Chapter 16
Lucien
I’ve never been a man who feels helpless.
Ever. But I’ve felt helpless these past few days.
Each day, my brothers and I have gone to our father, trying to get out of this marriage, and each day his response has been the same.
This marriage is happening. Not just with Harper, but with the Hollowborn.
We have no choice.
The thing is, I don’t know if I’m upset about it anymore.
I’m pissed about the potential of being linked to the Hollowborn, that’s for sure.
Not that I think that’s really going to happen, but I’m not displeased about the idea of being linked to Harper.
Ever since the moment she stepped into my life, something has just felt…
inevitable about her. Like no matter what we do or say, we’ll end up with her.
I just didn’t realize that’s what I was feeling until recently.
Even being tied to my brothers feels inevitable.
For so long I thought I hated them, but we’ve spent each evening together since all this Harper stuff came to our front door, and it’s been…
nice. It’s not as lonely an existence as I’m used to.
I haven’t mentioned it to my brothers, but somehow it feels less and less like we dislike each other and more and more like our father simply pitted us against each other.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not thinking clearly.
All I know is that when my brothers spoke about visiting our father again today to make a last plea to be free of this marriage, none of us seemed interested in going.
Which wasn’t exactly a surprise. Wordlessly, we’ve all begun to treat Harper like our betrothed, whether or not she accepts our engagement.
She simply… feels like she’s ours.
Sighing, I walk quietly down the hallway, ignoring the flickering torchlight.
I’d been in my room, knowing it was late and I should be getting ready for bed, when I’d simply gotten up and headed for Harper’s room.
I don’t know if I’ll actually knock. I don’t know if I’ll just walk away.
But now, I regret not joining my brothers for drinks, because I feel antsy.
As I round the corner, I sense people before I see them.
I stop short from crashing into them, but I see flashes of Harper’s pale face, the knife, and Tesson.
Reacting before I can think, I grab her and yank her behind me, then step between her and the man.
She makes a slight sound behind me, and I make a mistake, letting my gaze dart to her, to check if she’s okay.
The blade leaps out at me, and I jump, but not fast enough, feeling the blade slice my arm.
As hot blood slides down my skin, I feel a smile curl my lips. The man’s confident demeanor falters when he sees my expression, but his grip only tightens on the blade.
“Hello, Tesson,” I say coldly.
He doesn’t respond.
“What are you doing with my bride?”
“She’s my bride,” he hisses.
I laugh. The idea of Harper belonging to anyone but me is a joke. She’s my woman. My bride. And anyone who thinks otherwise will quickly learn why they’re fucking wrong.
“Now, you’ve already made one of the worst mistakes a living human could make by touching my woman. Let’s not make it any worse. Put the knife down, and let’s resolve this like men.”
Tesson levels the blade at my chest. “Not a chance.”
I smile wider. “I guess we’ll do this the fun way.”
“You mean the hard way,” Harper says, and I realize she’s standing behind me, anger in her voice. “And it doesn’t have to be the hard way with two against one.”
“Just let me handle this,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm.
“No way.”
I grit my teeth. “Harper, I’m a man. And if you’re going to be with me, you need to know that a man sometimes just needs to rescue his woman.”
“Like hell–”
“She’s not yours!” Tesson shouts, diving at me.
I jump back, aware of Harper behind me. Aware that I need to keep myself between him and her.
The sound of Harper withdrawing her dagger rings out from behind me.
“Don’t even think about it,” I growl at her.
“I can help,” she says stubbornly.
“I know you can, but I’m asking that you don’t.”
Tesson begins to slash at me, and I keep avoiding his blade. I have my own dagger at my side, but I don’t reach for it. Even with him armed, he doesn’t stand a chance against me, so I might as well have a little fun. Teach the bastard a little lesson he won’t soon forget.
He slashes his dagger at me haphazardly again, and I step to the side, then follow it up with a punch to his face.
The idiot flies back and hits the ground, then scrambles up, nose running with blood.
He lets out a weak cry and races at me. I knock his dagger to the ground, kick him in the stomach, then sweep his legs out from under him.
This time it takes him longer to climb to his feet. I circle him, smiling.
“So, you thought hurting Harper would be easy, did you? You didn’t realize that the first time you made a mistake my pretty little fiancé would have a dagger dug so deep into your chest that you’d be able to feel the blood in your heart bleeding out.
You didn’t realize that the second the three of us heard about what you did, you’d wish for death. ”
“She’s just a fucking whore!” Tesson shouts.
Mistake. I punch him in the face, once, twice, three times. He starts to fall, but I grab his shirt and hold him up, delivering a fourth and fifth punch. His face is a mask of blood when I release him. He takes a weak hand and tries to hit me. I break his arm, and he screams.
I hear the guards coming running down the hall, but I ignore them. He crumbles to his knees, and I kick him onto his stomach. As he tries to crawl away, I think about letting him go, but then he looks up at Harper, and through a gurgling of blood says, “Whore!”
So, I do what any man would do, and I break his leg, my foot snapping the bone in one quick motion.
His screaming is a wail of pain, but I’m still not done.
I bring my foot down on his broken leg over and over again, listening to him sobbing in pain.
I intend to break the other leg too, when a hand catches my wrist. Jerking my head up, I spot Harper, her expression calm.
“Enough.”
“Is it?” I ask her. “It doesn’t feel like enough.”
“It’s enough,” she says quietly.
I tilt her chin, looking at the mark from the blade on her throat, then stomp on his leg again.
To my surprise, she gives me a little smile. “Seriously, Lucien, it’s fine. I’m fine.”
Now, I’m smiling. She’s never called me Lucien before. It’s always been “prince” this or that.
“Guards,” I say quietly, and they step forward, looking uneasy. “This man attacked my betrothed. Throw him in the dungeons and make sure he never sees the light of day again.”
Harper strokes my wrist with her thumb. “Let’s get your arm fixed up.”
She takes my hand, and my head spins a little. I like the feeling of her hands on me more than I ever imagined. It sends heat spreading out across my skin and through my body in a way that makes it hard to draw in an even breath. It reminds me of our time in the kitchens together.
We’re in her room before too long and her sweet scent of flowers seems to fill the room.
She leads me to her bed, and tugs on my wrist until I sit down.
I admit I’m a little too eager because of being in a room with Harper and being on her bed, but she walks away from me and comes back with a bowl of water and a cloth.
She dips the cloth in the water, rings it out, and then begins cleaning my wound.
I don’t react. I probably should. Injuries should hurt, but this one doesn’t. Not when Harper is sitting so close to me, wearing her tight leathers, touching my skin.
She cleans off my wound, then the rest of my arm with ridiculously gentle strokes.
“It’s not that bad,” I tell her.
She gives me a look. “You’re going to need stitches.”
“Can you do them?” I ask.
Without hesitation, she nods, and I decide to let her. I don’t care so much about another scar as I do about keeping her close. I’d hate to have a healer come and pop this little bubble we’re in.
“You didn’t have to do all that,” she tells me softly.
My mouth pulls into a thin line. “One thing you should know about me is that I’m not entirely rational when it comes to what’s mine.”
“Am I yours?” Her hazel eyes find mine.
“Yes.”
She looks away, standing with the bowl in her hand.
I catch her wrist and let my touch linger. “Where are you going?”
She lifts a brow. “I have to stitch you up, right?”
Reluctantly, I let her go.
A minute later, she comes back with everything she needs and I watch her every move. She’s graceful. Sure. Like she’s done this a thousand times before. Which, maybe she has.
“First, I’m going to dab some clove oil on it to numb the pain.”
“I don’t need that.”
“Stop being stupid,” she mutters, then starts gently dabbing my wound.
It does ease some of the stinging sensation, but I honestly don’t require anything for the pain. I’ve had far worse injuries and had nothing but a leather strap to bite down on while they tended my wounds. Still, if it makes her feel better, I’m happy to stay silent.
“This next part is still going to hurt.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t have to be brave.”
“I’m not. A few stitches is nothing.”
Her expression says she doesn’t believe me, or maybe she doesn’t want to believe me, but she gets to work.
The stitches feel like nothing. A gentle poking.
A movement of the flesh. My focus is more drawn to the rise of her breasts as she breaths evenly.
My fingers itch to reach out to touch the swell of her, to see if she’s as soft as I remember.
Everything about her awakens something inside of me I’m not familiar with. A longing. An intense need. It’s not just a desire to get off. It’s a desire to be inside of her, which is something so foreign to me that it frightened me at first.
I don’t know if it’s because of my connection to her through our dragons.
I know that my dragon, Verdraxa, is obsessed with Ebron.
Lives, breathes, and eats to please him.
The tension and longing between them to consummate their relationship has been living a living thing between them, between all of our connections.
And yet, this doesn’t feel like it’s because of our dragons.
This feels like something that would have inevitably become something, whether I met Harper as a dragon rider or as a healer.
“I’m sorry we weren’t there to protect you from Tesson.”
She glances at me again, uncertain. “It’s not your responsibility–”
“It is.”
Her laugh is uneasy. “We haven’t all accepted this marriage, so why are you acting like you have?”
“My brothers and I have accepted it.”
Her brows wrinkle as she continues to work. “That’s hard to believe.”
“You’re hard to resist.”
She bites her lip and glances at me beneath her lashes, making my blood rush even harder south. “You don’t mean that. This is another game. Another plan.”
“Man, we really fucked things up with you, haven’t we?”
It takes her a minute before she says, “Maybe.”
“I mean it when I say we want to fix things. We’ll work to gain your trust.”
“I guess saving me from assholes is a good start.”
The needle makes me want to jerk, but I hold still again. “Then, we’ll save you from a hundred assholes.”
“Lucien…” she says again.
I smile.
“What?” she asks, confused by my smile.
“You called me Lucien again. I like that.”
She finishes stitching up my arm, cleans it again, and dries it. “I hadn’t realized I was calling you that.”
“It’s a good sign.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it means you’re becoming more comfortable with me. I want you to feel more comfortable with me.”
She brings her tools back to her desk, washes her hands, then brings back herbs, probably to ensure it doesn’t become infected, and something to wrap my arm. As she works, I can see her thoughts tumbling around. Her expression is concerned.
“What are you thinking about?”
She jerks a little, hesitates, then speaks. “I’m trying to figure out if this is another game with all of you. And if it is, what your angle is.”
Inwardly, I curse, and when she finishes wrapping my arm, I take her hand.
She studies me suspiciously. “Listen, I think if our father called off the marriage right now we would still push for it to happen. It’s about more than just the connection between us and our dragons.
All three of us like you. We like being around you.
We like talking to you. We’ve never before met a woman like you.
You’re brave, stubborn, fearless, and you somehow know how to see all the fun in life too.
Ever since that day in the honeysuckle, all I’ve wanted to do is go back to that spot with you.
I just want to see the world through your eyes again, if only for a little while. ”
“I thought my stubbornness drives you crazy.”
I grin. “It absolutely does.”
“And I thought you guys completely disagreed with the way I see the world.”
“Just because we can’t see it the way you do doesn’t mean we don’t want to.”
“Lucien…”
Again, I smile, and she blushes.
“Prince…”
I reach up with my free hand and cup her face. “No, just Lucien. There’s no need for a title between us any more. Harper, I care about you. I like you. I want to marry you. Give me a chance to earn your trust.”
She works her lip between her teeth, her gaze sliding between my eyes and my mouth, as my blood thunders through me. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” My chest feels lighter. “I can work with maybe.”
I closer, my hand holding hers in her lap. I slowly, inch by inch, close the space between us, seeing if she’ll flee. I’m giving her a chance to turn me down, but she doesn’t. She stops working her lip. She holds herself perfectly still, and my heartbeat thunders in my ears.