Chapter 24
Lenna
Days passed since their encounter, and other than being surrounded by books, she didn’t talk or see or feel a particular Ruler of a particular House.
Instead of him, Lenna’s company was a thousand-odd-page tome titled Chains of the Veil: Binding and Breaking the Will of the Divine on dark rituals and forbidden magic; Blood’s Final Whisper: Rites of the Returning, a heavy-as-fuck theory book on death, the afterlife, and resurrection with graphics that made her sick; and The Thorned Lexicon: A Compendium of Cursed Words, the book with more warnings on not reading a single word aloud than anything ever written.
Their encounter had touched too much. Of course, in pussy terms, but also, in heart terms. There was so much to read and not that many straightforward answers.
At least, Jake still desired her. Depending on the time of the day, she thought that was enough.
That having Jake talking to her was better than not having him talking at all, and that she could do just-sex stuff until she figured out what the Fifth she could do to change this blockage on his end.
But when the night came, the books were closed, the room was silent, and her bed was cold, she always ended up curled up in a ball, missing him so much it hurt. How long she could continue crying to sleep every night, she wasn’t sure.
One particular lonely night, out of pure self-compassion and pity, she brought back her still-unnamed lynx cub.
The little claws made of golden sparks were cuter than she remembered, until the creature was so overexcited being back that she injured Lenna a bit, but compared to the East House and the regular injuries it inflicted, the minor scratches were pure decor.
Especially at night, her lynx—who Lenna finally named Sweet Bitch—kept her company in her lonely bed.
It wasn’t as bad to cry with a mass of shiny fur on top of her chest—at least she could stroke her while she cried to sleep.
It was right before falling asleep, when her mind was finally drifting off, that her forearm tickled, and the dark room and the navy ink seemed an impossible sight.
Lenna blinked multiple times, looking at it, her heart stopping as her mind couldn’t process his words.
All she could feel was fear. She feared it would vanish, and before his words disappeared, she opened her other hand and Harmed her forearm, tracing his handwriting on her skin, slicing herself open to cling onto something that belonged to him.
Something more than sex and his distanced words. Something of his on her, even if it was in past tense, even if that wasn’t the case anymore.
This would be a permanent reminder of why she had to find a cure for the East Cardinal curse, or a way to annihilate the creator of said curse.
Jake had thought Lenna was the love of his life, except she knew with every fiber of her being and every ounce of her magic, that she still was the love of his life. He just couldn’t feel it.
She started crying again, but before her pain grew into sobs, she dried her tears and reopened one of her current reads on page five hundred and five. Chapter 105: Irreversible Bindings in Cases of Willful Subjugation to Divine Maledictions.
It was sometime after when Lenna felt Sweet Bitch pushing the book from under her sleeping face, but she was too exhausted to thank her.
The next morning, she was shattered, which she had predicted.
She was fucked, which she had expected. She also had his handwriting on her forearm, not with navy ink but with a scab that had formed overnight, since she had sliced her skin open.
She was also one day closer to finding a way to get him back.
She Gave herself a golden-inked pen and paper, and handwrote a card.
Dearest Jake,
This is my thank-you card to show supreme gratitude for how well you fuck me. Thank you for eating my pussy like you’ve been starving all your life, for fingering me like your happiness depends on it, for making my fantasies come true, and for not allowing either of us to keep track of my orgasms.
May I take this opportunity to appreciate the perfect hardness and magnitude of your cock and how bloody delicious your pre-cum tastes in my mouth when I deep-throat you and you try your best to keep from coming so you can fuck me and/or I can ride you.
May our lives be full of fucking amazing sex, passion, and pleasure forever after.
Yours sincerely,
Your lover
After delivering it personally under the not-welcoming door of his office, she headed to the library again. The cheerful books this Harming House had in store held a lot of knowledge she had yet to unpack.