Chapter 50 Valen
VALEN
She seems to like watching me come. And fuck, holding her gaze with my own while the flower sucked me off was intense. I’d still rather have her mouth or hand or pussy wrapped around my shaft though. I’m still half-hard as I step out of the tub and towel off.
Casually, I stroll over to where she’s standing in front of the carved wooden wardrobe that Horatio promised would contain clothes suitable for the banquet hall. She’s staring at it, but I have the feeling she’s not actually seeing it.
“So—let’s see what we have to wear, shall we?” I ask, coming up beside her.
Irena bites her lower lip and gives me a sidelong glance, as if asking if I’m going to try something. But of course I’m not—she’ll come to me when she’s ready.
“Come on,” I urge her. “Let’s see what’s inside.”
Without waiting to hear her reply, I reach around her and swing open the wooden doors, which are carved all over with magical looking animals and people dressed in Court finery.
Inside, the wardrobe is full to bursting.
Velvets and silks and satins in jewel tones spill out like a damn rainbow. Dresses with corseted bodices…trains long enough to trip a dragon…and sleeves big enough to hide weapons—or an entire person. Everything looks ridiculously formal—like something out of an opera about a cursed ballroom.
And not a single thing is subtle.
I whistle low under my breath.
“Well. Seems like someone likes living large.”
Irena reaches in cautiously and pulls out a gown the color of pomegranate seeds. The bodice is stiff with boning and overlaid in black lace. It looks promising… until she turns it around and realizes the bustier is cut low. Really low. Like, ‘would barely cover the bottom swell of her tits’ low.
Her brows shoot up as she sees the problem.
I can’t hold back a grin.
“Looks drafty.”
“Try obscene,” she mutters, but there’s color blooming in her cheeks.
She tosses it on the bed and grabs another one—a pale green confection that shimmers like dragonfly wings.
When she holds it up to herself, the skirt fans out in floaty layers of gauze, but the neckline…
well, there is no neckline. Just two tiny, crossed ribbons of fabric that would barely keep her nipples under wraps if she breathed too hard.
She gives me a flat look.
“Did the Sorceress design these herself?”
I shrug.
“Wouldn’t surprise me, considering the dress she was wearing when she first met with us. She does seem to like a dramatic reveal.”
“A dramatic reveal?” She rolls her eyes. “This one’s more like a public scandal.”
Another toss. Another dress added to the growing pile of Pretty-but-inappropriate.
She digs deeper, muttering to herself, and then pulls out a third gown—this one a rich sapphire blue with an embroidered bodice and a high neckline.
“Finally! Something that looks halfway decent,” she remarks.
Then she turns it around.
The entire back is missing.
Not just a low back—it’s gone. The dress is held together by a crisscross of golden laces that plunge all the way to the cleft of where her curvy bottom would be.
She sighs.
I can’t help it—I bark a laugh. This magical wardrobe seems to have a vision for my pretty little Princess—one she doesn’t quite share.
“Goddess,” she mutters, rummaging again, “is there anything in here that doesn’t scream ‘Lady of the Night?’”
“Apparently not.” I lean against the edge of the wardrobe, arms crossed. “I think subtlety is banned here at Thornmere Stronghold.”
“Apparently so is underwear,” she grumbles. “I can’t find any kind of shift, or chemise, or even…” She trails off and bends low, checking the bottom drawers.
My gaze drops to the curve of her backside beneath the towel. Then I look in the drawer she’s searching.
Yeah…definitely no panties in there. Which means whatever she wears, she’s going to be bare underneath.
Which means… fuck.
I shift my stance, trying not to get hard again, but it’s no use. My cock has a mind of its own where she’s concerned.
She slams the drawer shut.
“Nothing! No bloomers. No stockings. No petticoat. Not a single pair of underpants! And every one of these dresses needs something under it to make any of them even halfway modest.”
I rub my jaw.
“You could always go in the towel,” I suggest.
She glances over her shoulder, giving me an incredulous look.
“You want me to get murdered by a thousand-year-old sorceress for breaking the dress code?” she enquires.
“I doubt she’d murder you, but I don’t think you can ask for anything else than what she’s already provided,” I say.
“You’re probably right.”
She sighs and stands up again, finally choosing the least indecent option: the red lace dress with the demi-bodice. She starts pulling it on with narrowed eyes, like she’s already planning how to hide her assets. I watch the way the lace hugs her thighs and barely covers her nipples.
Fuck. She’s going to kill me in that dress.
She catches me staring and arches a brow.
“You’re not dressed either.”
“I don’t need an hour to pick between ‘naked’ and ‘almost naked,’ sweetheart,” I say, grinning at her. “I’ll wear whatever she put in there for me—I don’t fucking care.”
“Fine,” she says primly. “Go ahead then. Shock me with your modesty.”
I open the other side of the wardrobe and pull out the first male outfit I find—a long dark coat embroidered with thorn patterns in blood-red thread, black trousers, and a deep crimson shirt with an open neck.
It’s a little more dramatic than I’d like, but it fits—barely. The trousers are too tight and do nothing to hide my persistent hard-on.
Fuck.
I glance at Irena as she tugs the bodice of her new dress higher, cheeks flushed with frustration and pure indignation as she tries to make sure the black lace covers her nipples.
But when she pulls the bodice too high, the slit in the center of the dress’s skirt also moves upward and her soft little pussy can be seen behind another panel of see-through black lace.
She sees this in the mirror beside the wardrobe, curses under her breath, and pulls the dress back down again…which means her nipples are once again on display.
I laugh—I can’t help it.
“Careful, Princess—that wasn’t a very ladylike thing to say,” I remark.
“Help me find another one,” she says, ignoring my taunt. “I can’t go out in this—it’s too obscene!”
But just then a knock sounds on the door and we hear Horatio’s voice calling,
“If it pleases you, my Lord and Lady, the Lady of Thornmere calls upon you now to come to a feast in the banquet hall.”
“Looks like it’s too late to change,” I say and Irena makes a face.
“I guess you’re right.” She sighs, which pushes her breasts up and out, showing me a glimpse of her tight nipples above the lace.
My cock goes hard all over again.
Gods help me, if this is what supper with the Sorceress looks like, I may not survive dessert.