The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 76

Chapter 76: Seventy Six

Valka

Lucien didn’t come to me and I didn’t seek him out. I saw him at breakfast and dinner. I saw him whenever I looked out my window at the scenery, and sometimes his eyes met mine. I’d waited for it to ebb, the anger. But when it finally did, I felt... cold.

Not betrayal. Not frustration. Not anger. Not even a tinge of sadness.

The numbing cold that had started right after our wedding night had spread through my chest, icing the very blood in my veins, and I let it. I welcome it.

I understood perfectly what my place was and never strayed from it. I attended the wedding revelries alongside him. I learned etiquette and customs. I attended the Council meetings. I learned diplomacy. I hosted the women of Court and listened to their unending gossips. I drank tea. I wore the pretty dresses and the tiaras. But I never looked at him. Never spoke to him except when spoken to. Most times, not at all.

At first, he seemed amused by my decision to act like he didn’t exist, thinking it was some game I was playing at. But my life was no joke, and I was just... done.

It was on the eighth day after the wedding, while the castle was abuzz, preparing for the trip to Voss, and I was forced to take the customary ride with him through the kingdom, offering gifts and smiling for the people that he realized it. Perhaps it was my utter disinterest. Or my lack of attention when I could feel his scorching gaze on me at all times.

His nonchalant façade began to crack.

It began with gifts. I didn’t give them second glances before throwing them in the hearth or thrash, leaving the maids with less time to discuss about my marriage and more to clean. Then came the letters. A chunk of them. Apologies. Poems. I didn’t even know he could construct a ballad. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Either way, I fed them to the flames.

The visits followed. Popping up to my chambers whenever he felt like with a list of ’customary’ things to do. To which I went along with, and continued to act like he was no one.

And soon, his temper and patience began to fray, his frustration seeping through the cracks of his otherwise untouchable mien.

"If you would just move a little closer, Your Majesties," the painter says, an uncertain smile on his face as he regards Lucien and I. "A little bit of contact may yet make the outcome much better."

My back remains stiff on the sitter, though I relax against where Lucien’s hands grip the back of the chair. "Better?"

The old man’s lips thin. "Not...quite. You appear uncomfortable." His gaze rises to Lucien’s. "Perhaps a minute or two to clear the tense air would do you both good."

Lucien grunts, walking around the chair and I catch him wave off the old man in my peripheral, his movements tight with annoyance. "Ten steps away." He nods to the maids bearing the snacks and the guards by the door. "Turn around."

Unease spreads through me at the unusual command. I am about to stand when he springs forward like a mountain cat, too fast to have detected. His hands brace on the arms of the chair on either side of me and his face is suddenly inches away from mine. "What is your problem?"

I draw in a deep breath to calm my heart. And when I speak it is with steadiness and a mask of cold calm. "I don’t understand what you mean."

"You’ve been ignoring me," he says.

"I’ve been occupied."

"Parading the castle with Evadne? Holing up in the library to avoid me? Hosting tea parties that conveniently take place whenever I summon you? Missing meals, defying me at every turn? And now you can’t hold still for five minutes for a portrait, making it clear to anyone who looks that my touch disgusts you?"

I blink once. "Shall I act otherwise? Pretend it doesn’t disgust me?"

The maids probably heard that, considering the gasps and the chilling silence that follows.

"Do not vex me, Valka. Do not think me so lenient that I will condone your constant insolence."

I lean forward. "Then punish me, by all means, my liege. It is what this farce has been about all along, isn’t it? You think diamonds, letters and flowers will patch things up between us. You believe my affection is some trinket you can buy with gestures and lies." My voice sinks lower. "You’ve never been sorry a single day in your life. Do not begin to pretend with me now. You want to change something? Find a way to break this bond and perhaps, I shall regard you once more as deserving of my attention."

Lucien’s light lashes flutter against his cheeks, an unfathomably dark expression dimming the light in his eyes. He tilts his head, the sunlight catching on his crown as he studies me.

"You always were a difficult pill to swallow," he murmurs almost fondly.

"Two hundred years." He laughs, thumb brushing along my jaw. "Two hundred years of searching for a woman I could not remember, a scent I could not name or place face to, a voice that tormented my dreams but when I opened my eyes. Two centuries of madness, Valka--madness you planted in me and walked away from as if it were nothing."

"Come home with me," he’d said. "Come home, Lyra. Please."

"You want me because I’m her. You do not truly ache for me. You would get her back at any cost and bury me for it. And I do not want to live like that. I cannot."

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