Chapter Twelve
“You look tired, darling,”
Oestera said over a quiet lunch in their shared study.
Lunelle fended off a yawn, pouring a third cup of tea as she poked at the strange fruits on her plate.
“Were you up late?”
She glanced at her mother, jaw set in a posture that discouraged further investigations on Oestera’s part.
“I have struggled to sleep lately. Yallara took me to a festival a few nights ago and I’ve been a mess since,”
she confessed. She did not find it necessary to share what kept her up last night, or the nights that followed. Between poring over the rebels’ manifesto and battling the near-ravenous curiosity within her to seek out a certain prince after dinner, she’d lost out on a week’s worth of rest, at least.
Though she hadn’t given in to that temptation again, she’d driven herself mad fighting the urge.
And, perhaps, she was afraid to sleep, should she find herself beneath a jade gaze.
“Oh,”
Oestera said.
“Did you enjoy yourself?
Lunelle tried not to let the surprise show on her face.
“I did. I find the Plutonian customs beautiful. They honor death in such loud and interesting ways.”
Oestera nodded curtly, returning to her morning communications. Lunelle watched her mother for a moment, taking in the creases beneath her eyes. She looked as tired as Lunelle felt—it had been the longest she’d been away from home in more than thirty years, and the discussions amongst the monarchs were not getting any less convoluted.
In fact, they’d only uncovered more and more knots to untangle as the days wore on.
“You miss Father.”
Oestera’s eyes slipped from her correspondence to Lunelle’s face, her shoulders sinking just slightly.
“Do you know I have not spent more than a few hours away from that man since we met?”
Lunelle giggled.
“Don’t you ever tire of one another?”
Oestera thought about this for a moment.
“I tire of most things, but never him.”
All at once, Lunelle realized how deeply she envied her mother in nearly all facets, but especially that one. Prior to that moment, she might have thought it was her mother’s confidence or her resilience in the face of adversity that she wished she possessed more of.
But there, painted in the gleam of her mother’s eyes, she saw what she’d wanted most.
Someone to never tire of her.
The library no longer felt like somewhere she could hide.
Not after the way he’d touched her the other night. After the way she’d touched him.
It was dangerous, how distracting all of it was. She was too godsdamned old to be driven to such wandering thoughts over any man, let alone two.
It’s not that she was ashamed of it, or wasn’t interested in a repeat experience… but it had only left her head cloudier in the end.
It was inexcusable, she knew, to be so selfish. Courts were on the brink of war, and she was sitting in a foreign court fending off thoughts of velvet skin and bright eyes.
Eyes that were not hers to gaze into.
Velvet skin that could be hers if she simply said the word. She wouldn’t even need to say it out loud—she’d just need to glance at Arcas in front of her mother for the deal to be signed in blood. It was obvious, the way Oestera watched them at meals and as they stood in comfortable silence on the terrace after card games.
But there was so much Oestera didn’t see.
Lunelle shook her head, desperate to rid herself of these terrible thoughts.
So she took her tea in the atrium, the delicate glass architecture stretching into the sky and filtering gentle sunbeams across the circular room. She swirled her spoon against the sapphire teacup, letting the warmth of the Sun caress her as she enjoyed a quiet moment.
The boots of the Plutonians echoed off the halls midway through her tea.
They passed in one massive wave of blue, circling the atrium on their way to lunch. She attempted to keep her eyes on her tea, but Arcas caught hers from across the room. She forced a soft smile, but found she wished he hadn’t seen her at all when she saw the frown developing at the corner of his mouth at something one of his advisors whispered to him.
She returned to her tea as he moved into her peripheral vision, crossing the atrium and stopping beside her.
“Princess,” he said.
“Arcas,”
she returned, setting her cup down on the table.
“I trust I’ll see you at dinner.”
Lunelle arched a brow.
“Uh, well, yes.”
He nodded.
“Excellent.”
“I suppose,”
she mumbled, brows knitting together.
Arcas was gone before she could gather anything else into a coherent sentence.
“You know,”
Mirquios said, sliding into the chair across from her as she flipped another trio of cards over for Yallara.
“Your sister did a reading for me before we left. It was not all that encouraging.”
Yallara turned her eyes toward the king, her gaze fogged by wine and the late hour. Lunelle made a concerted effort to avoid looking at him, for fear he might look back.
She’d been unsuccessful at shaking her dream all week.
“What was so alarming about it?”
Yallara asked.
Lunelle listened as she lined up the cards over the previous draw, finding the threads that wove them together.
“It was decidedly bleak,”
Mirquios mumbled.
“Not everything has to mean something,”
Lunelle said.
The king snorted.
“That’s exactly what Astra told me.”
Lunelle pulled a final card, laying it in the middle of her spread. She leaned back, taking it all in and absorbing the artwork as she let their meanings mingle together, desperately trying to push anything Astra may or may not have said to him out of her head.
She twisted her lips into a smirk.
“You got the Nether Queen card, didn’t you?”
Mirquios leaned away from her, startled.
“How did you know?”
“No one likes to see her in a reading, but it’s because they look at her all wrong.”
Lunelle took a sip of her wine, tilting her head as she read the cards one more time to herself.
“She does not represent a finite end, but the beginning of the next.”
Mirquios touched his fingers to his chin, taking the message for a second time and deciding what to do about it. She blushed, thinking of just how strange the heat from those fingertips had been in her dream.
“Well, then, what’s my Fate?”
Yallara asked.
“Hmm,”
Lunelle said, pointing to the first row, nearest Yallara.
“I see swift change coming for you—you see all these daggers? They cut ties. They unleash you. But over here,”
Lunelle tapped a card featuring a man with broad shoulders and a bejeweled crown.
“You’re blocked by the weight of expectations. Imposed by others, but also by yourself. You can’t get to here—”
she pointed to the Divine Queen in the middle, “—without shedding all that extra weight.”
“So you’re saying I’m well on my way to becoming queen of the universe.”
Yallara’s lips cut into a wicked grin over her glass.
“As long as a certain… weight… were to take his boot off my neck.”
“Precisely,”
Lunelle giggled.
“What do you see for me?”
Three heads swiveled to Arcas at the end of the table, watching silently.
Lunelle stiffened. She hadn’t seen him since their uncomfortable interaction—if she could call it that—in the atrium. She gathered the cards before her and gestured to Mirquios, shooing him to another seat. The king moved aside, making room for Arcas to settle like a heavy fog over the table.
“Have you had your cards read before?”
she asked.
Yallara laughed behind him.
“Be gentle, Princess, it’s his first time.”
Arcas glared over his shoulder at his sister and sat straighter.
“I have not,”
he confirmed.
“There are a few rules,”
Lunelle said, pushing through the faint pink heat Yallara’s comment summoned.
“While Lunarians are blessed by the Mother with an intense intuition, I cannot tell the future, and neither can these cards. Anything I say is for you to reflect on and take what makes sense—leave anything else.”
Arcas nodded.
Lunelle turned over three cards, letting him absorb them before she made any commentary.
“What do you see first?”
she asked.
Arcas leaned over the table, his eyes searching the cards.
“Stars,”
he said.
“Many stars.”
Lunelle nodded.
“What else?”
A crooked grin pulled at his lips.
“The Moon.”
Lunelle felt the slightest hint of something burn against her ribs.
“The last one?”
“The High Priestess.”
“She’s a teacher,”
Lunelle explained.
“Above all her duties to serve her court, her priority is to impart wisdom through grace. Perhaps there’s a feminine presence in your life you could learn from.”
She tilted her chin toward Yallara, but Arcas was staring at the third card, a cluster of celestial bodies with no name.
“What is this one?”
“That’s The Void,”
Lunelle said.
“It’s meant as a placeholder of sorts. It appears when you’re missing something—an answer or insight you have not been able to grasp.”
The prince eyed her, a softening within his gaze that Lunelle was starting to recognize.
“What do you think I’m missing, Lunelle?”
The air pulled between them, a tightness she couldn’t explain—something in the way he said her name.
“Only you can answer that.”
Lunelle leaned back against her chair, gathering her cards as a yawn overtook her.
“You still haven't recovered from the festival,”
Yallara laughed.
“Indeed,”
Lunelle returned, rising.
“I’ll walk you to your room,”
Arcas said quickly, drawing a look from Yallara.
Lunelle tucked her cards back into the silk pouch she’d found for them last Summer at the village markets, looping the drawstrings over her fingers as the table dispersed. She felt that thing—whatever it was—that shifts between two people when a glimpse of the future passes between both their minds.
The pair only made it into the hall before Arcas fumbled for an apology.
“I’ve been thinking about my behavior in the atrium this morning.”
“That makes two of us,”
Lunelle said gently, her cards bouncing against her gown as they turned the corner, the hall’s silence embracing them.
“I assure you it had nothing to do with the other night,”
he said, wandering slowly along the wing she stayed in.
“I was in a bit of a mood.”
Lunelle nodded. “I see.”
Arcas tucked his hands behind his back.
“One of our cities has fallen to rebel forces.”
Lunelle weighed her response options, unsure how to navigate this topic with him. Her lips parted, and she almost asked how he felt about it, but she realized that the only thing more frightening than not knowing his opinion would be knowing they stood on opposite sides.
So she held her question—and her breath as it rotted within her immediately.
Another thought festered beside it.
Astra would have asked.
They came to a stop outside her door, and just as she was about to bid him goodnight, his dark eyes dropped to her lips in what seemed to be his tell.
“I find I must ask you to be blunt with me once more.”
He rocked on his heels, his eyes darting down the hall before returning to hers.
“I think we both know what I’m missing, Lunelle.”
It was the softness in how he said her name that broke her.
She pushed forward, pulling his parted lips to hers. He paused for only a second, his arms clasping around her lower back as she settled into him. He ran his fingers over the soft fabric of her dress as her lips came down over his.
He released a slow breath as she explored the space of him, hypnotized by the way their bodies pressed together. His lips closed over hers as he touched her soft waves, inviting her mouth to do more than just dance with his. She was happy to let him consume her—to drag her as far down as she could stand.
To distract her from the awful pit in her stomach.
“Is this what you want?”
he asked as she slipped beneath the surface of him, tasting the salty skin of his neck, his hands tightening against her back.
Lunelle sighed, craning her neck back.
“What did I say about asking me what I want?”
Arcas leaned his hand against the wall behind her, closing his eyes as she returned to her mission to taste every tensed stretch of muscle along his neck, her fingers threading under his shirt and touching bare skin. She’d expected him to feel colder, but pinned between her body and the wall, she only felt flames.
“Lunelle,”
he whispered, her nails skimming over his chest in a way that made it hard to say anything other than quiet praises.
“You told me to take what I wanted the other night. Do not get in the way of that now,”
she murmured, dropping her hand to the buttons on his shirt.
His eyes were no longer sapphires, but two obsidian portals that ran her blood cooler as she arched away from him.
“I will give you anything you desire, starling,”
he laughed.
“But perhaps somewhere more private?”
A blush crept over Lunelle’s pale face as her eyes followed his down the hall. It was late enough that hardly anyone was wandering the palace, but the servants didn’t need to bear witness to her bad decisions. He backed away from her as she fussed with her handle, pushing him into her bed chambers as she glanced over her shoulder. Arcas was already halfway across to her bed when she turned around.
He paused, his long arms snapping around her waist, drawing her into him.
His lips found hers again, pulling and tugging across her body as she whined at the pressure between their hips. She leaned back against the writing desk she’d left covered in musings her sister would never read, making room for him to settle between her legs. His tongue found hers while her fingers desperately wrestled his trousers.
Arcas laughed as she shoved his pants away from his waist, breaking the spell that had settled over her.
“What?”
she asked, her eyes widening as she caught sight of him.
“The last time we were alone, I thought you needed a chaperone, and I daresay that book was right.”
Arcas grabbed the back of her head, pulling gently at her hair and exposing her neck to his mouth as her fingers reached for his sensitive skin.
“Gods,”
he hissed. She found a firm hold on him, swallowing hard as he fought for a deep breath. He pressed into her lips with his thumb, stroking the swollen petal pink of them.
“Should have expected you’d show no mercy.”
Lunelle swallowed, the intensity of his gaze almost too much to carry. She moved her hand slowly, letting the velvet of him slip through her fingers and admiring the length of his lashes as his eyes closed and his breathing quickened. He braced himself on the wall behind her, gasping softly with each stroke.
She’d let their first night paint an underwhelming portrait of him in her mind. Here, stuttering at her touch, she could admit she’d neglected to see the strength in his jaw, or the statuesque curve of his nose. She’d ignored the soothing tenor of his voice, even more attractive to her as it fell into taut notes as he lost the ability to suppress his pleasure.
He was not nearly as pathetic as she’d imagined, despite the near whimper building at the back of his throat.
She quite liked drawing the desperation from him.
“I will not last, Princess,”
he warned, gripping the back of her neck as she watched his teeth crush his lower lip. Lunelle did not slow her pace, merely pulling him down to her lips to take advantage of how lost he was in her.
“Princess,”
he hissed between increasingly rapid breaths.
It was the undercurrent beneath his intriguing angles and lines that really enchanted her, she realized as he choked on a soft moan, his jaw clenching against his release. A shadowy depth she did not fully understand, but enjoyed watching dissipate when she drew near.
“Give me what I want,”
she hummed, his eyes closing tightly.
“Fuck,”
he groaned, gripping her shoulder as he arrived. Lunelle didn’t speak as she wiped away the evidence of his lost control on her skirt, her spine straightening with the power she found in bringing him to such a quick finish. He refastened his trousers, unable to look her in the eyes.
“I’m no maiden, Arcas,”
she said, brushing her hands against his waistband. Her silver gaze captured his as her lips curled into a sly smile.
“That was exactly what I wanted, there’s no shame in giving me what I want in a timely manner.”
“And what about what I want?”
he asked, leaning over her and cradling her neck. Lunelle rested her hand on his wrist, staring up at him as she stroked the pale blues of his skin.
“I’m afraid to know what you want,”
she confessed.
Arcas chuckled, trailing his hand down her sleeve and pulling gently, exposing her gleaming shoulder to his haunting touch. She leaned into the sensation, urging him silently to reveal more of her. He slipped the fabric away, her breasts falling freely into the cool air.
“I want to know what a Lunar goddess sounds like when she comes.”
Lunelle gasped quietly as he claimed her mouth again, dropping his hands from her neck to the exposed curves of her breasts and massaging gently, slowly, reverently.
She broke from his touch, standing to pull the rest of her dress over her head and sending it to the floor as he watched the slopes and valleys of her twist in the low light.
She liked drawing those strained sounds from him. She liked knowing he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She liked the tightening of his throat when she gripped his hand and brought him to the soft cloud of her bed, lying back so he had full access to her as he kneeled between her legs.
He did not hesitate to push her thighs open, his breath hitching at the sight before him, and she liked that, too.
“Demigoddess is an understatement?—”
“Less talking,”
she dismissed him.
Arcas rolled his eyes and crawled his fingers over her thigh, just brushing her center as she twitched in response. Lunelle gripped the back of his head, forcing him to her, a low rumble of laughter reverberating in his chest as he began stroking her slowly.
Her head fell back, crashing against the fluffy pillows behind her, enjoying the shift of weight off her chest for a moment as his movements distracted her from any thought that wasn’t the praise of his tongue against her. She reached for his hand, resting lazily on her leg, and pulled it toward her breast, squeezing his fingers around her soft skin. He took the note eagerly, desperate to make her feel even a drop of the pleasure she’d drawn from him.
“There,”
she gasped as he hit a pace that made the edges of her vision sparkle with the threat of release. She sighed as he found the spot again. His hands squeezed her, giving her everything he could offer as she wound her hips against him. The tension simmered, the space between them buzzing with an energy she’d seldom felt with another partner. There was something so dark about him, so unidentifiable, and it bled into her as she raced toward her intention.
Arcas moaned against her as her cries grew less predictable, less controlled.
“Do not stop, Prince,”
she whined, clutching his hand. That sacred space within her opened up, filling with lust and smoke and sapphire stars, shimmering at the edge as she bucked against his mouth. Arcas dug his hands into her body, begging her to give him what he’d worked so hard for.
She broke—splintering from the inside out, bursting against all the lingering guilt and doubt she’d brought into the room. Arcas did not stop until she was writhing in his hands, gasping for breath, and pulling sharply at his hair. He fell over her as she slipped back into her body.
Lunelle pushed him away, too alert to every brush of skin against hers, too sensitive to it. Her chest heaved as she found her breath again, the brazen decisions she’d made since leaving dinner crashing around her.
Arcas rose, snagging her dress from the floor and handing it to her gently.
Lunelle pulled it over her head, not caring to properly adjust the lacings to her soft curves. She stood and planted a hand on the prince’s chest, his eyes wild with all sorts of conflicting ideas.
“So?”
“So?”
he echoed.
“Did I sound like you imagined?”
Arcas snorted, adjusting the shoulder of her dress.
“Hmm. I’m not sure. Perhaps I should try again.”
Lunelle glared at him as she pushed his hand away and tapped his cheek with her palm.
“If you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll let you.”
She made no secret about shoving him toward the door. Her need to be alone—utterly alone—climbed her spine and gnawed at her skin.
By the time she was back in her bed, the rush of his touch was already gone, and she was left once again to contend with the terrifying thought that no matter how intriguing of a distraction Arcas was, it might never be enough.