Chapter 31 A Leash & A Bite #3
I stared at the candied fruit, the perfectly-ripe strawberry, my mouth watering despite myself. Valen held it between his fingers like a master teasing his dog with a treat. I wouldn’t beg. I wouldn’t—
Eriseth let out a breathy laugh, the sound like broken glass against my ears.
She rose slightly from her seat, leaning over Valen’s shoulder, her bright, copper hair falling in a curtain that brushed his neck, her blood-red lips nearly touching his ear.
Whatever she whispered made his mouth curl at the corners, and I watched her fingers trail up his arm in a slow, deliberate caress, manicured nails leaving faint red lines against his skin.
Valen’s eyes—those eyes that had been fixed on me with such intensity—flicked away to regard her, the crystallized fruit forgotten between his fingers. Me, forgotten on the floor before him.
Something inside me snapped.
One moment I was staring at the two of them, my stomach clenching with hunger, my mind numb with humiliation. The next, a white-hot fury erupted through me, obliterating thought, reason, consequence.
I lunged forward, not toward the offered sweet but at the hand that held it.
My teeth sank into the flesh between Valen’s thumb and wrist, breaking skin, driving deep until I tasted copper.
I bit down harder, feeling something tear beneath my assault, a primal satisfaction surging through me as his blood flooded my mouth.
Valen’s reaction was instant—his eyes locked back on mine, his lips parting with a sharp intake of breath.
His free hand, still tangled in my hair, yanked backward with brutal force, but I refused to release.
I ground my teeth deeper, holding on like a feral thing, swallowing his blood as it poured over my tongue.
A collective gasp rippled through the hall. Eriseth’s face contorted with shock and something that might have been pure fear. The nobles nearest to us edged their chairs back slightly, as if expecting an explosion of divine wrath.
Our eyes held over his captured hand, and what I saw in his gaze should have terrified me—a bottomless darkness, ancient and cold and promising retribution.
Instead, I felt a savage triumph. I had marked him. I had drawn blood from a god.
I released his hand and sat back on my heels, making no move to wipe away the blood that smeared my lips and chin. Instead, I deliberately licked my lips, tasting him, swallowing with a smile that held all the defiance I’d been suppressing since the collar had been placed around my neck.
Valen didn’t move. Didn’t rage. Didn’t strike me down where I knelt.
He simply looked at me, his expression unreadable save for a faint, terrible smile.
“You will regret that,” he said softly, the words meant for my ears alone.
It wasn’t a threat—it was a simple statement of fact, delivered with the same certainty one might discuss the rising of the sun or the changing of seasons.
As I watched his blood drip from his hand onto the pristine tablecloth, something strange began to unfurl within me.
The metallic taste lingering on my tongue seemed to spread, warming my throat, my chest, my limbs with an unfamiliar heat.
The triumph I’d felt moments before shifted, transforming into something altogether different—a peculiar lightheadedness, a tingling that raced along my nerves.
But I refused to show any outward sign that his blood was affecting me. Instead, I let my grin widen. “Worth it,” I whispered back, my voice steady despite the trembling that had begun in my limbs.
He released my hair with a casual flick of his wrist, as if discarding something of no consequence.
Blood dripped from the bite on his hand, but he made no move to staunch it.
Instead, he lifted his fingers to examine the wound with casual interest, watching as his blood—darker than human blood, nearly black in the candlelight—dripped from the perfect crescent of teeth marks.
“You see?” he said to Eriseth, his voice warm with something like pride. “Still bites.”
Then, turning to the silent, fearful court, he raised his bleeding hand and his goblet in a simultaneous gesture.
“A spirited one,” he announced, his voice carrying to every corner of the hall. The tension broke as he chuckled, the sound rich and somehow more terrifying than any display of rage would have been. “They all break eventually.”
The nobles laughed nervously, retaking their seats and conversation slowly resuming as they realized the entertainment was over—at least for now. Eriseth remained silent, her dark eyes moving between Valen and me with calculating precision, reassessing whatever game she had thought she was playing.
Valen leaned down, bringing his lips close to my ear, his fingers tangling through my braid once more, blood coating the strands.
“When I return to your cell,” he murmured, “you, my little rebel, will learn the difference between my mercy...” His grip tightened painfully. “...and my wrath.”
I twisted my head, forcing our gazes to meet, lips inches apart.
“Like I said,” I whispered, my voice sharp as uncut steel, “Worth. It.”
We held each other’s eyes, neither willing to yield. I had tasted his blood. I had marked his perfect flesh.
Whatever vengeance he planned, I would meet it with this moment burned into me.
He yanked my head away, forcing me back onto the cushion like something discarded.
But in the space between us, I felt it. The shift. The crack in his enjoyment.
I knew our war was not over, but tonight I had at least drawn first blood.
For the remainder of the feast, Valen’s attention did not return to me. Eriseth’s attempts at conversation were met with polite disinterest, her touch subtly, but unmistakably, rebuffed.
If this was to be my victory, it was a hollow one—purchased with pain yet to come, with retribution I could only imagine.
And all throughout the evening, I could taste him. His blood curled in my veins like smoke, like fire, like memory. Something primitive stirred inside me—a pull, a yearning, a curse I had no name for.
Still, the leash remained, tightly wrapped around his fist.