38. Kyros
Chapter thirty-eight
Kyros
A knock at the door pulls my attention from Astraea, but not my eyes. She's quiet, still breathing harder than usual, but she doesn’t seem upset about what I’ve told her. If anything, she looks, if I had to put a word to it, almost— pleased?
“What?” I call out around her where she stands between my legs, allowing my hands to continue exploring the dips and curves of her body.
She watches, lips parted, and eyes hooded as I allow my fingers to dip along the hem of the tight training pants she's grown a liking to wearing.
Her breath hitches and stomach flexes at the light tickle of my touch, and our eyes meet with a mirroring need for each other.
“I’ve brought the dresses, Lord Kyros.” The woman’s muffled voice comes from the other side of the closed door.
Brynne. She was quick. Closing my eyes, I let out a heavy sigh as I wrap my hands around the backs of Astraea’s legs without responding to Brynne.
My cock strains painfully, trapped in my trousers, as I press my forehead to her abdomen.
A random thought of seeing her swollen here with my heir fills my mind, and oddly, I find I want to live in that moment with her, and I wonder if she’s ever thought about having children.
There’s still so much I want to learn about her.
“You have to let her come in.” Astraea says quietly, interrupting my out of place thoughts, and I groan.
I don't want to let her in. I want to lock myself in this room for weeks and only live feasting on every inch of her body and filling her with my come. Letting my head tip back, she looks down at me. The shadows in the room cast over her face make her blue eyes look like two entrapped moons. “You’re the one who asked her to do this task. I would have been fine wearing what I came here in.” I watch her mouth intimately as she speaks.
The beautiful pout of her full lips and the way her tongue works to enunciate each one in that sultry voice of hers.
She tilts her head when I say nothing, waiting for a moment longer until she softly runs the tips of her fingers along the stubble on my jaw.
Her touch is intoxicating. The knock sounds again, grating on my nerves. My eyes close on reflex.
“I don’t have to do anything.” I say, vexation thick in my tone. She smiles coyly, and fuck if the curve of her mouth won’t be my undoing.
“Kyros.” She scolds, tilting her head and quirking a brow. Oh, nope. That’s the tone that will be my undoing. I narrow my eyes on her before squeezing her legs and groaning loud enough even Brynne may hear.
“Come in.” I reluctantly, albeit playfully, call out.
Astraea tries to move, but I keep her trapped firmly between my thighs.
A grin that I struggle to suppress plays on my lips.
Brynne comes bustling through the door a moment later with a mound of fabric piled so high in front of her face she can hardly see where she's going. Shuffling to the changing screen in the corner, she places the assortment of dresses down and then turns with a satisfied huff at the work she just accomplished. Her eyes land immediately where I am holding Astraea’s legs and the handful of her thighs I have greedily claimed.
I only let go when I see it—that pretty pink that blooms in Astraea’s cheeks.
She clearly notices Brynne’s eyes rounding at the indecency of the moment.
“Fucking beautiful,” I whisper, smiling smugly at my twin flame. The color flares, deepening as she realizes what I mean, and so does my grin. Leaning back on the bed, not much different than the last time Brynne was here, I finally look over to the handmaiden. “I want to pick the dress she wears.”
“Of course, Lord Kyros.” Brynne says without objection, but Astraea scoffs loudly as she turns and walks away from me.
It was much louder than I think she had meant it to be, especially since she hides her face from the handmaiden.
She’s just embarrassed about being caught in this situation.
My eyes drop to the sway of her hips, and I am intent on continuing to tease her.
“Problem, Shula?” I ask coyly, and she rolls her eyes as she looks over her shoulder, ensuring I see it.
I grin at the attitude she gives me. It hints at the woman I saw while she was drunk at the inn, as it continues to surface.
What I’ve come to realize is the suppressed pieces of her true identity are coming out—the real woman she was told to keep hidden due to her father’s rules.
We have so many parallels to our lives that only become more starkly obvious the more time we spend together.
I’ve never been able to embrace my true self.
I’m not even sure I know who that man really is, but at least with her I finally feel that I want to find out.
“What do you know about picking a dress for a banquet?” She half laughs, trying to keep a serious face as she begins picking through the fabric laying over the stool just beyond the screen.
The way the window allows the light in, I see only half of her body and the other half just a shadowed silhouette. I can’t help but watch both.
“Do you want me to answer that?” I ask, and she peeks from behind the screen, giving me a deadpan look.
My teeth rake over my bottom lip as I try to contain my growing enjoyment from goading her.
Truth is, I don't know the first thing about picking a dress for a woman, but something about the idea of her wearing something that I’ve provided—something that is inherently my choice—unleashes a primal need in me.
Marking her as mine. Pushing up from the bed, I cross the room and slowly walk around her.
Chuckling when I get an exasperated gasp as I do.
I rifle through the fabric just as she was, but when my fingers brush across silky black in a sea of cream, lavender, and blues… I pull it free from the pile.
Holding the dress out in front of me, I turn to face Astraea.
Her cheeks are still painted, and those full lips are parted as she watches me just as closely as I’m watching her.
She holds her hands out as I offer the dress of my choosing; I lean close and whisper, “I don’t need to know anything about picking a dress for a banquet.
I only need to know how quick it will be to take it off. ”
“Kyros!” She hisses my name between her teeth, and my laugh booms out of my chest, startling Brynne, who has made herself busy straightening the rest of my chamber.
“Save that for later, Shula.”
“You have lost your damn mind!” Astraea shakes her head, finally holding the dress out to look at it. The look on her face is anything but pleased, though, and my brows stitch together as I try to figure out why.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, reaching for her. She shakes her head again, taking a step out of my reach.
“I can’t wear this.”
“Why? I thought it would make your eyes really stand out, like two stars in a cloudless night sky.” She blinks up at me, and the sadness on her face makes all the lighthearted teasing that had been bouncing between us disappear.
“This dress is backless, Kyros.” My jaw ticks as understanding dawns on me. She thinks that she can’t show her body because of the scars she carries. The physical reminders of the man who raised her and the punishments he inflicted.
“You can, but if you don’t want to, I understand.
You can pick another one. Just know, though, that those scars only prove your strength.
It’s not a weakness to survive, Shula. Taking ownership of those marks on your skin takes the power away from the one who put them there.
” A sort of darkness crosses her eyes as she stares down at the dress, contemplating my words.
I don’t break my gaze until Brynne opens the door to a knock that I was too distracted to notice at first. I can hear Viltarin on the other side before the handmaid looks over to me nervously and requests I come and receive him.
“I’m going to step out into the hall for just a minute to talk to Tarin.
Try as many or as few dresses as you’d like, Shula—it’s entirely up to you.
” I lift Astraea’s chin with my thumbs curled under her jaw, and I stare into the cerulean blue of her eyes.
“You determine how much he takes from you now. He’s not here to create any more scars unless you let him continue to mark them—up here.
” I say, kissing the space between her brows.
“Thank you.” She whispers with her eyes bouncing between mine. She holds my wrists where I keep her face cupped between my hands, and I shake my head.
“Please don’t thank me. I don't deserve it. Things are not always going to be easy with what we have coming, Shula. Are you sure you want this? I’m going to take the throne of Diemos.
Claiming it as my own. As ours. You’ve been through this once before—you know just how ugly things can become.
” She's quiet for a moment, her lips pressed together in a line.
She looks down at the dress, where she's laid it on the top of the pile of fabric.
“This is different. You’re meant to be a king, Kyros. You’re not a monster.” She finally says. I feel my shadows quiver along my skin at her choice of words. She's wrong.
“I may not be a monster to you, but I have been… to others. And I will be again. Even if I was born with the crown destined for my head, I don’t know what it means to actually be a king.
This path is not the one I intended to take again.
There was a point in my life that I came to terms with giving up the crown, but fate has brought me back to where I was always supposed to be, one way or another…
The throne is just a chair, Shula. It’s you that fate has been guiding me to all along.
So, yeah. You’re right. This is different.
I’m not just a man taking a kingdom that doesn’t belong to him.
I’m a man who is begging fate to be worthy of a queen like you and a man who is willing to do just about anything it takes to earn that worth—even if it means being a monster to everyone else.
” I don’t let her respond. Instead, I seal her lips with mine.
The kiss is fervent, encompassing everything with every ounce of sincerity I feel.
Those words are perhaps the most vulnerable I have ever said, and I mean every single one.
Then, as quickly as it started, I reluctantly take a step away.
Her fingers hover over her lips as though she is trying to keep the feel of mine there.
Her other hand grasps at the closest flat surface, trying to keep herself steady.
Carefully, I take another step away from her.
If I don’t, I will be demanding Brynne leave and claiming more of her right now.
When I turn around, Brynne is staring, but it’s not the scandalized look she had entered with. No, the expression is different, and in the moment, I think I see a look of adoration shining in her gray eyes. She dips into a low bow as I approach.
“Take good care of her; anything she needs—”
“Of course. I will,” Brynne nods, not needing me to finish my thought and bowing lower.
“My King.” The title surprises me, but of course she would have heard my declaration.
I was hardly quiet about it. I clench my jaw tighter as I pull the door open.
It feels heavier than usual as I take a step through it, away from Astraea.
Glancing over my shoulder, I take a look back at the one thing I know I can’t fuck up again.
My future stands there, blue eyes staring back at me, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t want to look at the past because the future can’t come soon enough.