Chapter 61
The prick had immediately demanded I bathe again. So here I stood. Washed. Dressed in fresh clothes. But still filthy. Maybe I’d never be clean again.
Ashterion sat in his lavish chair, one leg crossed over the other, turning a glass of wine idly in his hand. The deep red swirled against the crystal, catching in the glow of the candlelight.
I hated that I was here. Hated him. Hated myself for the fear curling in my stomach, no matter how hard I fought to bury it.
But this was the deal. This was what I had agreed to.
I raised my chin, glaring at him. The words were poison as I forced them out. “What… what do you want from me tonight?”
Ashterion let his eyes trail over me. Slow. Calculating.
But then, he sighed, as if I had missed the obvious.
“I assure you, Isara,” he said, his voice smooth as silk, “I have no interest in a female who reeks of another High Lord.”
The implication coiled tight in my ribs.
“Just sit down.”
I didn’t bother wasting energy on a fight I wouldn’t win—not yet.
I moved toward the small lounge positioned opposite him, lowering myself onto the plush cushions.
“I must say, Isara,” Ashterion tapped a finger against the rim of his glass, “I expected more fight. I thought you’d have at least thrown something by now.”
I clenched my jaw. “Give me something heavy enough and I might.”
Ashterion’s lips curled into a smirk. “Spirited. Good. I’d hate for this arrangement to become dull.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of ways to entertain yourself at my expense.” Every syllable from my lips was honed to flay. “Tell me, do you always make a habit of collecting enemies and then playing host to them?”
His smirk widened. “Only the interesting ones.”
Gods, I wanted to break something. Preferably his jaw.
Ashterion took an agonisingly slow sip of his wine, watching me. Every movement was deliberate, meant to test, to provoke.
I kept my expression blank, my fingers curled into my lap to hide the tension in them.
Smooth as ever, he plucked a second glass from the table beside him and, with a slow, lazy tilt of his wrist, poured me a drink.
“Go on.” He held it out toward me.
I didn’t take it.
“What, are you afraid I’ve poisoned it?”
I scoffed. “If you wanted me dead, I doubt you’d waste wine on it.”
Ashterion gave a low chuckle, pressing a hand to his chest. “Isara, please. Give me some credit. I’d at least be creative about it.”
I snatched the glass from his hand, throwing him a withering glare.
He leaned back, the picture of smug ease, his smirk carved onto that scarred face.
“You know,” he said, swirling his wine again. “Even after your bath, you stink of him.”
I went rigid.
“Varyth,” he drawled, almost bitterly, as if saying the name tasted wrong. “It clings to you. Power, scent, the imprint of him.” Something close to a sneer crossed his face for a split second. “Did you give your companions a show in your cell? A last indulgence before your evening with me?”
My fingers tightened around the glass so hard I thought it might shatter.
He saw it. Laughed.
“You must’ve been quite the distraction. All bloodied and broken, wrapped in a High Lord’s scent.”
I snarled. “Funny to hear that from you, of all people.”
His brows arched, a thread of true confusion forming. “Oh?”
“I’ve heard what they call you.” I bared my teeth in a feral grin. “The Shadow Drask?”
Ashterion’s smile didn’t fade, it vanished. Gone, wiped from his face as though it had never been there. He rose, slow and controlled, every movement a warning.
“What did you say?” His voice vibrated with lethal intent behind the quiet.
I stood too. If I was going to die here, I’d do it on my feet.
“You heard me.”
“Say it again.”
The shadows behind him twitched. I should’ve shut up. I didn’t.
“Shadow. Drask.”
Ashterion didn’t move. Not right away. But the temperature dropped. A chill swept down my spine. The shadows behind him shifted, growing teeth.
But then he laughed. A brittle sound, like glass cracking under too much pressure. His hands came together, fingers lacing, masking tension as discipline.
I still saw it.
His thumb rubbed compulsively along his left ring finger, where the gleam of his wedding band caught the firelight. “Do you even know where that name comes from? Or are you simply parroting what your male whispers in your bed?”
The insult didn’t land the way he wanted it to.
I met his gaze, steady and cold. “Well, considering Varyth spoke quite clearly in that meeting of services you offer to other courts…” I shrugged, feigning nonchalance even as the realisation hit me in real time. “Even a dumb little human like me can put things together.”
The tension radiating off Ashterion was like a wire drawn too tight, one wrong move and it would snap.
He leaned forward, his expression turning to ice. “That’s hardly a matter I feel the need to discuss with a dumb little human.” A subtle tremor ran through him, though whether from rage, or something else, I couldn’t tell. “But if you already know the truth... then why are you asking me?”
I didn’t flinch. Didn’t let him turn this on me.
“I’m not asking,” I said evenly. “Just pointing out someone who’s trading companionship for power, perhaps shouldn’t judge me for how I smell.”
His expression fractured, an old wound bleeding too hard, too fast. Ashterion turned away, paced a few steps, exhaling through his nose as if cooling something that threatened to burn.
When he turned back, he was composed again. “How my wife and I gain alliances.” The words were honeyed, but carried the precision of a weapon. “Does not concern you.”
I watched Ashterion, noting how his shoulders had tightened, how he let his hands fall open, as though he was physically releasing the will to argue.
“It concerns me when your alliances involve torturing me and my friends.”
Ashterion’s jaw tightened. “There are worse things than torture, Isara.”
“Like being a political commodity?”
His movements were too fast to track. One moment he was standing across the room, the next he was before me. His eyes burned with something ancient and terrible.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“Did I strike a nerve, High Lord?”
The room darkened around us, the air growing thick and heavy as his power bled past whatever control he normally maintained.
“You think you understand,” he said. “You think you’ve pieced together some grand revelation about me.”
I held my ground, though every nerve lit up in warning. “I think I understand more than you want me to.”
“No, Isara. You understand nothing. Do you truly think my… bargains are some grand secret?”
Ashterion turned away abruptly, moving to the window where moonlight spilled across his face, highlighting the angles of his features. He looked... tired. The shadows retreated, coiling back to him.
“You believe you understand the intricacies of court politics because you’ve warmed a High Lord’s bed?” He smirked. “How charmingly naive.”
“I’m not naive,” I snapped, heat rising to my face. “And don’t pretend you know anything about me and Varyth.”
Ashterion turned from the window, something dark and unreadable passing across his features.
“Oh, but I do know. I know exactly what it’s like to have a High Lord claim you.
” His voice was velvet and cruelty. “Tell me, does Varyth make you beg for it? Or does he take what he wants, like he takes everything else?”
My breath caught, rage surging through me so violently my vision blurred at the edges. And I snapped.
I surged forward. And dumped my glass of wine over his head.
Ashterion went rigid, the wine trickling through his dark hair, dripping down the sharp cut of his jaw, soaking into his pristine tunic.
For a long, stretched moment, silence filled the space between us, the fire crackling in the background.
Then, with a measured exhale, Ashterion lifted a hand and flicked a single droplet from his wrist.
“Feel better?”
My chest heaved with ragged breaths, my hand clenched tight around the now empty glass.
Wine dripped from his chin, pooling at the hollow of his throat.
Ashterion didn’t wipe it away.
Instead, he slowly lifted a hand and pushed his wine-soaked hair back from his face. “You know.” His tongue darted out to catch a droplet of wine that had rolled to his lips. “Most people who throw drinks at me don’t live long enough to see what happens next.”
“Go ahead,” I pressed the words past the tightness in my throat. “Kill me.”
Ashterion’s lips curved, though the motion never quite reached his eyes. “Tempting.” His gaze dragged over me, as though he were truly considering the idea. But instead, he stepped back. “But first, I need to change.”
With that, he turned, striding toward the dresser with that same casual grace, as if nothing had happened.
I stood frozen, the anger thrumming through my limbs, my breath shallow. He towelled off his hair briskly, then moved to a dresser.
He unhooked the first button of his tunic. Then another. The fabric, soaked through with deep red, peeled away from his skin, sticking in places before slipping off his shoulders.
I forced myself to keep my expression blank, to not react as I saw them.
The scars.
Brutal, jagged wounds marred his skin. Some were older, faded to silvered lines that carved across his ribs, his sides, his back. Others were raw, healing, red and angry against his otherwise smooth flesh. And some… some looked fresh, perhaps only hours old.
Deep gashes, the kind that could only be made with cruelty, with brutality.
The sight snatched the air from my lungs, the warmth from my chest.
This wasn’t the body of an untouchable, all-powerful High Lord. This wasn’t the perfection of someone who commanded fear and respect without consequence.
And I hated—hated—that for the barest fraction of a second, I almost pitied him.
Ashterion turned, catching me watching in the mirror across the room. He made no move to cover himself, no attempt to hide the map of violence etched into his skin.
“Who did that to you?”