The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 80

Chapter 80: Eighty

Lucien

The lunatic was half-naked--

in my shirt, no less. My custom silk, tailored to perfection, now clinging to her damp skin like it was made for her instead. Her hair was soaked, dripping down her neck, ruining the fabric, and she was eating like a starved beast. The maids had barely turned their backs before she’d devoured half the tray meant to feed a small battalion.

I watched, equal parts horrified and intrigued, as she inhaled a pie whole, crumbs at her lips, not a shred of shame in sight. No decorum. No restraint.

Graceful as a mountain cat, wild as a heathen.

"Is your name really Lyra?"

"Hm-hmm," she hummed with a mouthful, scarcely sparing me a glance.

"You are no mercenary, are you?"

She shook her head. "Fighting was the only way to get rid of the anger. Spent three days knocking men around and getting paid for it, and I decided, why not?"

"Interesting." I swirled the wine in my goblet, watching her suck the strawberry filling off her fingers. It’s a careless action, but I find that something cramps in my belly anyway. I brought the goblet to my lips, averting my gaze. "And if I may ask--"

"You may not--"

"What maddening anger could have driven you to a pit of killers to vent?"

She brought the chocolate cake to her nose and sniffed. She seemed to like them a lot. "Father was trying to marry me off. Didn’t want to. Ran away from home."

That cranked up my eyebrows and curiously, I asked, "And? Did you wed?"

"I went straight to his home from the pleasure house. Told his family I was no virtuous maiden. And I’d been fucked by one of the beasts we’d spent years warring against. I must have smelled enough like you to sell the story because in the years that followed, the men called me a whore and no one sought my hand."

There was a lot to address in that, but my body tightened upon the third sentence, a deeply seated hatred freezing my blood. "You’re from the other side of the wall. You’re one of them."

She stopped chewing, amber eyes lifting to mine as she finally seemed to remember her side manners and wiped her mouth and hands with the napkin. "Why?" she asked. "Will you kill me for being the enemy?"

My jaw clenched, flashes of dead bodies slamming into me. I unfurled from the couch, a slight shake to my bearings as the grief swarmed into me in waves. I’d lost my entire family, an entire line of Draemonts to one of them. And I’d kissed one of them, dined with one of theirs.

It tasted like a sin. A betrayal.

"Once you’re done with the supper, get out. Be glad that I do not wring your neck and tear it off your shoulders for your deceit--"

"Deceit?" she echoes, up on her feet and peering me down her nose even if she was much smaller than I. "When did I? You knew what I was when you stuck your tongue down my throat. What difference does it make if I am from within the walls of your kingdom or from the other side of it? Does it make me less of a person? A peasant, maybe? A barbarian? A demon? Does it make me deserving of the deaths you force upon us every year..."

She went on and on, raging about how our war was a useless, bloody and barbaric one with no end or explanation. Understandable, since they hardly knew our history, but at some point, her words faded out.

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