Page 37 of His Dark Delights
My focus snapped back into place at the same time Ren removed his hand from under the table. I glanced over my shoulder at him, watching as he sucked a glistening finger into his mouth. A confusing storm of rich satisfaction and sickly disgust surged through me. Heavy and deep, those feelings threatened to capsize me in an endless chasm of bittersweet shame.
“They called me the Fairy Butcher after that burning. No matter who leads the fae, I’ll cut them down. I’ll cut them all down.” Soren licked his lips from the evidence of my cum. Eyes dark and menacing, he vowed to the party in attendance, “If it’s a butcher they want, it’s a butcher they’ll get.”
A detrimental ringing persisted in my ears through the rest of dinner. I became a silhouette of glass, brittle, fragile and ready to shatter in the slightest breeze. It was a miracle that I sat there like a silent pet, stewing in my resentment and anger.
I wanted to rage and scream and shout… The flower arrangements along the tables wilted as the hour passed. Ever so slowly, to the point none of the others noticed. Rhydan tipped back his wine, drinking heavily. The Grand Duchess picked at her roasted vegetables, complaining about the cook. Ren—oh gods—he didn’t stop touching me anywhere he could get away with.
But the flowers were weeping, withering, dropping petals on the table and no one noticed but me. I felt their pain as if I were the one wilting away. Perhaps I was.
Soren plied with me with wine, encouraging me to drink from the king’s cup until the edges of my vision blurred and the world swayed. At some point dinner ended, and I was vaguely aware of the king and his knight dismissing themselves on important business.
I rose from Soren’s lap, holding my head high and avoiding eye contact. I needed to get away, far, far away from him—from all of them. The floor dipped and swayed under my feet as I stumbled through the maze-like palace back to my assigned room.
Mrs. Gibbons found me along the way. She took one look at me and realized I was inebriated beyond my means. The older woman clucked with her dissatisfaction, and the sound reminded me of my chickens back home. She guided me into the room and untied the ridiculous laces of my dress. With each inch of the dress loosened around my ribs, I breathed easier, but only enough to cry louder.
“There, there, dear. I’ll fetch you a warm brew to soothe your head and fight that wine in your system.” Mrs. Gibbons left me to tug on a pale blue nightdress while she vanished through the door. She returned by the time I’d sat on the side of the bed with my shoulders slumped and face streaked with alcohol induced tears.
I drank the hot, bitter tea down to the last drop and sank into the bed. Mrs. Gibbons pulled the blankets over me, but my eyes were closed, and I was too far gone to thank her for the tender care.
While the medicinal tea worked to fight off thecreature of wine storming through my head, I had no draught or potion to heal the vortex of chaos in my heart. My emotions and thoughts were as turbulent and hectic as dark storm clouds rolling over the kingdom, heavy with rain and strife.
I dreamt of a Fae Queen, tall and resplendent in armor of blood-red roses. She was fierce and wild, leading her forces into battle against men with iron swords. But she had the forces of nature and magic on her side, and she swept humankind away into ashes. Upon those ashes she grew a garden taller than the sapphire stone palace of Elleslan and danced on the bones of her enemies.
And when the dancing Fae Queen turned under the sunlight, time slowed to a grinding halt. She stopped dancing, frozen in place, as we locked eyes across a vast distance. I traveled over the land in an instant, as if an outside force transported us together. When I stood upon the smoldering ashes and thriving, fresh garden of wildflowers, I looked up into the queen’s tempestuous, strong-willed gray eyes.
Mindlessly, my hand reached up, and so did hers. Shock bolted through me as her movements mimicked mine, moving as if she were my reflection—or maybe I was hers. But it was like looking through a mirror in the haze of a dream.
She looked like me, only decades older and not so human. The flower nymph queen of the fae’s features was sharper; ears longer and noticeably pointed, hair voluminous and shining a coppery pinkish-red, andeyes gray as a winter storm shot through with streaks of silver and dots of glittering sapphire.
Her hand reached out, breaking through the illusion that a pane of glass separated us. The petal soft sensation of her palm smoothed over my cheek. Sorrow and anguish twisted her gloriously wild and elegant features. For some unknown reason, I leaned into her hand. She smelled like a field of flowers after the first spring rain and radiated a warmth that I needed to seek out. She was strong and untamed, a force to be reckoned with, but she was soft and loving too.
A blooming rose unafraid of wielding her thorns against those who would pluck her.
Was she a vision of me if I’d been born a full fae? Or was she a vision meant to inspire ideals of greatness? A dream of the ideal version of myself.
“Lilliana,” she said with a voice as melodious as the wind. The sound of it produced goosebumps along my arms. Her hand on my face gripped me, pulling me close enough to see tears glinting like diamonds in her eyes. My hand flashed up, curling around her wrist. A breath punched through my lips and waves of adrenaline crashed through my system. The urge to run, to fight, to flee ignited within me, filling me with boundless energy.
When her lips moved again, no sound came out. Her face twisted with urgency. She repeated herself, holding fast to my face, now with both hands. The silent word on her lips ran together, over and over, as the bristling energy in my chest spiked to a fever pitch.
Darkness reached up from below, creeping through the vines beneath my feet. Shadows curled around my ankles and snatched me into a void of endless spinning,sinking, gut-wrenching inky blackness. The weight of loneliness, of pain, and despair threatened to crush me.
Only her final warning rang through my ears, keeping me afloat against the nightmare of dark emptiness.
“Run.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ren
My good girl. Such a good girl for me. Just as I knew she would be. Sitting perfectly still, so pretty, so demure, in my lap. Letting me pet and stroke her, letting me pleasure her. Gods, all I wanted was her pleasure. Her breathless sighs and the flutters of her tight, wet cunt were addictive, drugging, utterly intoxicating. The subtle floral scents of her skin, the silky curls of her coppery pink hair, the smooth skin of her neck begging for my mouth—
Lilly wove her web in my mind, stringing nothing but thoughts of her from one side of my skull to the next. She’d so wholly ensnared me there would be no escaping my obsession with her. Like a garden taking root in my chest and weaving her vines through my ribcage. I would rot without her.
As Rhydan and I left the dining hall, I could still taste her on my tongue. A quick fix to smooth the serrated edges of my addiction. Her honeysuckle flavor coated the inside of my mouth, and I rolled my tongue against my teeth, starving for another bite.
The echo of the night’s conversation and the clink and scrape of utensils faded behind us, dampened by the thuds of our boots on marble floors. Cecily’s reproachful words rang in my ears, her disapproval as potent as ever. Rhydan’s presence at my side steadied me, distracting me from the whirling thoughts relentlessly drawing me back to Lilliana.
“New intel reports the Fae Wild might be hidden somewhere southwest of the Angfern Mountains,” Rhydan was saying, his voice occasionally slipping through my chaotic thoughts. “I think that’s why the fae prince ambushed you in the Mistwood. It was too close to home for their comfort.”
