Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Nikolai
“You missed a spot.”
The words come out cold, exactly as I intend them.
She startles, nearly dropping her duster. “I’m sorry?”
“The third shelf. You missed the corner.”
Claire looks at the shelf. It’s spotless because she’s been meticulous in all her work, but she doesn’t argue, just dusts it again with a frown on her face.
Good. Get angry. Hate me. Ask to be transferred to another part of the castle. Part of me was hoping she’d quit already, or at the least would’ve demanded to be transferred to the stables.
But she is here because of me.
Now Claire is in my space, touching my things and her scent is everywhere.
Part of me enjoys the idea of having her, here, amongst my personal items. She knows so much about me now, having been in every square inch of my private quarters.
If I’d sent her to the stables like I’d threatened, I could think clearly and make rational decisions about how to handle this impossible situation.
Instead, I find flaws in her flawless work because I cannot admit I want her bent over my desk, naked.
“You’re holding the duster wrong,” I grouse.
We both know I am not an authority on how to hold a duster.
“How should I hold it, Your Majesty?” she questions with a crook of an eyebrow.
“With competence,” I mutter.
Her jaw tightens and she quietly continues her work.
I grip my pen until my knuckles ache. Will this torture ever end? I feel compelled to speak to her, about any topic, no matter how ridiculous. “The spine of that book should face outward.”
She purses her perfect lips. “It is facing outward, Your Majesty.”
“It is upside down.”
She turns the book around. It looks exactly the same. I’m nitpicking a maid’s cleaning technique because the alternative is crossing this room and putting my mouth on her throat.
Her scent intensifies with every minute she spends in my study.
My fangs ache, wanting to extend and sink into her skin while I cover her with my body.
I have to consciously keep them retracted.
Jaws clench so hard my teeth hurt. My shaft has been half-hard since she walked through the door, and I’m grateful the desk hides my lap from view.
The Blood Calling is screaming at me. I am unable to focus on my work.
I track her every movement like a predator tracking prey.
The curve of her neck as she reaches for a higher shelf.
The way her uniform pulls across her hips when she stretches.
The golden hair escaping from its pins, wisping around her flushed face.
That perfect ass. I want her bent over while I take her from behind and sink my teeth in her shoulder to keep her still.
Last night I lay awake for hours, her scent still lingering on my sheets from where she’d made my bed. Sleep was impossible because my body refused to calm. The hardening of my cock would not ease no matter how I shifted or what I tried to think about instead.
I have never experienced anything like this. In thirty-two years, I have never once felt desire. Never been hard. Never understood what the Korvenian poets meant when they wrote of sexual passion and the triggering scent of a mate’s blood.
Krovenians do not pleasure mate. We do not feel arousal until the Blood Calling chooses our mate. This is how it has always been. I assumed I would feel nothing until I took the elixir with Serina. We would be breeders and nothing else.
Now my body is awakening in ways I don’t fully understand, and I have no idea how to make it stop. I remain half-hard beneath this desk. It doesn’t seem to matter whether she’s in the room or not.
I need to speak with my brothers and my cousin.
Viktor went through with an arranged marriage with his late wife and did not find it terrible, because they became good friends.
They were never passionately in love but found their match highly tolerable.
Sebastian and Maxim are next in line if I am removed from the throne.
We are meant to meet this afternoon to discuss Council matters, but perhaps I will tell them the truth instead.
“Those books are meant to remain in that pile on the table,” I tell her.
“I’ll leave it, Your Majesty.”
Is that a smirk on her face? Is she laughing at me?
“See that you do.”
The anger burns beneath my skin. I’m not even sure who I’m angry at anymore.
Myself, for being so weak and requesting her presence instead of her absence.
For wanting her so badly I can barely think.
Her, for existing, being human and completely, utterly inappropriate in every possible way.
Or do I blame the gods, for their cruel timing.
The Council announced my engagement this morning to Princess Serina.
And simultaneously, the Blood Calling finally arrived, not for the princess, but for a human servant who was caught going through my desk.
Why now, after thirty-two years of nothing? I had made peace with duty and accepted that passion wasn’t meant for me.
“The angle of your wrist is wrong.”
She stops dusting. Her restraint must be fraying. I can see the tension of her shoulders and hear her quickening heartbeat.
Do it. Get angry. Call me an asshole again. Give me a reason to fire you.
But she just adjusts her wrist and keeps working.
If I wanted to design the most inappropriate mate possible, I couldn’t have done better. A human foreigner with no status, no connections, no understanding of Krovenian politics. Possibly a spy who was clearly looking for something in my study yesterday, no matter what pathetic excuse she offered.
And yet my blood chose her. And I’ve been taught my whole life that the Blood Calling is never wrong. So why would it choose someone so impossible?
She’s near my desk now, close enough that I can see the pulse fluttering in her throat. Close enough that her scent is overwhelming, flooding my senses until I can barely remember my own name.
I think about King Aldric. The cautionary tale every royal child learns.
Three hundred years ago Aldric experienced the Blood Calling for a human woman. A farmer’s daughter, of all things. He claimed her anyway, made her his queen, defied the Council and everyone who told him it was madness.
He lost his throne.
The nobles revolted, pure-blood families withdrew their support and the kingdom fractured into civil war.
Thousands of Krovenians perished in battle.
Aldric eventually died in exile, broken and alone.
His human queen had already succumbed to her slightly shorter mortal lifespan, their half-blood children were scattered across the continent, stripped of their titles and inheritance.
It’s the only recorded case of a Krovenian royal mating a human and it ended in complete disaster. I’ve been told since I was a child that Krovenian royals follow arranged marriages or the kingdom suffers, bloodlines weaken and everything our ancestors built will crumble to dust.
“The papers on the left side of the desk need to remain undisturbed.”
Claire freezes mid-motion. “I wasn’t going to touch them, Your Majesty.”
“You were looking at them.”
Guilt flashes across her face before she controls it.
Interesting.
Yesterday, before I caught her with the photograph, she had been examining my documents. I still don’t know why and I’m surprised at my own disinterest. I haven’t even bothered to alert my security team.
“I was looking at the desk,” she says carefully. “Which I need to dust. Around you.”
Would I lose my throne for this woman?
Am I willing to throw away everything my ancestors built for a human I don’t even know?
The thought should horrify me. Instead, I find myself wondering what she would taste like if I kissed her.
“Are you suggesting I’m in your way?”
She turns to face me. Meets my eyes with that defiance that makes my blood sing and my cock throb.
“No, Your Majesty. I’m suggesting nothing.”
“You’re a poor liar.”
“I’m an excellent liar, actually. I’m just choosing not to lie right now.”
Gods help me. She’s magnificent when she’s angry. My eyes drop to her mouth before I can stop myself. Those soft, pink lips, slightly parted. I think about kissing her. Biting her lower lip until she gasps. Sinking my fangs into her throat while I sink my cock into her wet heat and—
I force myself to look away and slam the door shut on those thoughts.
“Are you staring at my breasts?”
Heat rushes up my neck as I look up to meet her gaze.
She places a hand on her hip, her eyes narrowing. “You were also staring at my ass earlier. What is going on here?” she questions.
“Nothing,” I clip. “You are working and I am also trying to work. Finish your duties and leave.”
A snort escapes her lips as she moves away, but she does not leave the suite. Claire instead returns to the bookshelves on the far side of the room. And I suspect she sways her hips intentionally as she moves.
The guilt gnaws at me. Yesterday I called her species stupid and unworthy of my goodwill. I was lashing out, trying to create distance and make her run away before I did something I couldn’t take back. Instead, she called me an arrogant, condescending asshole and stood her ground.
Humans aren’t stupid. I’ve gone to university with them and have known many humans my whole life.
I respect her species. Anger felt safer than this terrifying, all-consuming need.
She should hate me for what I said and request a transfer and disappear from my life forever.
But she keeps showing up, meeting my eyes like she’s not afraid of anything.
I respect her for that. Admire her, even.
Which makes everything so much worse.
“Why did you request me back?”
The question lands like a blow to the chest.
“You caught me going through your things,” she continues, stepping closer to my desk. “You called me stupid and threatened to send me to the stables. And then you specifically asked for me to be permanently assigned to your private chambers.” Another step closer. “Why?”
I don’t have an answer. Not one I can give her.
“If you think I’m a spy or a thief,” she presses, “why would you want me here, where all your personal belongings are?”
“I never said you were a spy.”
“But you must think it. And also, it’s obvious that you’re angry at me for it.”
I exhale. “Yes, I think you were doing something you shouldn’t have been doing. Your explanation was laughably inadequate.” I hold her gaze, searching for answers I know she won’t give. “You’re hiding something, Claire.”
Her name in my mouth feels dangerously intimate.
“Everyone hides something, Your Majesty, including you.”
“Yes, but right now we’re talking about you. What are you hiding?”
“I promise it’s nothing that can hurt you.”
“Let me be the judge if that’s true.”
We stare at each other across the desk.
“I can’t tell you.” Her shoulders slump and she returns to cleaning.
I watch as she reaches on the tips of her toes for a statue on a top shelf. It starts to wobble.
I’m out of my chair before I realize I’m moving and behind her before I can stop myself.
“Allow me.” I grab onto it before it can fall and shatter on her head.
She freezes. I hear that rapid flutter of heartbeat that tells me she’s aware of me, aware of how close I am. I can smell the rush of blood beneath her skin. Can smell something else too, something sweeter. Arousal.
She wants me as much as I want her.
The knowledge nearly brings me to my knees.
I should step back. Every rational thought screams at me to put distance between us before I do something unforgivable. But the Blood Calling has me in its grip and it won’t let go.
She’s so close. If she leaned back even an inch, she’d be pressed against my chest and my tented shaft would rub against her. I could wrap my arms around her. Pull her against me. Let her feel exactly what she does to me.
“You’re too short for this shelf,” I rasp.
“I was managing fine.”
“You were about to knock this onto your head.”
“I was not.”
“You were.”
She turns to face me.
Mistake. For both of us.
We’re inches apart. I can see the flush spreading across her cheeks. The way her lips part on a sharp inhale. The pulse hammering wildly in her throat, calling to me like a siren song.
My fangs extend fully. I cannot stop them. Cannot control anything anymore.
“Your Majesty—”
“Why do you argue with everything I say?” My voice is a growl now, barely recognizable.
“Why do you criticize everything I do?”
“Because—” I stop. Swallow hard. My eyes drop to her throat, to that delicate pulse point, and every instinct I possess screams at me to BITE. CLAIM. MARK. Make her mine so completely that no one will ever question who she belongs to.
“Because what?” she whispers.
I shouldn’t say it. I should step back, dismiss her, pretend none of this is happening. I should remember my duty, my kingdom, the cautionary tale of King Aldric.
But I am tired of pretending. Tired of fighting. Tired of this constant, aching want that never eases no matter how cruel I am.
“Because you make it impossible to think,” I say roughly. “When you’re near me.”
Her eyes go wide.
I watch her process my words. The confusion. The disbelief. The spark of something that looks terrifyingly like hope.
I step back abruptly, putting distance between us before I do something neither of us can take back.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” My voice is clipped. Furious. But not at her — never really at her. At myself. At my weakness. At the Blood Calling that is systematically destroying my carefully controlled life. “You need to leave, right now.”
“But you just said—”
“Leave,” I snarl, exposing my fangs.
Claire sucks in a breath and races out of the room. My office door clicks shut behind her.
I rub my palm against the back of my neck.
What have I done? Would I give up my throne for her?
I still don’t know. But for the first time in my life, I’m asking the question and that terrifies me most of all.
Every logical, rational, responsible part of me knows that Claire is a disaster waiting to happen.
I should banish her from my chambers and my kingdom.
I should.
But the only thing I can think about is how long until she returns.
I glance toward the window. Heavy clouds roll in over the mountains. A winter storm is brewing. The staff will need to prepare, and travel will become treacherous by nightfall.
My brothers will arrive soon for our meeting. Viktor, Sebastian, and our cousin Maxim. I will have to face them and tell them the truth.
That I don’t know if I want to fight this anymore.