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“Oh, my sweet pet. We shall soon learn how beautifully you can sing for me.”
It was easy to parse Lucan’s intentions from his riddles.
Not a captive—a possession.
Fine, Elarian thought to herself even as her skin burned and sweat dripped from her breasts. Let him play this game and find out just how hot a star can burn.
Oh, he could chain her and parade her before his court—believe she had traded silver for scraps of food.
It would only take one lapse. One heartbeat. One glance.
Elarian would bury her blade in Lucan Valmere’s heart even if it took the rest of her immortal life. And if she stole a blissful touch here and there, one fleeting moment of warmth before her silver found his heart…
Surely even Melistra could forgive a starving woman for stealing a single crumb.
twenty-four
Lessons
Rare were the quiet hours of night when the hum of the castle lessened and Lucan’s breaths came easy. Every moment in the fetid air of his father’s once-illustrious castle withered his soul until he felt little beyond contempt for those walking outside She Who Is Death’s shadow. Bloodwine and willing lovers could only ease the agony of eternity for so long.
He had never bargained on the elf coming here.
Had never dared to hope—to fervently dream—that he could truly claim the only person who had ever made him mourn the humanity stolen from him. The woman who ran with wolves, burning with such life to rival the sun itself.
But she came.
And then she cast her silver aside.
Long, thin fingers rested upon that etched hilt and paused. For a breath, Lucan could not decide if he wished to tame her or let her blade finally pierce his heart. They had stared at each other, two hunters in the night, blood risen with the taste of death and lust…
Gairan, Sun Maiden! Mother of mine even in this accursed undeath! Why did she not kill me? Why did I not want her to kill me?
Lucan sighed and let his hands fall to his lap. The soft sound stirred the elf sleeping on the floor beside his bed. Her eyelids fluttered as a gentle moan slipped from her pale lips. So achingly alive, defiant even as she lay in chains. Resisting the urge to run his sharp nails along her skin until red bloomed proved a near insurmountable task. How beautiful she looked, wearing his bruises and marks upon her moon-pale skin.
No, he told himself sharply. Not beautiful…vulnerable. Body flayed until her secrets tumbled from her bloody mouth.
Then he would kill her.
Certainly.
Lucan clenched his hands as the aching thirst for her blood returned.
Certainly.
The word still sounded hollow even as he chanted it in his mind. Like a sliver buried too deep in the flesh, Lucan knew his obsession with the godsdamned elf would never end. Truthfully, could he not have slain her at least a dozen times in the ballroom, and a dozen more as lust clouded her senses? And the elf, with eyes pale as the faded amaranth blossoms he once loved—she, too, had every opportunity to slip the silver from the sheath at her thigh and find a new home for it in his flesh.
Instead, they danced, cheeks kissing, breath mingling, fingers roaming, testing, prying for a crack.
He found them—but then let her game continue. And then, when she had nearly won, the elf who had spent nearly a century hunting him once again stayed her hand.
Yet this time, she scarred his heart instead of his body.
Why?
Why could she care?
Godsdamn her, why?
