Chapter 48 #2
I moaned into the kiss, arching toward him as my manacles cut into my wrists. I needed more—more contact, more relief from the strain.
As if sensing my discomfort, his hands slipped from my hair to curve beneath my thighs.
With one fluid motion, he hoisted me up, strong fingers digging into the soft flesh of my legs as he guided them around his waist. My body instinctively responded, thighs tightening around him as my weight shifted.
The pressure on my shoulders eased immediately, blessed relief flooding through my aching muscles as I settled against him.
I gasped at the sudden intimacy of our position, my core pressed directly against the hard planes of his abdomen.
My manacled hands twisted uselessly above me, fingers flexing with the desperate need to touch him, to grip his shoulders, to bury themselves in his hair.
The cuffs bit into my skin as I strained against them, a whimper of frustration escaping my lips.
Valen’s grip tightened around my thighs, pulling me even closer, the shock of his strength sent a thrill of heat coursing through my body.
His mouth moved against mine with an increased urgency, the kiss deepening as if we were both trying to quench some unquenchable thirst. It made me dizzy, desperate for every inch of his warmth.
The heat between us ignited as one hand slipped from my thigh, trailing a line of fire against my skin as he pushed it back into the tangled strands of my hair. His fingers threaded through it, angling my head just right so that I was completely at his mercy.
A soft groan escaped him as our tongues tangled together—a raw sound full of unrestrained longing that echoed through the dim cell and stoked an inferno within me.
I pressed my core harder against him, seeking that tantalizing friction that sent heat spiraling through my veins. The world outside faded away, replaced by this—this intoxicating moment.
Then, gently, he pulled away. Not far enough to break our connection, but far enough to catch our breaths.
“Mireille,” he breathed, remaining tantalizingly close. My name fell like a prayer from his tongue, filled with a hunger that sent sparks racing through me. “I can’t—“ his breath shuddered against my lips, holding his silence long enough for my eyes to flutter open and meet his.
Valen’s eyes had darkened, pools of emotion swirling within the depths that I had never seen before.
Need, sadness, regret, and an unsettling fear flickered across his features, each expression a crack in the armor he wore so effortlessly.
My heart betrayed me, stuttering against the wall of my ribcage as if drawn to those emotions, as if they were secrets worth unraveling.
“I can’t continue this,” he murmured, his voice low and strained.
“I can no longer keep you here… not in the dungeons.” His hold on me tightened slightly as if fearing I might slip away.
“I want you… everywhere. In my bed. Beside my throne. I want to wake alongside you and touch you without the thought of revenge.”
My lips parted, shock eclipsing the desire that had thrummed through me only seconds before. I blinked at him, searching his face for signs of jest or cruelty. There were none. Just raw honesty staring back at me. A vulnerability so stark it took my breath away.
“What are you saying?” The words tumbled from my lips, laced with confusion and disbelief. It was impossible that he felt this way after everything. Right? It had to be momentary insanity.
His grip on my thigh tightened, but his gaze softened, an intensity in those black depths that seemed to bore into my very being.
“I want you with me, Mireille. Not as a prisoner, not as a trophy of conquest.” His voice dropped lower, reverberating through me like a dark melody.
“I want you as my equal, as the woman who defies me and makes me feel things I shouldn’t. ”
His equal? My mind raced to catch up with my heart’s wild rhythm.
As actual husband and wife? Not captive and captor, not victim and torturer, but equals?
The proposition was so unexpected, so divorced from the reality I had known these past weeks, that for a moment I couldn’t form a coherent response.
“You want—“ I struggled to articulate the magnitude of what he was suggesting. “You would stop the torture? Let me out of this dungeon?”
“Yes,” he breathed, his thumb tracing my jaw.
“I would give you a suite in my palace. Fine clothes. Freedom to move about, with guards for your protection, of course.” A small smile touched his lips.
“I would court you properly, as befits a princess. A queen. Show you that I can be more than the monster you’ve known. You would be mine, and I, yours.”
I almost whimpered. The offer was everything I might have dreamed of—freedom from pain, restoration of some semblance of dignity, a life above ground with sunlight and fresh air. It was a path out of my current suffering that required no desperate gambles, no risky escape attempts.
It was also, I knew with bone-deep certainty, a lie.
Not an intentional deception on Valen’s part—I believed he meant what he said in this moment.
But I had seen my future. I had touched the crimson-silver thread that bound us and witnessed the hollow shell I would become if I remained in Valen’s power.
That vision had shown me not as a cherished wife, but as a broken toy, forgotten in the dungeons, used until nothing remained of the woman I had been.
I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to hold his gaze as I considered the fork in my path.
To my right, the crimson-silver thread pulsed stronger than ever, its light almost blinding in its intensity.
It pulled at something deep within me, a longing for connection, for the end of loneliness, for the love I had been denied my entire life.
The same longing that had driven Valen to create humanity in the first place.
To my left… to my left showed freedom.
I will endure. I will escape. I will not break.
I raised my eyes to his, letting him see a calculated vulnerability, a careful hope. “You would truly stop?” I asked, my voice soft, uncertain. “No more pain? No more chains? No more... revenge?”
His smile was genuine, a flash of real warmth that transformed his face from hauntingly beautiful to almost boyishly handsome.
It took my breath away, that smile. It made me wonder, for one mad moment, what might have been if we had met under different circumstances.
If he had not been a vengeful god, if I had not been my father’s daughter.
“I swear it,” he said, and I could hear the truth in his voice. He believed what he was saying. He wanted to try.
And for that moment—just that one moment—I allowed myself to feel the full weight of what might have been.
In another life, another reality, would we have found each other without all this pain between us?
Could the lonely god and the unwanted princess have offered each other some measure of solace?
It didn’t matter. That wasn’t our story. Our thread was woven with blood and silver, with cruelty and desire, with power and subjugation. There was no rewriting it now, no matter what Valen might wish.
It was almost cruel, what I was about to do. Almost.
I nodded slowly, letting a tentative smile touch my lips. “I would like that,” I whispered, the words catching slightly in my throat. A partial truth. I would like an end to the pain, a way out of this dungeon. Just not in the way he imagined.
“Could I...” I hesitated, letting my gaze drop to his lips before meeting his eyes again. “Could I touch you? Please?”
His eyes widened slightly—surprise, pleasure, the crumbling edges of control. This had always been what he wanted. Not just my submission. My desire. My willingness.
“Yes,” he breathed, the word half command, half plea.
My legs unwrapped from his waist, arms re-extending above my head as my feet met the ground.
When he was sure I was balanced, his hands moved to the manacles at my wrist, working the mechanism with practiced ease.
The right cuff fell away first, releasing my arm from its suspended position, but I didn’t let it fall.
I let it stay raised, rubbing at my trapped wrist like I was easing the ache. A simple gesture. Harmless. Expected.
Then he reached for the second. Another click. My left arm fell free.
And as his gaze dropped to mine, as his smile spread across his face in anticipation for my touch, I grasped the cold metal and snapped it shut around his wrist.