The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl-Chapter 156: Extra - s (Valka & Lucien) VII

Valka

Guilt is an unbelievably heavy emotion. Now that Ilya isn’t trying to kill me with the distance, all I can think about is Malachy, and how heartbroken he must have felt when I didn’t show up to his pack. Knowing him, he’s probably tearing the world apart looking for me.

And what do I do? Hide. Like a coward.

My bedroom looks exactly as I left it, untouched except for the quiet ways Lucien prepared for a future I never returned to. The wardrobe is fuller. The glass boxes in the corner are sealed with ribbon, their handwritten notes browned and curled from time. I don’t open them. I know if I let myself touch even one, I’ll never be able to walk out of this place again.

On the fourth day of self-imposed exile, a sound like thunder shakes me awake. Boots slamming against marble, sharp orders barked into the air. Startled and bleary-eyed, I stumble into the hallway.

Several guards stand like statues beneath the staircase. Black armor. Black cloaks. Helmets pressed to their chests. Their faces are grim.

And at the center, I catch a broad back, a shock of silver hair, and an armor that stands out in the crowd, gleaming a deeper obsidian than the rest. Lucien jerks his head to a blond who lowers his head almost immediately. "Send word to Trenton. We converge at the Pass in two days..." His voice fades as meaning hits me slowly.

My gaze sharpens in the moment they disperse, heading out the the door and Lucien makes a turn for the stairs, seeming to have forgotten something. I run down on bare feet, my robe sweeping the floor behind me. "You are heading out to war."

He swats me away like I’m a bug. "It’s nothing new--"

"Nothing new?" I echo. "Why didn’t you tell me? What if something happens to--"

A stray strand of silver hair clings to the side of his face. Stubble shadows his jaw. His eyes are rimmed with sleeplessness. He looks like someone who hasn’t breathed properly in days. "Am I to interpret this as your worry for me?" His jaw clenches when I don’t respond. Because even I can see that none of my actions so far show even the tiniest bit of care. "I thought so. Not to worry. The staff will continue to attend you until you decide when next you’re fed up and want to flee again."

He turns to leave but my hand jerks forward before I can stop it, pulling him back by his gauntlet. "I understand how this must look but it’s been difficult for me--"

Pain spasms in my shoulder as he rips his arm out of my hold harshly. In the next second, he is breathing down my face with a sneer to end all sneers. "Difficult? For you? How so, Lyra? Ah, let’s see." He takes one step forward and I take one back. There’s a violence tearing out of him in ripples and it makes me want to curl inside of myself.

"Tell me you’ve been caught in this hellish loop." He runs a hand through his hair, pacing one sharp line in front of me like a caged predator. "Tell me you’ve tasted your own sanity slipping because you keep reaching for someone who isn’t there. Tell me you’ve stood in the ruins of your own memory wondering why your chest hurts when you don’t even remember who you’re aching for."

His voice cracks, barely, but enough to punch the air from my lungs.

"I didn’t even know why I was devastated," he says softly. "Do you understand that?" He shakes his head. "And this time, you granted me enough mercy to remember. And I was fucking thankful. Before I realized you only left me the memories because you weren’t coming back. I looked for you!"

I flinch when he punches the wall behind my head. And then he laughs a little. "And then you came back. And gods help me, I hoped it might be different. But it’s not." His stare becomes unflinching. "And now you stand here, acting like you’re the one being tormented."

He steps so close the heat of his body swallows mine. "You don’t get to talk about difficult, Lyra. You are the difficulty. You are the chaos. You are the catastrophe that keeps rewriting my life to fit whatever story you will it to be." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"I’ve made your life into a hellish loop? You don’t know a single thing about hellish loops! You have no idea what I sacrifice being here! It’s not your life at stake--" I catch myself before I can spill the words that’ll change our relationship forever. My nostrils flare with anger. "I fled my mating rite to be here! And I realize now how stupid that was because I never should have done that. I’ll leave, since my presence has brought you nothing more than torment."

I whirl before I can see his expression, but he catches my arms and I gasp as my back slams against a wall. His breath is hot on my face. The air smells like danger. "Mating rite?"

Tears sting my eyes now and I struggle against his grip. "I’m engaged--"

"You said you had no interest in being wed--"

"Well, I changed my mind!" I yell. "I met someone who made me change my mind. And I realized I had no interest in playing these games with you anymore. I want a family. I want more. We’ve both known since we met in the fighting pits that there’ll never be more than stolen moments and now you act enraged by that. You will not make me queen and I do not want to be queen, neither do I want to be your concubine. You wanted me around because I made you curious. And I stuck around you because it was fun. You say I’m the one who pulls you back and forth. You, Lucien, are my enabler."

A scary calm comes over him. He cocks his head to the right, eyes piercing through me and stripping me down to my very bones. "And the moment I am gone, you will leave and return to this man that has your heart?"

"Yes," I say without missing a single heartbeat. Because I never should’ve left Malachy. I should’ve pushed through the pain and gone along with it. This thing between Lucien and I will be the end of me. I’d only ever approached him to stave the curiosity of who he might be, having lived most of my childhood with flashes of him, longing for him, crying for a man I didn’t know.

I wanted to know him. Even if from afar. I never intended for it to get this far. And when I realized I had to kill him to live properly as Lyra, I had tried to take that step. And failed. I should’ve known then that in the years that followed, I would continue to fail at forgetting him and fighting the pull between us.

Lucien nods very slowly. "I see."

The world suddenly tips over and I scream as he hurls me over his shoulder like a sack. "Put me down!" I yell, banging my fists against his back and kicking harshly at this torso. But I might as well have been hitting stone.

His arm is like a vise, holding me in place as he walks down the stairs while I shriek in outrage. I rake my nails along his back, grab his hair and tug it harshly. His arm only tightens to a point of hurt.

I vaguely registers the floors and I realize I do not know where he is taking me. The checkered marble gives way to smoothened concrete and the world shifts scents from that cologne of his that seems to have been infused into every room in this castle of stone and glass, and turns into something musty.

Without warning, I am tossed onto the hard floor with a thud and before I can properly register where I am, something cold clamps around my right foot and wrist.

I peer down and it takes several blinks to comprehend what this is.

A cell. And Lucien has chained me to the wall.

I stare at the bronze and yank at it, expecting it to break, because it’s fucking bronze, but it doesn’t even budge. Panic steers in my chest and I lift my gaze to meet Lucien’s dark ones. "Uncuff me."

The key sits in the center of his palm, a dull metal with five points. "Take it."

I lurch forward but before I can reach him, the metal contorts, turning to ice and them it crumples into bits of snow that dissipates, carried on an invisible wind. I scream and lash out at him.

He catches my fist before it can connect to his face and slams it against the wall, his body pressing hard against mine. I pant against him, my eyes stinging with furious tears and his voice is thick, husky as he murmurs, "The only way you get out of those is if you rip your feet and hand become stumps. But I do not think you are desperate enough to dismember yourself to get away from me."

His leans lower and licks the tear rolling down my cheek, something animalistic rumbling in his chest with approval. "I’ll be back, sweetheart. Until then, consider very carefully, if this male is worth the weight of my rage. But of course, if you end up deciding he is, I will make a trip on my way back from this war and find the man whose bride abandoned him at the altar. Shouldn’t be that hard. Your people do love to gossip." He adds against my ear. "I will bring you his head as a trophy."