Chapter 10 Rhea
Chapter Ten: Rhea
I wake from a night of dreamless sleep, stretching my arms overhead before turning onto my side and finding Nox still asleep.
Tucking my hands beneath my pillow, I let my gaze roam over the perfect lines of his face, his expression soft and relaxed in a way he rarely lets anyone else see.
I smile at how his onyx waves tumble over his forehead, the ends pointing in every direction as if they can’t decide which way to settle.
It’s the only part of him that has always shown up as less than composed, a small detail that is just so entirely him.
My eyes work their way down his throat to his bare chest, the memory of the taste of his skin an unexpected pleasure I never even considered experiencing before.
In truth, every part of him was both unexpected and immensely pleasurable.
Tugging my bottom lip in between my teeth, I replay our joining from the night before in my mind.
I didn’t know what to expect when it came to physical intimacy.
I suppose, in some small way, I thought that it might not ever compare to the way my heart leaps at the sound of Nox’s voice or how he continually finds pieces of my soul that are rough to smooth out with his words and his actions.
How can anything compare? How can it be any better?
And yet there was capacity for more.
Nox’s attentiveness while pleasuring me went beyond anything I could have imagined.
I didn’t just feel loved when he moved inside me—when his mouth and fingers did things I had only ever read about before.
I felt worshipped. Every time we came together, he looked at me with the same momentous awe that I felt deep inside.
And I wonder, studying him now, if losing myself in him is both the smartest and the most reckless thing I have ever done.
I love him, so much that I would sacrifice myself a hundred times over for him.
But in that love—that all-consuming, impossible love—was there anything I wasn’t willing to do?
If it meant keeping him just like this? Safe and at my side and filled with my devotion?
I had read enough to know that love like that could be as devastating as it was beautiful, and hadn’t I begun to see that play out with Nox and his struggles with the council?
Their insistence that he marry Haylee instead of someone without a title and with no claim to anything other than his heart?
Nox left no doubt to where I stood when compared to his priorities, and I have no doubts about where he stands within my own. I would move worlds to be with him. But I can admit to myself here, in the quiet early morning, that a part of me is terrified by that notion.
Reaching my hand out, I brush his hair away from his forehead, my smile growing when his waves just tumble back.
“You’re beautiful when you smile.”
My fingers curl back, a laugh spilling out of me. “You can’t even see me.” His eyes are still closed.
“I don’t have to see you to know you’re happy, Sunshine,” he says, blindly reaching for my hand and bringing it to his mouth. He plants a kiss on my palm, his own lips curling up. “I can feel it. I can feel you.”
I can’t explain why that makes a knot form in my throat or why it also makes my thighs clench together. A confusing juxtaposition if there ever was one. “I am happy,” I whisper, earning the cracking open of one eyelid followed by the other.
His hand releases mine only to cup the side of my face, letting his thumb trace along my lower lip while his eyes watch the movement. “Tell me that you love me,” he says, his voice hoarse in a way that isn’t due to him just waking up.
Laying my hand over his, I wait until he meets my gaze, his star-flecked eyes focused so intensely that for a moment, I forget how to breathe.
“I love you.” As if someone’s tugged on the invisible string connecting us, Nox and I both move towards each other, and before long, I’m lost once more in his body and his breath.
In the way his lips pray against my own—worshipping.
I’m lost in him, and I never want to be found.
“Rhea.” My name is called gruffly while cool fingertips drag along my jawline. “It’s time to wake up.” The sweet memory immediately gives way to terror as my eyes flare open and I suck in a short breath. “There you are.”
Jerking upright, I push his hand away from me only to be met with a sickening wave of unrelenting agony that sends me right back down on the bed.
Everything hurts. The muscles of my feet and legs feel as if I have been flexing them the entirety of my time asleep.
My back and chest throb to the beat of my heart, the ache that radiates through them enough to cut each inhale short.
But, gods, my hip. It is as if the flesh is being pulled back layer by individual layer, followed by someone lighting a match and holding the open flame to the exposed nerves.
It is a misery I’ve never felt before and one that sends panic flitting through me, quick as a lightning strike.
“Careful,” King Dolian says, drawing the word out. “I need to check your wound.”
I heave my breaths through gritted teeth, my head too clouded with the pain of the brand to verbalize a retort. Brand. He branded me.
“Did you hear me?” The bed dips under his weight, his knee driving into the mattress while his hand reaches out to touch the side of my face.
In my shocked stupor, I don’t fight against his hold, even as he guides my gaze to his.
His thumb traces a nauseating line beneath my trembling lower lip as he looks me over.
“Gods, you are beautiful,” he rasps, the words rough.
I don’t want compliments from him. I don’t want him to look at me like he’s unearthed buried treasure. And I certainly don’t want the feel of his touch on any part of my body. But the misery that cascades through me at the memory that I’ve been branded overshadows any of those thoughts.
He moves to pull the rest of the blanket off of me from where it’s gathered at my hips, and I gather enough awareness together to clutch it tightly before he can. His hazel eyes narrow. “Show me what I want to see, Rhea.”
“No,” I growl through my teeth. “Don’t touch me.”
His sigh is long as he stands before stalking to the foot of the bed.
The king is not a man I would call strong and neither is he built that way.
Where Nox’s arms and legs show carved muscle due to a lifetime of training, King Dolian’s frame is more slender.
I know he can wield a sword—I saw as much the night I escaped from the tower—but his profile bears no evidence of being a warrior.
“I can command you to show me, and you know that I will,” he says smoothly, sliding a single hand into the pocket of his navy trousers.
“But I’d like for you to choose to do as I ask. ”
I can’t help the shocked noise that leaves me as I look down and realize I’m wearing nothing but a satin white chemise. I pull the blanket up higher to cover my body. “You do realize the irony in that, don’t you? I have no choice here. There has never been a choice when it comes to you.”
“I agree with the fact that you had less options in your tower, which is why I aim to rectify that now. You can wander this residence at your leisure. Did you know there is a library? A solarium filled with the most vibrant and decadent plants you can imagine? While the staff is only what is necessary, there are still enough servants to tend to your every want and desire.” His blade-like grin grows into a full smile.
“And the ones they can’t tend to, I can.
You have a multitude of choices now, Rhea. ”
“Stuffing me into a cage and then asking me to choose between the breadcrumbs you toss into it isn’t autonomy.
It’s merely the illusion of it. You may enjoy pretending that you’re offering me something better than my life in that tower, but I know who you truly are, Your Majesty, and because of my time with—” I stumble over my words, Nox’s name still trapped behind the magic command he gave me on the first day.
“Because I experienced true freedom, I now have the clarity to see through your lies, to see through your attempted manipulation. You think me to be weak and pliable, but I will never stop fighting you. I will never bend to your will. I would rather die attempting to escape you a hundred times over than ever do a single thing you bid.”
Charged silence settles between us, pulsing like the angry burn from my hip, as the king’s artificial smile slowly fades until his own contempt and rage seeps out in his expression.
“You wanted to speak his name right then, didn’t you?
” he snarls. I say nothing in response, my bravery teetering beneath his malicious stare. “Lay down.”
The feeling of being dragged beneath water washes over me, my ears ringing with the heavy thumping of my heart as I recline back against my will until my head meets the pillow again. No. King Dolian’s steps are measured as he prowls closer.
“You make me do this, my darling,” he says softly, the hand that was in his pocket comes out to yank the blanket from my grasp.
“I want us to be able to move on with some level of understanding. But I fear that may never happen as long as you keep holding on to him. As long as you believe the prince to be a possibility, you will never even give us a chance.”
“You’re my uncle! What you want with me is not something that can ever be! You—”
“I am your future!” he interrupts with a harrowing bellow, my eyes snapping shut as he leans over me. The weight of his hip brushes against mine, and I cry out at the pressure he places on the tender flesh of the brand. “Look at me.”
At the rush of power that barrels into me, my eyes are forced open.
That precarious bravery within me falters.
I know I’m a different woman than the one who cowered beneath his touch before.
That I’m stronger. But what does it matter if he can so easily strip me of that strength?
Reaching over my body, he plants his hand next to my head while the one gripping the comforter pulls it completely off.
My fingers curl around the hemline of the chemise, holding it down at my thighs as I attempt to keep as much of myself covered as I can.
But his gaze leaves an oily trail as it roams over me, making me feel even more exposed.
Terror slices through me when he reaches out to drag his fingers up the outside of my thigh, unbidden tears springing to my eyes.
“Stop,” I breathe through quivering lips to no avail.
His movements slow when he reaches the chemise, and he toys with the ribbon lining the hem as he inhales deeply through his nose.
“Do you tremble because of my touch? Because of what I might see or do?” he asks without looking at me, a disturbing amount of awe woven into his voice. “I tremble for the same. Let go of the nightgown, Rhea.”
My body obeys, my eyes flicking to the ceiling as he lifts the fabric higher. I try to sink back into that numb place—the one that was so easily tucked into the dark corners of my mind. But it had been so long since I had any need to, and I am petrified to discover I can’t quite reach it anymore.
The pad of his finger presses lightly on the brand, drawing a shaky cry from me.
I suppose I never thought that facing this monster again would be harder the second time around.
That the armor I thought I had expertly crafted in my time away from him so that I would never again be vulnerable had somehow only made me weaker.
Because it is at this moment, as my uncle’s unwanted touch invades my body, that I realize I haven’t exactly dealt with everything that plagued me before.
I have simply replaced pain with pleasure, anger with love.
I have built armor, yes, but it is the wrong kind, and now water is seeping in at all the misaligned spots.
Threatening to pull me under. Try as I might to pretend otherwise, I feel every brush of his skin against mine as it irritates the flesh of my wound.
Every waft of his warm breath against my cheek as he leans in closer.
“Did he touch you like this? Reverently and with purpose? Did you let him?” My eyes begin to sting from how wide I hold them open, tears falling onto my cheeks.
Time passes slowly, like watching individual grains of sand tumble down an hourglass.
King Dolian murmurs something as he drags the edges of my chemise back down, his hand pausing on my thigh before he stands from the bed.
My eyes don’t move from their focus on the ceiling, not even when the king leaves and I’m alone with nothing but my fear, anger, guilt, and shame.