The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 38

Chapter 38: Thirty Eight

Valka

Air cracks through my windpipe and I sob helplessly as it fills my lungs.

The King tsks, his scowl deepening as he watches me gulp down mouthfuls of air greedily. "I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?" He peers over his shoulder at a still screeching Rhea, whose bloodshot eyes haven’t left my face. His lips part on a single word.

"Sleep."

Her eyes glaze over instantly, lids dropping shut before her body slumps, boneless, into Leander’s arms.

"Don’t hurt her," I whisper, voice raw. "Please."

Lucien’s perfect, silver brow arches, the circlet on his head askew, as though he’d donned it as an afterthought. "I quite like you this way, Valerian. Pleading, at my feet."

I start to push myself up on shaky hands, but my limbs won’t support my weight and I slip, nearly crashing into the shards of broken glass littered across the floors.

Strong arms grab my shoulder, breaking my fall.

The contact is a small seismic thing. But a frightening current erodes me, forcing my spine into an arch and a gasp from my lips. And my mind, for the lack of a better word, splinters.

--blood soaked the sheets. My trembling hands pressing against her little belly, trying to mend her. Stitch her together. Someone was screaming and as the walls ragged and I saw the light leave my daughter’s brilliant gaze of violet, blood matted against her auburn hair, I knew it was me--

The image is gone as fast as it came, but it tears through me with enough force to shred me in two. "Get your hands off me!" I snarl, skittering backward. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

He wrenches himself away from me, face slackening, completely stripped bare as if the world caved in on itself. "What..." His voice fractures. "What was that?"

My back presses against the wall, chest heaving. "I don’t know." Because it hadn’t been his memory. I hadn’t been in his head. I’d drawn him into mine. A sob parts from me. "Gods, I don’t know!"

He rises to his full height, shadows bending around him as if the room itself knew who ruled it. "Take her to the cells," he says, not sparing Rhea another glance. "Keep her muzzled until I decide what to do with her."

His command is no louder than a breath, but the soldiers move without hesitation.

Then his eyes fall to me, unreadable. "You’ll come with me."

*****

I’m too drained to ask where we’re going and he doesn’t bother as he leads me through hallway after hallway, his shoulders bristling with tension, hands folded behind him, his maroon robe sweeping the floors behind him.

Eyes follow where we go and with the blood staining my light blue dress and the corset hanging in rips, the only thing keeping my chest covered being a layer of fabric and the chemise underneath, it’s not hard to tell why.

But if Lucien notices--well, he doesn’t really care.

Soon, we enter a small chamber fitted with tasteful furniture, shelves and discarded scrolls. A small map rests on the wall behind the desk, the words in writing I don’t understand.

But he doesn’t head for the desk. He moves for the shelf, grabbing a red-tomed book and the floor beneath my feet rumbles. And I watch in awe as the shelf splits in two, revealing a wall--no. A trapdoor, so seamlessly merged with the bricked wall slides to the right.

A passage appears in the doorway and Lucien grunts an order to follow him. I hesitate, fists clenching at my side.

He gazes at me from over his shoulder when he notes that I’m not moving. His eyes narrow. "A fear of tight spaces?"

My breath stutters as I stare at the pathway ahead and the vastness of the man in front of me. It isn’t that it frightens me. It’s that it feels... oddly familiar. "You’re asking me to follow you through a narrow passageway, alone, and I bet the door closes behind me." I lick my lips. "That’d be a rather stupid way to die."

His lips curve in cruel amusement. "If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t need to do it in private."

I manage a smile of my own, though it’s a teeth and sweet poison. "Maybe you don’t want your subjects seeing how much of a turn on you get from carving up helpless, beautiful women."

His eyes rake down my body and I can’t help the shiver that races down my spine when they flare. "On the contrary, I only carve up women who want me to. The ones who bleed the prettiest when they beg for it."

Oh, but that doesn’t sound right. My cheeks flame with mortification. "You’re disgusting."

He laughs. "Do the skirts and corsets come with a new found sense of modesty? If that is the case, then I must admit that you were less dull when I thought you a lad."

With that, he leaves me standing in the center of his study, staring pointedly at his broad back. Perhaps it is his way of asking me to trust him or he merely doesn’t think me enough of a threat to show me his back. It is possibly more of the latter than the former, and ire crawls up my ass like a bug, propelling my feet forward.

Oh.

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