The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 79

Chapter 79: Seventy Nine

A Hundred and Fifty-Some Years ago.

Lucien

I was being followed.

I’d felt eyes on me in the revelry, and it wasn’t the usual kind of attention that spelled stripping clothes afterwards and the occasional watching of skin slapping against skin.

No. It was malicious, the kind that made your blood curdle. I could smell the blood lust, even in a crowd of thousands, and I’d stepped out to lure whoever thought themselves foolish enough to try kill me in my own home.

And predictably, they followed. Down the abandoned wing of chambers where Ilya’s barely used rooms lay desolate. Down to my own bedchamber.

I halt by the doors and without turning, I said with a yawn, "No use hiding if I can smell you all over the place. You smell like shit."

A whisper of movement, and I turned just in time to avoid losing an eye to a rusted hairpin. My hand closed around a too slender wrist to be a man’s, as opposed to the dreary, manly garb and obviously stolen guard uniform. I slammed them against the wall, and the red cloak slipped enough for me to see their lips.

Something about them made me pause. By the gods, how much had I drunk tonight that I’d begun to consider tracing the fine lines of another man’s mouth?

I shook my head, clearing the fog on my mind as he continued to thrash against me. "Who sent you? Silvermoor? Impressive work, actually getting this close."

He snorted, though his voice dipped with hate. "Getting in was the easy part. Killing you, I wager, might be a little challenging." He grunts sharply. "I don’t suppose you’d just bare your neck for me and let me rip it to ribbons?"

I arched a silver brow. "With a hairpin? Adorable."

He dropped the hairpin and we both watched it fall to the other hand closer to my heart. In little less than a second, he fisted it and stabbed me in the chest. Or tried to. Because it turned to ice the moment it pierced my skin.

In that moment, his head snapped up in surprise and I saw a little more of his face. An uneasiness spread through me, a feeling of nostalgia and familiarity. Images assaulted my mind of that mouth on my neck, on my skin. A maddening smirk. A mischievous wink. The smell of jasmine. Rose gold hair.

My brows furrowed, perplexed, and I dropped him almost immediately. "You. I know you."

He began scrambling back like a little mouse caught in a trap, but my fist wrapped around his ankle, delicate, so very breakable, and I tugged him back almost too easily to where I crouched. I reached for the cloak and peel it right off.

And got struck in the chest by memories from decades ago, long forgotten. A face I’d tried to piece together in dreams that eluded me. The last time I saw that face, there was a youthful mischief to it. I could remember now, to my own chagrin, the smell of innocence, misplaced confidence and wildness. Now, there was only rage. And a deadly edge that made every curve and plane of her face so damned lethal.

The last few decades had been a slave to her, softening her features yet somehow making it harder.

How could I have forgotten--Right. "You compelled me," I said sourly. "You stole my pouch. You tipped me four brass coins. And then, you stole my memories."

"The performance merits the reward, don’t you think?" the woman gods knew if her name was truly Lyra said to me, angrily grabbing at her cloak.

I tore it off before she could don it again. "What on earth is your deal? You’ve been stalking me?"

Her amber eyes blazed with rage. "Don’t romanticise it. I’ve just been looking for the right opportunity to get you alone. So I can murder you without consequence."

I cocked my head. "Why? Because of my poor performance?"

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