Chapter 10
My body was warm as I lay on my stomach beyond the silk of a black-gloved hand palming my ass. Stroking it. Kneading it.
I lay over…a lap. The lap of someone strong with solid thighs and hands, my face heavy against upholstery. A man. A vultus.
We bounced like we were moving because we were, through open air with a chilly breeze. My bones shook. The sound of horses haunted me.
“Dear gods, I’d never thought I’d say this, but I can’t possibly eat another bite,” a voice said. A chuckling voice. “You take him.”
That laugh. Silky and hair-raising.
I was moved. Another lap. More hands. A different touch.
Keep him asleep. Trust me, you’ve been tasked with worse.
Fingers in my hair. Kisses on my neck. Fingers smoothing. Hands squeezing as I drifted to and fro.
Sleep licked at my eyelids as pleasure twitched my cock. Feeding. Satin gloves. Darkness.
That’s the price of a diamond.
My eyes sprang open.
I jerked hard, scrambling like a wild animal until my back hit something solid. I rubbed my eyes in a manic haste that rattled jewelry fashioned around my wrists. My vision slowly forged into focus.
I was on a bed inside someone’s chambers, but I had to blink for a long time just to understand what I was looking at.
The dusk sky shone in through four octagonal shaped windows to illuminate a bed. My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open at the scale. All the furniture had been built in excess, three times the size it needed to be, from the fireplace burning in the corner, to the chest of drawers, to the bed.
It was refined and masculine and constructed from the strangest color of ebony wood, like no tree I’d ever seen, with this white grain that nearly glowed in contrast.
“Hello?” I asked the empty room.
Above me, pinned to the top of four ceiling-height posts was a midnight blue canopy, sheer enough to see… the fucking sky?
I squinted as I peeked from beneath the canopy. No, it wasn’t the sky. It was a recessed ceiling that’d been painted to resemble an evening at twilight, streaked so realistically with blues, pinks, and oranges.
This was the most beautiful room I’d ever seen. I was in the king of Novithia’s chambers.
All the jewelry I wore jangled as I tossed the blankets aside.
I was covered in it, the jewelry. I was weighed down with bulky silver bangles, anklets, and whatever heavy necklace this was.
And I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how I’d been dressed. My tunic was a shimmery silver, half the size of a normal shirt, and sheer enough to see my nipples and the outline of my abdominals. It was also missing one shoulder, the fabric strung together by a sparkling silver thread.
I touched my fingertips to my ass, barely covered in undergarments of the same shimmering fabric. Fuck me, at least they’d taken the plug out, but I was sore enough to remind me that it had been there.
“Hello?” I planted my feet onto the floor with the same ebony colored wood as the furniture and stood on shaky legs. “Is anyone there—?”
A chain followed me. There was a long chain attached to my necklace from the back.
I whipped around and it followed, skidding from the bed and pooling onto the floor beside me in a silver heap.
It was the longest necklace I’d ever seen. My hands shook as I tried to gather it all, but there was so much.
Oh. Because it wasn’t a necklace. It was a collar.
My fingertips were unsteady as I tried to feel where it was clasped around my neck to find a thick lock. One that needed a fucking key.
“The fuck?” I whispered, darting around the bed as the chain followed me to try to find where it was connected.
Then I saw it. Bolted to the floor by a massive steel hook was where I was bound.
My logical brain tried to defend it. So what if I was chained to the king’s chambers? I’d been bound before. Perhaps these were just the king’s tastes. Lots of vultae like to shackle their humans’ wrists or ankles.
But then why was it so long? It felt more than just sexual. Like I was not intended to leave this room.
I whirled around the fancy room with my gut blaring and heart beginning to race.
It was clean and pristine, just like the king. It didn’t necessarily smell like him, but the fire was rolling, so it smelled more like charred cedar than anything else.
There were two doors, both solid black wood and shut.
The first one I tried creaked as I opened it.
My eyes widened even further as I stepped inside.
Oh, my goodness. This was the largest washroom I’d ever seen. The walls were textured with a pewter metallic covering and, just like the bed chambers, everything inside it was oversized, including the dozens of framed mirrors on the walls and the high-polished silver tub in the center.
In one corner was another fireplace, and in another sat a massive black chaise lounge propped up by grand, claw-like feet that resembled a dragon.
I slowly made my way inside, rubbing warmth onto my bare arms. The chain had plenty of slack to allow me to reach most any part of the washroom.
My head reeled when I caught a glance at myself in a mirror. I had to blink for ages at the reflection staring back.
Someone had…altered me.
My hair had been oiled and combed into a poised style with tiny bits of mother-of-pearl woven throughout by a sparkling silver thread. I dripped in jewelry, and a metallic shimmer had been dusted atop my cheekbones and collarbones, wherever the light might naturally reflect.
I even smelled different with my skin polished and perfumed with something nearly spicy, like cinnamon. It was exactly how I would imagine a palace concubine to smell and look. Over-the-top. Sexy.
The chain followed me as I wandered from the washroom to try the other door which, gods, was a dreadfully heavy thing. It took all my strength just to haul it open and shimmy out before it sealed shut again with a slam. It was as if humans were not intended to navigate anything around here.
Beyond the door was an empty hallway of more black wood, which ended at a spiral staircase encased in a charcoal stone that sparkled in the light.
“Hello?” I asked the silence. “Is anyone there?”
Nothing. There was no shuffling. No footsteps or voices.
Maybe it was by design. Maybe that was why the walls and doors were as heavy as they were. Because of their exceptional hearing, it would be one way to ensure privacy.
It took all my strength just to muscle the door open and return to the king’s room where it was just so quiet, the only sound from the crackling fire.
Maybe a lot of contracts included a chain and a collar, and I just didn’t know because I’d never done one, but the thought didn’t soften the panic trying to slither up my throat.
How long? How long was I to remain chained here? Chained to the king of Novithia’s room with no other choice but to fucking wait.
My thoughts drifted to Landry as they so often did. I would never tell him this, but the thought of him had never calmed me. Quite the opposite. Since the day I met him, he’d filled me with a profound sense of responsibility that sometimes I wished I could ignore.
I pressed the thought away and wandered further into the room. It was oddly serene. And even though it was spotless, it was also lived in. I traced my palm over a beautiful grand armoire which had been intricately carved with…sex scenes.
I blinked. Yes, that was what they were. In the thick wood, someone had taken the time to carve out very detailed sex scenes between vultae and presumably their humans.
My eyes narrowed as I swished to the chest of drawers. Same thing. Then the bedposts. What I’d mistaken as abstract intricacies were actually hundreds if not thousands of tiny, explicit sex scenes.
“Seriously?” I whispered aloud to no one as I wandered to the writing desk beneath a window. “It’s just not necessary. We get it. You like sex.”
The writing desk was the only thing not carved in sex scenes. I skimmed my fingertips across its smooth surface. Something about it felt especially cared for. I would say it felt love, but they weren’t capable.
I opened the drawer. Neat. Minimalist. Two ink pens and a stack of blank paper were all there was. And a small journal in the corner, bound in leather.
I peeked over my shoulder, pulling the journal out and flipping through to find its pages blank. Not a single entry. It was a bit disappointing, but of course the ruler of the kingdom wasn’t going to have war plans written out for anyone to find.
I’d nearly slid it back in its home when a folded paper fell out. I glanced over my shoulder once more, then opened it because why wouldn’t I? One shouldn’t leave a human chained to their chambers and expect them not to snoop.
It was a written letter. Well, not quite a letter as it was only two sentences. But they weren’t written in Novithish. They were written in Vultaen.
Fuck, it’d been a long time since I’d seen it in written form as humans were strictly prohibited from learning their language, meaning no books and certainly no personal letters.
It was part of the reason why I made sure Landry and I could both speak it, building on what my parents taught me, seducing vultae into teaching me more.
I was nearly fluent in the spoken form but written was trickier.
I sounded out the first word which translated to My.
“My dear-est Al-e-kus,” I said aloud, then paused.
Alekus. I recognized that name, but I couldn’t remember where from. It was unique, Alekus. And quite strong.
“Be sh-ure to remem-ber the non-entities,” I continued, sounding out the complex Vultaen words, “when y-you are…” I trailed off at the last word, chewing my lip. I’d seen it before. Not often, but I had seen it. “Remember the nonentities when you are…”
My gaze swayed around the room and back to the letter, and around the room again. Oh, wait.
“King,” I said. “Be sure to remember the nonentities when you are king. For-ever at your ser-vice, D-doctor Barrion.”
It took me a moment, blinking at the page, cocking my head. Remember the nonentities when you are king. But the only problem was, Alekus wasn’t the king’s name. Sorlen. Sorlen was the king’s name. Which begged the question:
Who the fuck was Alekus?
I folded the letter into the journal and shut it back into the drawer to stare at the empty room with slightly new eyes as something like panic began to claw at my stomach. I’d assumed this was the king’s room. I’d assumed. But what if it wasn’t?
Remember the nonentities when you are king. When you are king. So, the prince? Was this the chambers of a prince?
I stormed to the armoire, yanking the heavy-ass doors open to find neatly lined shirts in a palette of white and midnight blue, all embroidered with the Novithian crest on the breast. I jerked open the drawers to look for anything that might identify who Alekus was.
Then I found it. Tucked in a drawer all on its own was a box crafted from the same unusual black wood as everything else. I pried open its lid to find a crown.
It was delicate. Too delicate to belong to a king. Crafted from white golden metal, it was spiked so sharply that it looked like it might pierce the skin of whoever tried to wear it.
The only time the royal family threw one of their parades was to celebrate the birth of a vultus child. There hadn’t been any parades in nearly twenty years, and I knew that because the only parade I ever attended was also the last time I saw my parents alive.
Which could mean nothing, and I was going fucking mad.
Or it could mean that this prince was the precise age when a demon’s body chemistry transformed.
Around nineteen was when their bodies rejected the food that had always nourished them, and they metamorphosed into their true natures.
It was called their ‘awakening.’ When they became a creature who fed on sex.
I suddenly felt the weight of the chain around my neck. I suddenly felt the heat of the fireplace, like it was filling this room with smoke, and I couldn’t breathe. Sweat began to bud on my neck with each step I backed away from the crown.
If Prince Alekus was nineteen, then it was possible he’d never fucked. Which meant I was chained to the room of a virgin.
I was chained to the room of a wicked, lethal killer.