Chapter 2 #3
The bond made it impossible to hide. His desire pressed against my awareness like heat from a forge, relentless and consuming, making my own need spiral higher with every step he took. I was being carried toward something inevitable, and every cell in my body sang its approval.
Down spiraling stairs carved from shadow itself. Through chambers that grew warmer and darker, the frozen perfection of the upper palace giving way to something older. Something that felt lived-in, despite the millennia of imprisonment. Something that felt like him.
I caught glimpses as we passed—fragments of impossible beauty that burned themselves into my memory.
A library of books bound in dragon scale, their spines catching light in colors I couldn't name.
Thousands of volumes—no, tens of thousands—collected and preserved through ages of solitude.
He had been reading, I realized. Learning.
Filling the endless hours with knowledge because he had nothing else to fill them with.
A garden of flowers made from crystallized moonlight, each blossom frozen in eternal bloom.
They were the same flowers I'd seen in the grotto—the extinct ones, the species that had died when his corruption spread.
He had tried to preserve them. Had captured their forms in magic and light and kept them here where no one would ever see.
Evidence of the man beneath the monster. Traces of tenderness that had survived ten thousand years of learning to be cold.
"Where are you taking me?"
My voice came out breathless, wrecked. The friction of being carried was doing devastating things to my sensitized body—every shift of his grip, every adjustment as he navigated a turn, sending pleasure sparking through nerves that were already overwhelmed.
"Somewhere you can't escape." His voice was ice and fire, cold command layered over desperate heat. "Somewhere you'll learn what it means to belong to me."
Belong to me.
The words sent a pulse of liquid arousal straight through my core. I pressed my thighs together against the ache, felt him notice the movement, felt his arms tighten around me in response.
"I already belong to you." The admission slipped out before I could stop it. "I've belonged to you for ten thousand years. I was just too afraid to admit it."
He made a sound—not quite a growl, not quite a groan—and his pace increased.
A door loomed ahead of us, carved from black wood veined with gold. He kicked it open without breaking stride, and the bridal chamber revealed itself in the light of a thousand captured stars.
It was devastating.
Walls of dark crystal veined with gold that pulsed in time with a heartbeat—his heartbeat, I realized.
The room was an extension of him, responding to his presence like a living thing.
A massive bed dominated the space, draped in silk the color of midnight, piled with cushions and furs that looked soft enough to drown in.
Windows looked out onto an impossible sky of violet and silver, stars wheeling in patterns that belonged to no world I knew.
But the details that broke me were smaller.
A vanity set with brushes and combs, as if he'd expected someone to sit there and tend her hair.
A wardrobe half-open, revealing gowns in colors that would complement my skin.
A bookshelf by the bed, stocked with volumes that—
I caught a title. Then another. Love stories. Romances. Tales of reunited lovers and happily-ever-afters and bonds completed against all odds.
He had prepared this room for me.
Not recently—not since learning of my return. The dust on some surfaces spoke of years, decades, perhaps centuries of waiting. He had built this chamber piece by piece, furnishing it with things he thought I might want, stocking it with stories that would give me hope.
He had never stopped believing I would come back.
Valdris laid me on the bed—and despite his fury, despite his cold perfection, his hands were gentle.
Agonizingly, devastatingly gentle. He positioned my head on the pillows with care, adjusting until I was comfortable.
He brushed a strand of hair from my face with fingers that trembled against my cheek.
Then he pulled back as if my skin burned him.
He stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at me with those dying-star eyes, and the war on his face was terrible to witness.
He wanted to devour me. He wanted to worship me.
He wanted to punish me for leaving and reward me for returning and claim me so thoroughly I'd never think of running again.
The bond screamed between us, demanding he close the distance.
He held himself still by will alone.
"You are my prisoner now," he said.
I lay on silk sheets the color of midnight, my dress twisted around my thighs, my body still burning with need, and I watched the most beautiful monster in existence try to convince himself he was punishing me.
"You came to me willingly," he continued, his voice cold command. "And I am not letting you go."
"I don't want you to let me go."
Something flickered in his eyes—pain, hope, rage—suppressed so quickly I might have imagined it if the bond hadn't confirmed its existence. He felt everything I felt, I realized. Every moment of surrender, every whisper of acceptance. He knew I meant what I said.
And it terrified him.
He reached down and pulled a blanket from the foot of the bed—heavy fur, soft as clouds—and drew it over my trembling body. His hands tucked it around me with care that made my throat tight, smoothing the edges, adjusting until I was cocooned in warmth.
The contrast between his cold words and his gentle touch made me want to weep.
"You will eat when I bring you food," he said, straightening to stand over me again. "You will sleep when I permit it. You will not leave this room without my command."
Rules. He was laying down rules for my imprisonment, and every single one was designed to ensure my wellbeing. Eat. Sleep. Stay safe.
"You will not harm yourself."
This one came out rougher. Cracked at the edges, the cold command fragmenting around something raw beneath. His hands clenched at his sides. His jaw worked like he was fighting words that wanted to escape.
"I will know if you try." His voice dropped lower, intimate despite the distance he maintained. "The bond will tell me."
The bond would tell him.
The same bond that was currently screaming at us both, demanding completion, demanding we close the distance and finish what we'd started ten thousand years ago. He was using it to monitor my safety. To ensure I ate and slept and didn't hurt myself.
To care for me.
I looked up at him—this beautiful, broken monster who was laying down rules for my protection while calling me his prisoner—and I saw him.
Under the corruption. Under the millennia of grief. Under the cold perfection he'd wrapped around himself like armor because everything else had been taken from him.
The Daddy was still there.
He'd been waiting for me.