Chapter 24
NARYA
His words still had the taste of blood on them. Eat. Then I hunt.
I should have defied him, but instead I crossed the room to the wardrobe and drew out a dark blue cloak.
My fingers, trembling, fumbled with the dragon brooch meant to secure it in place.
Daigen’s gaze followed me from where he stood by the tapestry, silent, his face unreadable.
The cloak reminded me of his sister; guilt gnawed at the corner of my anger.
“I—about your sister,” I said, because I had to say something. “No one told me the full story. If I’d known, I would not have worn it.”
I still didn’t know if I’d been tricked into wearing it in the first place. I’d find out.
Long, tattooed fingers slid over mine, fastening the brooch. Slowly they slid up to my chin and tilted back my head. My breath caught as I looked up at Daigen. There was a softness in his eyes that made a quiet gasp break from my lips.
“I too will answer for what I have done,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “But not with apologies. With truth.”
My eyes stung at his words. I could only nod, even though I was still hurt by what he did. He let go and stepped back, gesturing to the tapestry.
“Come. You are not staying here to tremble at shadows.”
His voice was final. He didn’t even wait for an answer.
His hand closed over mine, and before I knew it, we were moving through the passageway. My stomach flipped as I followed him down it.
Mouse was nowhere in sight. Did Daigen know about her? Did he suspect?
To my surprise, he did not take me to where the feast had been.
He continued on until we reached the main entry hall.
It was empty, except for the guards stationed there.
The moonlight pouring through the domed roof gleamed against their black armour, making it ripple like the moon against a dark lake.
It was otherwise empty and eerily quiet; everyone had gone to sleep.
Daigen steered me under one of the many alcoves.
There, another stone passageway spiralled down.
Daigen entered first, ducking below the entrance.
I followed him gingerly. Halos of light swelled from the torches on the walls, flickering as we passed them.
The smell of freshly baked bread and sweet spices tickled my nose the closer I reached the bottom. Was he taking me down to the kitchens?
That was exactly where Daigen took me. The heat from the ovens was intense but welcome against the faint chill that lingered in the air.
The kitchens were filled with the smell of rich spices, herbs, and sugar.
But what caught my eye was the single bowl of crimson fruit on the main counter.
The skins had all been split, the juices beading down the sides.
Daigen pulled out a stool at the table. “Sit."
I hesitated, but obeyed, hopping onto the seat while he rolled up his sleeves. The sight alone made my mouth turn dry. The Bloodstone King, standing before me in his own kitchens, about to cook—for me. It was absurd. The thick veins in his forearms flexed as he reached for the fruit.
“What are you making?” I asked, swallowing the saliva pooling at the back of my throat.
“Bloodberry cakes,” he said. Dark red juice ran down his knuckles as he crushed the fruit into a bowl already filled with flour. “My mother used to bake them for me when I was a boy. She believed the sweetness capable of warding off nightmares.”
I watched him wipe his hands on a cloth and reach for a jug of milk. “What a lovely memory.”
“It was. Until her mind twisted.” He grabbed a whisk and beat the milk into cream with a speed that belied his tension.
“After my sister’s birth, my mother grew sick with a fever.
She convinced herself she had given birth to a demon and nothing would convince her otherwise.
My father had her locked away. By the time I had the power to free her, she was gone. ”
“How awful. She was clearly sick. Did no one think to help her?”
He went very still. For a heartbeat, the rage wasn’t for me at all, but for a boy who couldn’t save his mother. “No,” he said at last. “My father already had what he wanted.” He set the bowl down a scowl. “An heir. That’s all a king cares about when it comes to his wife.”
“Is that all you care about?” I whispered, my stomach tensing.
His gaze flicked to me. “There are far greater things I care about,” he answered coldly.
His mask had slid back into its place.
He turned back to the counter and shaped the mixture into several rounds. He placed them on a tray and then slid it into the oven.
Wiping his hands on the cloth again, he nodded to the bowl of fruit.
“Pass me one.”
I did. He dipped it into the whipped cream and held it out between his fingers.
“Taste it.”
The fruit gleamed against his bronze skin, cream beading along his knuckle. I leaned forward and licked the cream away; the sharp citrus and honey unfurled across my tongue and I couldn’t help the small, involuntary moan that escaped my lips.
Daigen’s throat jerked. “Well?”
“It’s delicious.”
He caught my arm when I tried to pull away. His breath warmed my cheek; his nose nearly brushed mine. In one smooth motion he had me on the table, my legs anchored at his sides. My cloak and shift drifted away; my slippers followed, and nothing hid me.
There was no point in covering my scars. He’d already seen them.
If I’d told him to stop, he would have. I knew that. But I didn’t.
I wanted this. I wanted him.
“I’m still furious with you,” I said, trying to sound angrier than I felt.
He smiled and dipped a finger into the cream.
“Hate me if you must. You’ll still open for me.
” He ran the finger down my breastbone, leaving a thick, wet trail that slid between my thighs.
A sharp gasp escaped me. It softened into a moan when he traced the path with his tongue, and then his hands, now gripping my thighs, gently pried them open.
I let him.
For a moment, he just looked at me.
There was no denying the dark hunger in his eyes, or the low rumble in the back of his throat when he took me in. Then he leaned down and gently dragged his tongue across me. I grabbed his hair with a surprised moan, shocked by what he was doing. Shocked that I wanted him to keep going.
That I wanted him, even after he’d betrayed me.
He trailed his tongue over my sex, slower this time, and groaned.
The sound vibrated against me and I gasped another moan, blushing furiously when he rubbed his nose against my sex, breathing me in.
The growl that left him made the pulse between my legs flutter.
I’d never let someone touch me down there before. It was so—
“Oh gods, Daigen!”
He flicked his tongue over me, then he kissed me before devouring me with his wicked tongue. There was no gentleness to it. Only inexorable, carnal hunger. His tongue teased me mercilessly while his fingers caressed my thighs, kneading them and stroking, grazing me with featherlight touches.
As my pleasure mounted, my arms trembled.
Daigen steadied me with a hand at my waist while his tongue never stopped tormenting me.
It only quickened as I neared the edge. Closer and closer.
I was so close. My breathing quickened, and my hand on his hair tightened.
But then he stopped, and looked up at me. He laughed when I cursed him.
“Why are you punishing me?” I panted at him.
He nipped my inner thigh with his teeth.
“If this were a punishment, you wouldn’t be able to breathe.
” He flicked the tip of his tongue over my sensitive spot again.
“No, I am not punishing you, sweet thing.” A kiss, shallow, unsatisfying.
“After centuries of waiting for you—centuries of being starved of you…”
He glided his tongue over me, making me jolt when he circled my clit again.
I groaned, frustrated, and he chuckled, kissing his way down my thigh.
“I’m savouring the taste of you.”
“But I don’t—”
He silenced me with two fingers pressed against my mouth.
I could smell and taste myself, and it should’ve horrified me.
But seeing him look up at me from between my thighs, his lips glistening with me…
it only made me moan harder. He withdrew his fingers and dragged them down my collar to my breasts, leaving a trail of saliva where the cream had once been.
That was when I saw the crystal on his ring glowing brighter than it had ever done.
I imagined my own doing the same at my throat, as if our crystals were crying out for each other as much as our bodies did.
He squeezed my breasts, and I arched my back, pressing into his palms.
My nipples had never felt sensitive before, but now — now they burned as every brush of them made me moan and squirm. He kissed them, pulling each nipple into his mouth and biting down, until sharp, pleasant jolts shot right through me.
A sharper, harder sensation pressed against my thigh.
Curious, I reached down and stroked him. Even through his clothing I could feel his thick, pulsing length. He hissed, seizing my wrist, and pulled me away.
“Not yet,” he warned huskily. I nodded, and his grin deepened. “Open your legs. I want to taste you again.”
I obeyed, slowly opening them a little. Testing him.
Daigen tsked and nudged them wider with his knee. He flicked his tongue against me again, circling me, teasing me. My breath caught and my fingers buried in his hair once more as his tongue quickly brought me to the edge. Oh, gods!
This time, he didn’t stop when I neared my brink. He drove harder, devouring me like he really had been starved all his life. The groan he gave made me shudder, my thighs squeezing and trembling around him.
“Ooh, Die… Die… Daigen!”
He hummed against me, laying me flat on the table, his pace quickening.
My release ripped through me, violent and overwhelming, a wave that crashed until it brought me down to nothing but incoherent pleas.
As I lay there, shaking, my legs twitching, my body spent, a movement caught the corner of my eye and I screamed.
Daigen lifted his head and immediately followed my gaze, reaching for a knife on the table.
A cloaked figure stood in the doorway. Daigen slowly lowered his hand back down. When I tried to close my legs, his other hand on me—on my thigh—tightened, keeping me open and exposed to him.
“Another one?” He was clearly addressing the person in the doorway.
The figure dipped their head silently. Daigen’s nostrils flared.
He released me with a frustrated growl. Gently, he lifted me down off the table.
I scrambled for my clothing, my cheeks blazing hotter than the kitchen ovens.
Thankfully, Daigen shielded me from view with his enormous body.
Although the amused grin on his face made me want to hit him.
By the time I dressed again, Daigen had placed all the cakes into a basket and draped a red cloth over them. He held a cake out to me. Its crust was split open and still steaming, the crimson fruit bleeding through the cracks on the inside. It smelled divine, but I had suddenly lost my appetite.
“For my lady,” Daigen said with a grin.
He wasn’t going to let this go.
I snatched the cake from him. "Am I your lady in secret and your slave in front of your court?"
"You're my lady when you're a good girl who lets her mate feast as he wishes,” he said with a wicked grin.
I bit my lips, refusing to take the bait.
He chuckled. “Would the lady also care for some cream to accompany it?”
My blush deepened until I thought my skin would ignite.
“No, thank you,” I gritted out.
Daigen only shrugged, dipping his own cake into the cream slowly. He licked it off with a long swipe of his tongue. I didn’t even have to look up to know he was grinning at me.
Behind us, the mysterious cloaked figure cleared their throat.
All of Daigen’s humour suddenly vanished.
“Bring it with you,” he said, glaring at the basket.
I looped it over my forearm. “What’s – what’s going on?”
“You’ve been hidden from it long enough.” He slipped his hand around my waist and pulled me against him. “It’s time you learned the truth.”
The whole room seemed to still around his words.
The figure moved aside, waiting for us to pass through.
Daigen moved first, and I followed. He led me through the sleeping palace, further than I’d ever gone—into corridors where torches thinned and the stone began to sweat with a faint red glow. All the while, the strange figure walked behind us, eerily quiet.
The air grew thinner as we descended, warmer too, carrying a metallic tang that clung to the back of my throat. The lanterns changed as well; no longer silver flames, but Bloodstone crystals pulsing from the walls, bleeding red light across the black stone.
We reached a towering archway carved into a wall of onyx. Beyond it, a dimly lit path cut straight through the mountain. The sight took my breath away, my stomach clenching, as every instinct screamed for me to stop and turn back. But I didn’t.
I tightened my grip on the basket, and without looking back, followed Daigen into the mountain. If this was the path that led to the truth, then I’d let the darkness take me. I would not run from it.
Not anymore.