CHAPTER 100: ONE HUNDRED

Valka

Tug.

Tug.

Tug.

I toss in the soft mattress, groaning inwardly at the pull from the bond, demanding I get out of bed, find Lucien and make myself at home in his bed instead. I shut my eyes, grumbling. It was never like this with Rafe. The bond is a living thing tonight--pulling, needy, insolent--like Lucien has taken on a voice that lives in my head and won’t shut up.

Shutting my eyes and hoping to catch some good sleep for the first time in days only makes that string curl tighter and I throw the covers off like a woman lit on fire. Snatching the robe from the stand, I wrap it around myself and storm from the room.

I’m only going to check if he’s alright.

It’s nothing special. Not a big fucking deal. A quick peek, that’s all.

I shut the door to the guest chamber behind me and a draft of cool air hits me. Something about the way this place is built makes it safe from the elements outside, warm and homely. I stare down the dimly lit corridor, noting the emptiness of it. It is so unlike the castle, where no one sleeps. It is peaceful, so quiet, I can almost hear the even breaths from the other side of the door across mine.

I contemplate turning around and heading back to bed, but I know sleep will remain a fantasy until I go in there like the bond wants me to. And far more than I’d like lately, I’ve been finding less and less reason to fight the bond. Suddenly, losing myself doesn’t seem all that bad, if I get one more moment with him. One, wild passionate moment I can actually remember this time.

My tongue darts out to wet my dry lips and I take a tentative step forward. Then another. The door is silent is I twist the knob, slipping inside the vast chamber.

The moon light flits in from the tall windows, the fire in the hearth burning a little too warm. The light casts a golden glow at Lucien’s figure, laid on the right edge of the bed. At some point, he must have pushed off the blankets, because now he lays completely bare on the white, silken sheets.

I thank the gods that I’m leaning against the door, because I have no idea what’s come over me. He looks much better now, the holes completely healed from his skin, an indication of the poison gone from his bloodstream. He lays still, chest rising and falling gently, lips parted slightly as he snores. Not loudly. It is a soft sound and gods help me, something warm fills my chest at the sound of it.

Alright. My work here is done. He’s alive. Not dead. I should most definitely leave.

But do I?

Nope. Nope. Nope.

I start thinking the strangest things. Like making him more comfortable. Like how his neck will hurt when he wakes from sleeping at that off angle. At how he might be cold. And then, I’m walking across, bare feet tapping against the ground. I grab the covers and bring them over his naked skin.

A breathy sigh escapes him and his head lolls left, his hair fallen over his cheek. A shadow of a stubble has formed under his chin and over his lips and it had never occured to me that he probably shaved every other day to keep his face smooth.

How would he look with a beard? Less pretty? More manly?

Curiousity gets the better of me and I reach across, tracing a thumb over his jaw. He leans into the touch, exhaling evenly. Two fingers turn to four and I trace the outline of his high cheekbones, his perfect nose, his eyebrows. I brush the hair back from his face, tucking it behind his pointed, arched ear. And then, I trace that pointed tip.

More sudden than I can detect, hands grip my waist, flipping me over. My back hits the bed, the curve of an arm pressing against my throat, thighs trapping me to the bed underneath. The blood rushes to my head and I struggle, trying to break free from the death choke he holds me in, but his eyes are glazed and unseeing, his chest heaving.

"Lucien," I cough, hands reaching up to clutch his arm. "It’s me."

He blinks, cocks his head once in a movement that’s more viper-lile than human. His hold relaxes, before pulling away altogether. His eyes are still glazed in the way that tells me he isn’t entirely awake. But he recognises me, anyway. "Val." He grunts, as if trying to clear his head. "My ears are rather... sensitive."

When he says sensitive, my gaze drops below his hip and my cheeks burn at the evidence of his sensitivity. He’s hard. Or maybe he’s always hard. I don’t know. How should I have known something as delicate as the tip of his strange ears would make his cock twitch?

"I--I came to check on you briefly."

Hooded eyes flick down. "Without your underwear?"

A furious blush crawls up my neck and I yank down the hem of my chemise. "I was tucked in bed, before the bond pulled me in here--"

He rolls off me suddenly, powerful muscles bunching as he moves. His eyes are clearer now, his expression colder. "You should leave. It’s late."

It’s like having a whole icy bucket of whatever doused over my head. And I realize with horror that I do not want to leave. And I miss the weight of him pressed against me like they had been only a couple of seconds ago.

I clutch my robe together, feeling... odd. A little annoyed. A little warm. A little... rejected. I sit up, feet dropping to the ground as I watch his back, his stare fixed out the window. Why didn’t he want me to stay? Didn’t he feel it too? That staying all the way in a different chamber was driving me insane? And are we never going to address what happened earlier in the forest? What we would have done if we hadn’t been ambushed? How close we were to fucking like animals against the tree or the raw earth? Or the aftermath? How I’d lost my shit and gone... beserk? And how I didn’t regret it one bit?

Or did he change his mind after that? Had a little bit of clarity after nearly dying and decided he didn’t want to deal with my shit anymore? Or all the baggage that I seem to carry with me? Or did he think me a monster, too?

The touch of wind against my skin is all the warning I get before I feel his fingers in my hair, jerking my head up. My face is on eye-level with his groin, so close, his hard tip would brush against my bottom lip of he just thrusted forward.

But he doesn’t seem to notice that. His gaze is intense. "I almost lost you today. You distract me, Val. I can’t think when you’re around me. You say one thing and your scent, your body language spells another. On other days, I might try deciphering what they mean, when you want to be touched and when you want to be left alone. But I almost lost you. Again. It rips something open in me. It wakes the thing I bury and feed in the dark. He wants a single answer--proof that you’re here, alive, breathing, warm and ours."

His thumb caresses my mouth. "I need to be inside you. Beause touching you once, tasting you once isn’t enough. Need to feel your skin against mine, our bodies merged until I feel your Lycan answer me back, until the white-hot panic that clawed at my throat today goes quiet."

His cock bobs, so close to my mouth, and my breath stalls, lips filling with thirst. To taste him. To drink him in.

"But I cannot touch you the way I need to, because when he takes the reins, I cannot control my impulses. I already lose all sense of self control where you’re involved," he says softly. "I might--will break you."

He lets me go and I drop back against the bed, fingers curling. "I ask you to leave for your own sake."

"And if I want you to?" I blurt. His eyes flash with warning, but I ignore it, heart hammering. "If I want you to... break me?"