The fingers that had been stroking her hair slid down the nape of her neck.
Talia tilted her head back without thinking. The tongue that had spat out cutting words at every turn now softly explored every corner of her mouth.
Her breath grew ragged, and her vision blurred. She felt their bodies heating where they touched, burning almost unbearably, but she could not bring herself to stop him.
She moved her tongue in a languid rhythm, following Varkas's lead.
How long had they lain like that? By the time her lips began to tingle, he lifted his head.
Talia gasped for breath, looking up into his eyes. In contrast to his hotly throbbing body, the silent face looking down at her showed no trace of desire. That inscrutable distance unsettled her.
Gathering her ragged breath, Talia quietly turned away.
“I’ll… go now.”
Just as she was about to step down from the bed, his arm wrapped around her waist.
“Stay a little longer.”
The low, resonant voice pouring into her ear felt as if it were melting her very bones. Pressing his body flush against her back, he leaned in and touched his lips to her nape.
Talia stiffened with tension.
The only reason she had come here was to secure an heir for the Grand Duchy.
Giving herself to him in the dark was merely a means of accepting him without pain.
Those excuses, closer to self-hypnosis than truth, threatened to shatter under a single soft touch. She clung desperately to her resolve.
“There’s no reason for me to stay here.”
“There’s no reason not to, either,” he said, stroking her hair.
“I’m an injured man. Just stay beside me until I fall asleep.”
Talia bit her lip at the note of languor in his voice.
‘Why do you want me by your side?’
She wanted to demand an answer, but she feared the cold disappointment that might follow.
Hesitating, Talia blurted out something else entirely.
“…Then go to sleep quickly.”
She felt the faintest shift in his lips.
Had he smiled?
No, impossible. The corners of his mouth never lifted unless it was to sneer or scoff.
Suppressing the urge to look back, she stared intently at the window streaked with rain. Just then, a flash of lightning flickered, followed by a low, rumbling growl of thunder.
“Are you afraid of thunder?” he asked suddenly.
Only then did Talia realize she was trembling.
She had never feared storms or lightning, but she did not bother to deny it. She could not let him see how badly she was shaken by what he stirred inside her.
After a while, the sound of steady breathing reached her ear. The heavy thumping of his heart slowed to a quiet rhythm.
Was he asleep?
Or perhaps not.
She lingered in that hesitation, guessing at something she could have confirmed with a single glance over her shoulder, until weariness broke over her like a dark tide.
She drifted across the edge of waking and sleep. Then, without warning, she was dragged down into an abyss of suffocating dark.
The warmth that had wrapped so gently around her vanished in a breath, and the darkness turned to an iron club, crushing her entire body.
She clawed toward the light, but only the pathetic clatter of shattered bones echoed through the void. Then came a low, rasping breath.
Two eyes gleamed in the pitch.
A red-eyed monster crawled slowly toward her to devour her whole. She could make out the hideous shape of a beast plated in scales. The creature opened its maw and tore at her ruined lower half. Not even a scream would leave her throat.
Talia watched with terror-stricken eyes as the beast submerged in shadow consumed her flesh.
Then the shape warped. The monster shrank, contorting into something she knew.
A woman with a strange smile on her lips gathered Talia's bloodied torso into pale, luminous hands. Parting crimson-stained lips, she tore away a strip of flesh from Talia's neck.
At last, Talia recognized the face.
It was her mother.
Senevier was chewing through what little remained of her body.
Reduced to nothing more than a severed head, Talia wept.
Fair hands lifted her head from the dirt.
“Poor thing.”
Whispering as though she truly pitied her, Senevier kissed her wet cheek.
“Talia!”
A sudden grip seized her shoulders and shook her hard.
Talia's eyes flew open, gasping for air like someone dragged up from deep water.
The dimly lit bedroom swam into her panicked vision. For several seconds, she could not fathom where she was.
As she shivered violently, a hand stroked her hair.
“Shh, shh…. It’s all right.”
Talia turned her head. She found his handsome face clouded with worry.
He cupped her cheeks in both hands and gently wiped the tears from her eyes with his thumbs.
“Calm down. It was only a dream.”
“…A dream?”
Talia’s eyes darted through the shadows, chasing the lingering silhouette of Senevier burned into her retinas, before her shoulders sank. The trembling did not subside.
He drew her tightly against his chest, his hand rubbing her back in steady, measured strokes. The frantic pounding in her chest, hammering as though it might burst through her ribs, gradually slowed to match his.
She spoke in a raw, muffled voice.
“Have you ever had a nightmare?”
The hand patting her back stilled.
“A long time ago.”
“What kind of dream?”
“Well….”
Noticing the faint drop in his voice, she tried to lift her head, but his palm pressed gently against the back of her skull, holding her still.
“It was so long ago, I don’t remember well.”
‘Yet you remember having one at all. It must have been terrible.’
“Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you if it comes back,” he murmured, pulling the blanket up over her shoulders. Talia sank into his arms without resisting.
The thought flitted through her mind that she had never intended to spend the night here, but she let it drift away. In that moment, she simply could not tear herself from his warmth.
She shut her eyes, her cheek resting against his bare chest.
The next day
She discovered exactly how he had been injured.
A large crate lined with neatly groomed silver fur had been placed before her door.
The servant who delivered it held his chin high with quiet pride.
“This is the belly pelt of a Drakar that the Grand Duke personally brought down. It is the finest grade, immune to flame and fully proof against the biting winds of midwinter. His Grace commanded that a coat be tailored from it for the Grand Duchess.”
Nanny touched the fur with trembling fingers, her mouth falling open.
The silky white pelt cast a faint azure sheen where the morning sunlight struck it.
“Heavens… it’s breathtaking.”
The maids waiting to dress her murmured in hushed awe.
It was only natural. The Drakar stood at the very pinnacle of dragonkin beasts. Its sole vulnerability was its underbelly, blanketed in soft down.
Because of that, even the most renowned hunters risked their lives to take a pelt without tearing or marring it. Even her mother had likely never laid eyes on a piece of such rare quality.
Yet Talia’s expression froze as she looked down at the priceless gift. A fierce, sudden anger surged straight to her head at the realization that he had thrown himself into such reckless danger solely to procure this.
She turned a cold glare on the servants.
“Where is the Grand Duke?”
“Ah… he should be attending to his duties in his study.”
Reading the sudden chill in her mood, the servant shrank back and answered meekly.
Talia turned and left the room on the spot. She fully intended to throw it back in his face, to tell him she had no need for such trinkets and never to do anything so pointless again.
Yet as she descended the grand staircase, a scene met her eyes that made a cruel mockery of her fury.
END