Chapter Thirty-One
LUCIEN HAD BEEN QUIET, WHICH WAS his usual mood after blood drawing.
He sipped a drink while resting in his window seat, his eyes closed as if he was sleeping but his hands bunched as if he suffered rising claustrophobia from being trapped.
I’d stayed out of his way as much as I could, afraid to meet his eyes in case he guessed what happened last night and the thievery of his blood.
I focused on cleaning outside: sweeping his private courtyard, weeding the flowerbeds around the wall, and finding I actually liked working with plants. My headache hadn’t gone—I doubted it ever would—but it eased enough that I’d had a rather pleasant time.
Especially as Whisper kept me company, lounging with his tail and front paw dangling over a branch where he lay in the only tree.
By the time I heard Lucien in the kitchen, I’d done most of the chores outside and even planted a few veggie seeds I’d found in the small shed holding the pruning gear.
With dusk falling and my fingernails black from soil, I brushed off the dirt on my knees, shook out the creases in my calico linen dress, and headed toward the tree in the centre of the courtyard.
“I’m leaving.” Smiling into the branches, I tugged Whisper’s tail gently. “You’ll visit me tonight?”
The huge cat yawned with his giant fangs.
I took that as a yes.
Which meant I would actually sleep. I hated that he’d become a strange sort of sleeping pill. My love of napping had faded in the last few weeks, thanks to the other girls getting desperate.
Another few bodies had been removed, steadily erasing the would-be killers. But the more Lucien exterminated, the bolder the ones left behind became.
Not for the first time, I wondered if it would be safer to move into Lucien’s palace. To claim a wing for myself instead of heading to my pavilion on the outskirts of his estate every night.
Squeezing Whisper’s tail one last time, I headed toward the patio doors.
The heavy thud of the panther dropping behind me hinted he’d left his snoozing spot and followed. I shut the door once we were both inside and pulled the curtains, transforming the space into a sanctuary instead of a prison.
Lamps and lanterns cast a golden glow over the huge library shelves, the couch with its panther-shaped divot, the half-set chessboard, and the tower of books by the window seat.
The room seemed homely and calm but after spending twenty years in this place without leaving, it would be just as sickening as a jail cell.
Shaking away those thoughts and shoving aside the pity I felt, I left Whisper to prowl toward the kitchen to find Lucien and slipped out the door—
“Ahhhh!” Clutching my racing heart, I staggered backward.
“Are you always this reactive?” Lucien narrowed his eyes where he stood in the middle of the corridor as if he’d just returned from somewhere.
Dropping my hand, I rolled my eyes. “Only when someone scares me.”
“You’re the one who appeared, not me.”
“Weren’t you in the kitchen?”
“I was but now I’m here.”
I exhaled and forced a smile. “What are you doing lurking about?”
“I was coming to find you actually.”
“Me?”
He nodded, his eyes locking on mine with an intensity I didn’t like. “I couldn’t find you.”
“I was in the courtyard.”
His gaze dragged over my dirt-streaked dress. His jaw flexed. “You’re filthy.”
“That’s why I was going home. To shower.”
Home?
This place wasn’t my home, no matter how much of a routine I fell into.
“Not yet you’re not,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Come with me.” He grabbed my wrist and dragged me back the way I’d come. Whisper grunted in welcome as Lucien carted me toward the centre of the living room where the massive chandelier shone the brightest.
Placing me in front of him, I waited for him to let me go.
He didn’t.
His dark gaze locked on mine, piercing and intense. I swallowed hard as his fingers tightened around my wrist. My pulse slowly climbed, the longer we stared at each other.
Whisper glanced between us, nudging my hip with his nose, breaking the spell between me and his master.
Lucien let me go with a cough.
My cheeks burned.
Nervousness made me blurt, “What are you doing?”
His lips tightened, hard and unamused. “Teaching you something.”
“Teaching me...” I studied him, trying to ignore how good he looked dressed all in black, how severe and deadly. My traitorous heart skipped a beat that had nothing to do with him dragging me back here.
My mind fled back to last night and the accusations Evelyn and Lydia had hurled.
“You expect us to believe he’s that generous to you for no reason?”
“What is it about you that he finds so tolerable?”
Their voices stuck in my head like a thorn...because they had a point.
Why was he so generous to me that he’d willingly bled himself? What made me so different, apart from being able to ease some of his pain?
“What are you thinking?” He leaned forward, his spine curving until our faces were close. His nostrils flared as if scenting all the things I wouldn’t reveal. “Tell me. Why have you gone...sad?”
“Sad?” I backed up, unable to handle his scalding intensity. “I’m not sad.”
“Are you angry that I haven’t let you leave?”
The way he said it...the way he swooped back to his tall height with a callous sneer—like he was guarding himself. His words were sharp, but his eyes were pained.
My heart crashed against my ribs in shock. Delusion. Definitely had to be delusion.
The way he exhaled sharply, straightened too quickly, his careful mask slamming back into place—it hurtled me back to the almost-kiss we’d shared in my room when he’d thrown me on the bed and used me as a strange sort of painkiller.
I’d felt things that night.
I still felt those things but...I’d thought they were one-sided.
However, the way he watched me—the way the air went thick and tingly the longer we stared.
I stopped breathing.
He...he couldn’t feel the same, could he?
The thought was utterly absurd, yet...there was something...
The longer we stood there, just the two of us—like it had been for over a month—I began to wonder.
And my stupid, stupid heart skipped a beat.
“Now you look afraid.” His hair dangled over his forehead as he tipped close again. “What the hell is the matter with you?” His temper appeared. “Tell me.”
I shouldn’t.
I really shouldn’t but...I had no control when he looked at me like that: wary and guarded but intensely curious—like a feral animal wanting to trust but still unable to.
“I...”
“Yes?” He cocked an eyebrow.
My stomach fluttered. Did he have to be so effortlessly gorgeous? So dangerous to my sanity?
Common sense flew far, far away.
“I need to ask you a question,” I blurted.
His arms crossed tight across his chest, biceps straining against his black shirt. “What question?”
God, why?
Why did I say that?
I wanted to take it all back. To tell him to forget it but...after so long on my own. After accepting that I might never have the strength to care for someone again after losing my parents so horrifically, I didn’t want fear to stop me.
I didn’t care that I was trapped in here with him.
I didn’t care all of this was like some nightmarish fairytale.
For now, we had no choice but to be caged together but...what if we no longer had to be enemies?
Forcing myself to meet his eyes, I brought up the one thing I wasn’t going to. “You gave me your blood yesterday.”
His eyes narrowed. “So?”
“You only permit me to stay by your side—”
“Your point?”
“We’ve spent over a month together—”
“You’re saying you’re bored of me already?”
“And now...now you want to teach me things.” I swallowed hard. “What things?”
Sexual things?
Images exploded in my mind of him adding to my daily duties. Of requesting I service him in other ways.
I blushed as red as a rose.
Not because of the highlight reel my thoughts became on how I could serve him, but because I wasn’t running away screaming like I should.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” I squeaked.
“Like you expect me to order you to your knees and blow me.”
I choked. “A-Are you?”
“Wait.” He went rigid. “Is that what you were thinking?”
I looked away, my cheeks about to catch fire. I wanted to deny it. To bluster and deflect but my mouth betrayed me. “You did say you wanted to teach me something...”
“And you thought it meant how to fuck me?” He laughed bitterly, crossing his arms even tighter.
“Yes. I mean...no.” Nervousness made me trip over truth. “I mean, if you were going to add onto my duties...I suppose I would need to be taught.”
God, what are you saying?!
He went fatally, deadly, lethally still. “You’re saying you’re a virgin?”
My head pounded and a wave of vertigo had me wobbling on the spot. “I have zero experience in the bedroom if that’s what you’re asking.” My vision went a little hazy as my mouth decided to get me killed. “Kind of like you, I suppose.”
“What?!”
Oh my God, shut up!
A rush of sickness made me break out in a sweat. “I mean...it makes sense why you haven’t. I get why you haven’t but...if you’ve changed your mind, then—”
“You’ll help relieve me of my celibacy?” he said so quietly, so coldly it crackled with frost.
He’s going to kill me.
Even Whisper pushed himself between us as if trying to defuse the electrical tension.
My eyesight went grey on the edges; I tripped to the couch. Sitting heavily on the arm, I pressed my face into my hands.
It would be better if he did kill me.
At least then I wouldn’t have to die of embarrassment.
I felt him coming.
Felt the prickle of his energy as it reached out, snatched mine, and twisted us together with stinging chemistry.
“So you’ve avoided me all day—deliberately stayed outside and away from my company—because you think I’m going to drag you into my bed?”
I dared look up.
His face was black as a storm cloud. “Well?”