of touching, looming over me, darker and larger than memory served.
He tilts his head, eyes gleaming. “Did the golden boy scare you?”
Heat crawls up my throat and doesn’t even have the decency to feed me a quick or convenient lie. “You know the answer to that.”
Vale hums, a sound of dark amusement. “And you think I won’t?”
That question only sharpens the scathe in my lungs. It sounds like a taunt, a challenge. And damn him for knowing full well that I would never shrink from that. Not when coming from him.
I lift my chin. “I’m counting on it.”
“Brave words.” He steps closer until his thighs bracket my own and trails his knuckles down the side of my neck—cold, like a blade. “Let’s see if you can back them up.”
He doesn’t hesitate. His mouth moves over mine with a drugging intensity, coaxing my lips apart. When I yield, his tongue sweeps inside, reclaiming the territory he marked days ago.
Heat returns to my lower belly with a vengeance that scares me. It makes no sense. I should be repulsed by the taste of him—sharp with arrogance and the bitter tang of his lies—but instead, my body melts under his roaming hands.
They slide down my back, heavy and sure, over the curve of my waist, cupping my rear through the thick fabric of my dress. He pulls me into him, grinding his arousal against my belly. How can he be this hard this fast?
He grabs my wrists, his fingers wrapping around them like iron manacles, and drags my hands to the hem of his tunic—an invitation, a request, and a demand all at once.
My fingers tremble as they curl into the rough fabric. I pull the garment up to the lift of his arms, the motion clumsy and hasty. The moment his head clears the neckline, he tosses the tunic aside, leaving nothing but skin and air between us.
God, he is beautiful.
In a severe, ruinous way.
I’ve seen men before—laborers in the fields, builders on rooftops—but this…this is different. Vale is carved from smooth skin laid over lean muscle, a trail of hair leading down his stomach, disappearing into the waistband of his trousers.
He catches my hands again, pressing my palms flat against his chest. His heart thuds hard and heavy beneath my fingertips, a rhythmic drum of war. “I need your hands on me.”
He drags them down, making them trace the hard planes of his pectorals, the taut ridges of his abdomen, along the dark dusting of hair. Every inch I descend, the tension in him ratchets tighter, stomach muscles clenching under my touch, his hips twitching forward. Seeking. Wanting.
Then my nails brush the cold metal of his belt.
My fingers lock up. The heat radiating from below bites into my skin.
What if Kael finds me like this? Did anybody see me climb the tower? What will—
“Shh…” Vale releases my hands to capture my jaw instead, forcing my gaze to the green burn of his. “Watch.”
His eyes never leave mine as his hands go to his belt. The heavy buckle comes undone with a dull clank. Then the laces, the leather snapping loud enough to make me flinch. But when he shoves the trousers and linen down his hips in one sharp, ruthless motion?
I squeeze my eyes shut as cold fear floods me. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I’m going to choke on this.
“Look at me, Elara.” Vale’s voice drops, a command wrapped in silk. His warm palm frames my face, thumb digging into my cheekbone hard enough to bruise. “Open your eyes.”
When his hand retreats, I force my lids to part, bracing to find him looming over me. But he hasn’t moved closer.
He has stepped away.
He stands naked in the center of the room, unashamed, a fallen prince illuminated by the hellish glow of the iron stove.
Veins wind like blue rivers along his forearms, pulsing beneath fair skin.
He is terrifyingly substantial, from the powerful sweep of his thighs to the calves that look carved from rock.
And there, at the junction of those powerful legs, a thicket of black curls frames the heavy, swollen reality of his desire.
He turns his profile to me, unbothered, bending to pick up a piece of firewood. With a rusted squeal of hinges, he opens the stove door and feeds the fire. Slowly.
Giving me time to observe…
Breath shaking, I do just that, drinking in the threat. The muscles in his shoulders ripple and bunch as he moves. The firelight licks at his skin, gilding the hard muscle of his ass and the long, powerful lines of his legs.
He straightens and turns back to the window, casually leaning against the stone wall, ankles crossed, arms loose.
He looks bored, as if we were discussing cloud patterns and not standing on the precipice of my ruin.
But his body betrays the lie. His cock stands out from his body in a thick, angry curve, obscenely hard, jerking upward with a heartbeat of its own.
A single, clear bead of fluid wells at the dark slit of the head, glistening there.
Vale slowly lifts his arm, palm up.
Then, three curls of his fingers.
Come here.
I swallow hard, the sound loud in the quiet room. My instinct screams at me to bolt, to run back down those stairs until my lungs burn, like prey fleeing the trap.
But he doesn’t move.
He doesn’t stalk.
He doesn’t use his strength to pin me against the wall or force my knees apart. He’s letting me walk into the fire myself in a twisted sort of kindness—like a predator leaving the door to the cage open—but it gives me enough air to breathe.
This is what I came for.
I force the air into my chest and unlock my knees. One step, then another. The floorboards creak beneath my shoes, ticking off the seconds of my surrender until I stop in front of him.
“Touch me,” he rasps. “Explore me.”
My hands lift. They shake, just a little.
I place my fingertips on his shoulders. The skin is scorching, the muscle beneath hard as iron.
I trace the lines of his collarbone, pulse hammering violently in the hollow of his throat.
Down the plane of his chest, over the clenching muscles on his stomach… until my hands hover over his navel.
Vale watches me, his eyes dark pools of starving patience. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t grab. He just burns.
With trembling breath, I lower my hand. My fingers brush the dense hair, the heavy weight of his sac, the granite length of him until I reach the weeping, velvet head.