The beating of my heart seems to halt.I cannot tell if my ears are ringing or if it is the effect of blood rushing from my head to settle in my gut.Where did he get the name from? Me in the car or elsewhere?My mouth moves to make an excuse, but none comes to mind. What does he know? How can I twist this?"I was playing around with the name in the car. It’s nice. Are you jealous I do not appreciate yours in the same way?""I'll answer that when you try again; perhaps this time, put some effort if you intend on lying to me."Shit."You've sent people to spy on me.”It is not a question I ask, but a statement that he smiles after."Not well trained enough to evade the league security, but even gutter rats have their way."Fuck, that's…not an answer.“Are you referring to yourself as, said gutter rat?”“The league is bigger than us, unimaginably so. I have received quite a few sanctions from my attempts to reach you; hence it has taken a year.”Marko pauses to gesture with his hand tha
The champagne smells lovely; I am still breastfeeding, so I cannot touch it no matter how badly my conversation with Marko makes me crave it; then again, even if it weren’t for my pregnancy, I probably wouldn’t be able to. So far, only home-cooked food, meaning those cooked by people I trust, work for me. Violet’s insistence on dining out leaves me eating the barest amount necessary to appease her, but progress is progress, she always insists. At least the nightmares ended, though, with Milos’s crying for the past months… let’s just say the shortage of sleep made going back to bed after a nightmare easy, so eventually, they occurred less. Now, all that remains is a sense of dread that creeps in when it is too quiet. Again, progress, yet I cannot place if it is indeed progress or if I am running too fast for any contrast to find me. The scent of lilies envelopes me as warm yet rough hands press my body. “Alba! It has been ages!” Lily utters in an exasperated breath. “Have…did y
"Join you in the hall? I need to leave; there is an emergency. We can dance next time."I dismiss with ease, but he nears me."Next time when?"Marko asks with a smile as his hand grazes the paintings on his way to me."During your next...thing?""Oh...you won't have moved or fired half your staff by then? Are you certain that I will not get a response from the league saying you are halfway across the globe? Or on a diplomatic mission or task force somewhere?”He stills to turn his gaze to a silver polished vase shimmering beautifully under the bright chandelier lights. “‘Next time’ when Alba.""I can't...I can't do this right now.""Of course, you ‘can't’; running is, after all, what you do best, Alba.”His slow walk toward me resumes.I hate the way he punctuates his sentences with my name as if to stress his disappointment in me.Yet another feeling I do not need clogging me.“Another time, Marko. I need to-”“To what? to go? And then what? I spend another year and a half waiting
Marko "I don't..." Alba began, her breath warm against his frame. Her pulse raced wildly; he could feel it through the hand pressed between her breasts. A few more centimetres, either to the left or right, and he could reach the delicious stiff buds that were no doubt sensitised enough to have her moaning into his frame. Just a few more centimetres, and he could see it once more, her face desperate, brows lifted in wanton desire, and her mouth parted wide to let her soft moans escape. "Don't what?" He asked, burying his nose in her hair. Her scent had indeed changed to a softer, more soothing- "I do not want to play this love game with you, Marko. I don’t want to play with you anymore. I am tired of us." Her cold hand reached for his that had begun sliding toward the mound on the left to halt her words. Everything about where and how they stood was improper, but she was his. Her lusciousness was his to squeeze. Her softness his to desire. Everything about her was his.
The world around him was dark…blue…. cold… terrifying… empty… void… pointless… pointless. Pointless. “Your majesty?” Everything was hideous; food tasted of nothing; music burned his ears with its blandness, and everything remained meaningless in his misery. “Your majesty?” He hated everything in his sight. The statues, the art, and the halls were all decorated beautifully, but they soured everything within him. Yes, he should burn everything down. "Your majesty!" He jolted at the familiar call before his eyes raced across the room to place his surroundings. Where...was he? "Your majesty, you have wandered far from your room." His butler, Marcus, uttered as he offered a shawl to him. His gaze dropped to his shirtless attire and pyjama bottoms before accepting the old man’s kindness. “Thank you.” In the darkness that enveloped the room, he placed it finally as the ancestral hall that held the statuses of great Ivanov Lycans. A sacred room. Yet now, most of the artworks
The warmth engulfing me seems to want to swallow me.My breasts ache. My centre throbs too maddeningly that the sensation does not soothe by pressing my thighs together; rather, that emphasises the deepness of the throb.I wonder if I can climax from only this sensation and the cool and crisp scent that is flooding my nostrils, making me feel as if I were burning in a winter forest.Squirming does not help.The move of my hand to my centre is halted by something big and strong pressed against me.Begrudgingly, my eyelids open, taking in the new light of day from the small windows in the room.Oh…right, the plane.We must have landed; I do not feel any movement around-“Hah…this crazy son of-”I press my lips shut when the bear-like man buried beneath my breasts shifts slightly to adjust before his steady breathing resumes.My arms are around him, but his are the ones keeping my body in place.How can anyone sleep in such a position?How can he keep his nose buried against me? What if
‘How could you make me someone he is wary of?’His question stills everything within me.If he asks it in that way, then there is no defence I can come up with. Everything I utter will be just another excuse.An excuse that, in his frustration, he will demolish, leaving me resting in nothing but guilt.When I left, I was in the worst situation possible, but much has changed since then. At some point, I should have been the one to tell him. He is right, I never gave him a chance.Giggles follow the silence following his question as Milos's head presses against my chest.Cute, but it worsens the situation as a scoff leaves his throat."Alba?"Sharon calls from the hall, rather, from the nursery.Her voice sounds groggy, meaning she must have fallen asleep on the couch in Milos’s room…again."Just a second!"I utter, then turn to Marko."I'll go-""Go and what? Hear the diagnosis without me?"Marko interrupts.Huh…I am saying everything wrong today.I meant that I would go and at least p
"You are in my home, Marko."I remind as I maintain my stance near the door."Sit down."He repeats.Yap...got it. Not the time.It isn’t that he scares me that I follow his order and find my seat opposite him on the couch; it is that guilt still dances in my chest suffocatingly.After a few seconds of silence pass between us, he speaks."I will announce Milos as my heir.""No.""You do not get a say, Alba.""Is that truly what you mean to say? I understand if you mean to enact some sort of revenge on me for keeping him from you, but Marko, do you mean those words? That I do not get a say in my son’s life?""That's...”A frown replaces the sternness of his expression before he sighs.“No. I mean to say you do not get to rid him of the opportunity to be the next Lycan of Ketria.”"And what if, like me, he wishes for a simple life? What if he does not want to be the next ‘Lycan King’?""He is my firstborn-""You might get more with another woma-"His gaze silences my interruption of him