Chapter 35 Stark #2
One pounding beat of my heart he was sitting in his chair, the next, Lucien stands over Meryn with a dagger pointed at her jugular, his fangs bared, his eyes burning with malice.
I’m on my feet almost as quickly as Lucien, drawing a concealed blade.
“Hurry!” I send out a pulse to Cratos.
Lucien looks predatory.
He does a nice job of pretending to be insouciant, but I was waiting for the feral creature inside him to come out. Finally, I see it. The true danger lurking beneath his bored, playful veneer.
“Unhand her immediately,” I snap. “My direwolf is on his way, and kings taste just as good to him as anyone else.”
Noemi and Venna also have their weapons fully drawn, but Lucien doesn’t seem bothered by the various blades pointed at him or the threat of a fully grown, battle-tested direwolf closing in.
His grip on Meryn tightens, pinning her to her chair. “If the queen is here under Alistair’s control, she is a danger to all of us, including you. The thrall bracelets give my brother complete dominion over the wearer’s mind.”
That doesn’t make any sense. Meryn’s bracelet doesn’t seem to work that way.
While Lucien is talking, Meryn curves her wrist, angling her own blade slowly. Lucien tenses as it presses firmly against his side, right between his ribs where a simple shove would plunge it into vital organs.
His eyes widen; he wasn’t expecting her to bite back.
“This is a really fucking poor example of diplomacy,” she says, lip curling. “I’m not a thrall. I would be aware if I didn’t have any control over my own mind. Whatever Alistair did with those bracelets, mine works differently.”
Lucien scoffs. “Would you be aware?”
“She’s telling the truth,” I say.
“Killian has influence over my powers, not my mind,” Meryn replies coldly. “He can sap some of them away from me and access the pack bonds.”
Lucien pauses, brow relaxing slightly. And then he fluidly steps back.
The dagger leaves Meryn’s throat, and I drop mine at the same moment. Distantly, I sense Cratos’s pace slow.
Lucien sits, and the Astreonans follow. Not without staring at the rest of us like we’re the aggressors, though. Meryn lifts her hand and lowers it, and Venna and Noemi return to their seats just as the Siphons did.
I don’t move. I stay standing right next to her, rage still coursing through me.
When Lucien sits, he stares at her for a few seconds.
Then he calmly says, as if he didn’t just threaten Meryn’s life, “I’ve never seen a bracelet work this way before.” He’s studying her anew. Reconsidering. “I’ll need to consult with our librarians about this.”
“I have another question,” Meryn says, finally taking her seat, as do I. “Your father, in that memory, looked to be in his midfifties. King Cyril—all the kings before him, in fact, who harbored Alistair—also looked middle-aged. But you’re hundreds of years old and you look young. How does it work?”
“I’m a thousand years old, actually,” he says snidely. He points to the rings in his ears. “We wear one for every hundred years.” I see now—five rings in each ear, ten total.
Elias wears one, so he must be a hundred years old. Ruby wore four; four hundred years.
“Thanks for the fashion lesson, but the aging?” Meryn says.
Lucien leans back in his chair. “The Siphon aging process is different from the human one, yes. We age at the same pace as humans until we’re in our early twenties, and then it slows greatly.
However, our appearance depends on the quality of the blood we drink.
With human blood, you can stay young and handsome forever. ”
He waves a hand at his own extremely punchable face.
“Debatable,” Venna mutters into her food, and he sends her a scathing look. Good to know: Insulting his vanity gets under his skin.
“And if you don’t drink human blood?” Meryn prods.
Lucien eventually takes his eyes off Venna.
“If you drink animal blood exclusively, yes, you will age. Your lifespan is still longer than an average human, but you will be weak. My father was an ascetic whose only mode of pleasure was self-denial. We never saw eye to eye there. I suspect the Nocturnan kings did the same in order to fool the public.”
Meryn takes a breath. “There’s a lot for us to learn about Siphon powers.”
Another amused, seductive look comes over Lucien. “If you have questions, my personal chambers are always open to you, Queen Meryn.”
Something territorial and furious bursts to life in my gut.
Lucien’s teasing glance darts to me, his grin spreading.
I hope his personal chambers are open to me, too—because I’m going to cut his eyes out while he sleeps. He’ll still be alive, but he won’t be able to look at her like that ever fucking again.
Meryn ignores his innuendo. “Okay, so you’ve shown me the truth. What are you proposing?”
Lucien leans forward, serious again. “Nocturna and Astreona do not need to be enemies. Our true enemy is Alistair Brightbane and his vessel Killian. I propose a permanent ceasefire and for our nations to become formal allies in the fight against him.”
Meryn blinks, unimpressed.
I slam a fist down on the table again, rattling all the stupidly gilded silverware, and Lucien lifts his brows. “Did you have something you wanted to interject, Alpha?” he says lazily.
“That’s it? A ceasefire and we become allies? That’s basically the exact same thing your general said to us at the border. Why the fuck did you drag us all the way out here?”
“Stark,” Meryn warns. “We need to hear him out.”
Lucien takes a sip of his golden liquor. “You had to experience Astreona if you were ever to believe that you’d been fed lies for hundreds of years. Plus, I had to see your queen for myself and judge her, of course.”
He lingers on the word see for too long. The nerve of this asshole.
We glower at each other.
“Alpha Stark makes a good point,” Meryn says coolly. “I am enticed by the idea of a ceasefire and becoming allies, but I was expecting more from you. Do you have a plan for how to deal with your brother and his current host?”
Lucien leans his head on his palm, a catlike expression on his face. “Queen Meryn, if you want more from me, I promise I am very giving.”
Before I can stand up and take a swing at him, Meryn reaches a hand down and grabs my knee, squeezing hard. Her touch on me after so long ignites a swirling, impossible need. “Ignore him. He’s just toying with you.”
“He’s toying with you, and that I cannot stand.”
Meryn relaxes her hold on my knee, and I want to grab it, hold her more tightly to me.
“King Lucien is testing boundaries like a rude child. If you let him rile you up, he’s just going to get worse. Cool your fucking head, Daemos, before you start a diplomatic incident.”
“It’s cute how you do that,” Lucien says, a smug smile creeping back onto his face. “You’re talking, aren’t you? I can tell by the way you keep glancing at each other. Not as subtle as you think.”
Meryn’s eyes slice back to him, sharpening. “You’re right. I’m not subtle. What I am is increasingly irritated.”
The shadows in the room start to sway again. So much for not letting him rile us up.
“So, do you have a plan or did you seriously just bring us here to judge me?” she continues.
“Because my country is on the brink of tearing itself apart, and I’d really rather be there, muddling through this whole leadership thing, than here, watching you put on sword fighting shows for your own amusement and experiencing repulsive visions of your orgies!
” Her voice breaks on the last word, shrill.
The whole room goes silent.
Lucien sits back in his chair, letting the points of his fangs show as he smiles widely. “Sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy it. You are my plan, Queen Meryn. I’ve been a beloved ruler for hundreds of years because I know how to delegate.”
My brows furrow. What is he trying to say?
“Be direct,” Meryn demands.
Lucien straightens and says, “If you agree to work together, I will give you complete control of the Astreonan forces. They are yours to command.”