Page 15 of Velvet Folds (Velvet)

Chapter 15

In which our heroine begs for forgiveness

“You cannot be here.” Tybald says, blocking the door when I try to enter as I always have to tend the garden.

I clench my teeth and straighten my shoulders. “If he does not want to see me, I will not go to him, but I applied a root treatment to your roses. No one here knows how to tend the roses, let alone finish the process I started yesterday. If they did, Mrs. Pegg would have sent me away long before now.”

His brows pinch and I see his gaze drop to my throat… where Adrik’s bite marks from the night before last still pulse with need.

And I know… he still isn’t going to let me in.

“Search my basket, stand guard while I work. But do not let those roses die simply because you don’t trust me.”

“Will you tell me who you’re protecting?”

“No.”

He doesn’t ask me again. He merely grimaces and snatches the basket from my hand.

Rifling through it, he speaks to me in Liarian. A language I know by sound, but was never taught.

“I don’t understand you.

Again, he doesn’t look like he believes me.

When he hands my basket back, he holds the shears in his hand. “You can’t have these.”

“That’s fine.” I shouldn’t need to prune anything today.

Stepping aside, he lets me in, but I know he doesn’t want to.

The whispers start as soon as the door closes behind me. Eyes peer at me from doorways and shadows.

For the first time, they see me and they pay attention, and I hate that they think I want to kill Adrik.

That awareness prickles at my skin like ice, but I have no way to prove them wrong.

He follows me to the garden and takes up his post at the arched entrance, watching me like a criminal.

Mrs. Pegg joins him, standing beside him, but she watches me with a different kind of wariness, one I don’t fully understand. There’s no anger in it, even though I know she’s never liked me.

I turn my back to them any chance I can.

Coming here was a mistake.

Being this close to him and knowing I can’t slip away to go to him… my throat throbs and blood simmers.

Twice, I have to pause, to press the back of my hand against the marks.

I should have snuck in through the lower passages.

“He wishes to see you.” Tybald’s words make me flinch.

He’s closer than I realized.

Looking up at him, I brush the dirt from my hands. “And are you willing to let him?”

“ I don’t have a say in the matter.”

Tybald stays close beside me as we walk down the hall.

“What difference does it make that I’m Liarian?” I ask when the silence has stretched too long.

“Killing monsters is a rite of Liarian passage.”

“I’m thirty-six. The time for rites of passage has long passed.”

“What did you kill?” He looks at me and he already knows I didn’t kill anything.

“My mother is not Liarian. She forbade me from taking part.”

He does not look satisfied with that answer.

When we reach the vault, Tybald lingers.

“Do you need to inspect me before you go?” I ask the man who has not let me get an inch from him. “Do I need to strip myself naked for you to make it clear he has nothing to fear from me.”

“No,” Adrik says from the darkness. “He does not.”

Still, Tybald Hesitates.

“Go, old friend. She poses no threat. You have gotten too fretful in your old age.

Finally, he leaves, and I step cautiously into the room.

“Do you need to search me?”

“Maybe?” He doesn’t reach for me like he usually does. “I have questions.”

“Ask them. I will answer them if I can.”

“You told me no one had a claim over you.”

It’s not technically true, or a question, but I do not argue with him. “I have not lied to you.”

“Who wishes me dead?” he asks. “Who gave you the weapon that could have killed me?”

“I told you I had daylight commitments… My father is blind. He cannot hurt you and I won’t. You have no reason to fear him, or to retaliate against his ineffectual desire for your life.”

“How did he come by that stake?”

“Tybald told you I’m Liarian. That comes from my father.”

He tips his head to the side. “And Liarian’s most lauded profession is hunting monsters.”

“My father used to hunt monsters.” I take a deep breath, not wanting to tell the story, knowing I have to tell him at least a little of it. “I told you I knew about the vodyanoy in the lake. He’s the one who killed it. But, it blinded him before he did. If it hadn’t, he might have come after you, my mother would never have found him, and I would never have been born.”

“He would have come for my father. He would not have known about me yet.” Adrik’s claws ghost across my cheek. “I’m not terribly old.”

“No?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

With a deep breath, he inspects me. “You did bring a weapon into my home. One designed to kill my kind.”

“I would never have used it.”

“You might be carrying one now.”

“I promise you I am not.”

“Take off your clothes, sweet sacrifice. Prove to me that you have nothing concealed on your beautiful body.”

I slip the fabric free, watching him the whole time.

He stalks around me, claws tracing the lines of my body.

They travel down to the V between my thighs. “Would you conceal it within yourself?”

His fingers part my velvet folds, dipping inside of me, and he exhales heavily when I shiver with need.

“How long did you carry it?”

“Not long… but also long enough to forget that I had it,” I tell him, truthfully.

He steps close, brushing his lips against mine, but not kissing me as he takes my hands.

The click of a latch and the cold press of metal against my wrists.

He releases me, taking a step back and I look down at the manacles.

“You may ask for forgiveness.” Wrapping the long chain that connects them in his fist, he leads me further underground. Another space, still cavernous, but smaller somehow. The ceiling glows with rocks that cast a deep blue light through the room. Ornately tiled floor alcoves carved into the walls with statues of men in crowns.

This room… is a throne room. And Adrik sits on the throne.

He watches me with a dark and lustful gaze. The red glow of his eyes has turned purple beneath this light.

“Are you the king?” I ask.

“There were kings here once, but one of my kind killed them, long before I was born.”

“Are you my king?”

“I will only be your king, if you become my queen.” A low growl echoes through the room. “And you have not agreed to that yet.”

“Haven’t I?”

“Not with words.”

He doesn’t let me do it now.

Pointing to the floor in front of him, he says, “Kneel if you wish for absolution.”

The ornate tiles are cold and rough against my knees, but I do not complain. I need him to know I am his. No matter the cost.

“What would you do for forgiveness, sweet sacrifice?”

“Anything.” I look up at him, wanting him to know it’s true. “My body is yours. Use it as you please. My blood is yours. Drain me if you must. But my heart is yours as well. Please don’t break it.

He reaches for me, grabbing hold of my hair and pulling me close to his face. “I will never break you, Lucia. But you do need to be punished.

My legs burn as he holds me like this. His claws grip my hair more tightly. My eyes flutter closed at the bright sensation of my hair pulled tight.

“Suck my cock, sweet sacrifice. Choke on it. Prove to me that you want forgiveness.”

When he lets me go, I drop back to my knees and the burning in my thighs is overshadowed by the sharp strike of bone to stone.

But I manage to barely wince. And then, I do as I’m told.

Working the bulbous tip of him into my mouth, I remind myself to breathe through my nose, but that is the only kindness I give myself.

I take him as deep as I can and as hard as I can. And then, I push deeper.

When his hand slips into my hair again, I push harder.

He pushes too, and together we go too far.

The sound I make is ugly. Tears prick at my eyes and I push down again.

And again.

Fucking him with my lips and throat, I grip his thighs and struggle for even more, but he doesn’t let me take it.

He drags me off him, scowling at me. “Were you trying to make me come?”

“Yes.” My voice is hoarse and broken, my throat burns.

His grip tightens once more. “You may suck my cock clean after I have spilled myself inside your velvet folds. Not before. Do you understand?”

I nod, swallowing against the burn.

He lifts me up, hands beneath my knees and then my thighs when I wrap my legs around him. Settling back onto the throne, his hand goes to my neck. “Do you know the old stories? Do you know how queens were made in this land?

“No.”

“It’s not a story many would tell to their daughters.” His grip is firm around my throat. “For a thousand years, future queens would be brought here, stripped bare as you are now… if they wanted the crown, they would need to fuck their king on this throne, in front of his entire court.”

I swallow, imagining this room full of people watching us.

“When the time comes, you will do something similar.” He lines himself up with my velvet folds and drives up into me with a single thrust. “When the moon bleeds, I will claim you in the village square, so everyone knows that you are mine. Your screams will ensure that everyone knows you want to be mine.”

“Yes.” I’ve already started to move my hips on his.

“Show me how you would fuck me to gain a crown in front of these dead kings.” He twists the chain between my wrists. “Show them how you would free yourself of these chains.”

I move to my knees again, rising and falling on him. “I would give myself to you before anyone who needed proof. And as long as you are the one with the key. I don’t need to be free.”

“Then let me prove to them.” Growling, Adrik stands. He pulls me off of him just as quickly as he entered me and puts me back on the throne on my knees.

This time, he hooks the chain over the back of the throne, though, and I gasp as he takes my hips, dragging me back onto him as he forces me open wider for him.

“I would spend every hour of every day worshiping your velvet folds,” he says, snarling and I moan, gripping the chains and leaning against the warmth left behind by his back.

It doesn’t feel like a punishment.

This feral, need driven joining of our bodies feels like a reward.

It makes me dizzy, and when his tail toys with my clit, it makes me want to sob with pleasure.

But my eyes fly wide when the tip of one of his claws presses into my ass. Everything else is a distraction from the initial pain, though, and I’m too open to him—to the pleasure he’s giving me—to deny him any access to my body.

And when I come, screaming his name, he follows right after.

“Do you think they’d approve?” I ask, even more hoarse than before, while cum drips from my velvet folds, onto the tiles.

Adrik holds himself still as I do what he told me I could, tongue tracing over his cock, cleaning myself—and his cum—from him.

“I think we are lucky they did not burst from their tombs and demand they’re turn.”

I am not done with him when he picks me up again, holding me in his lap when he returns to the throne.

“The moon will bleed tomorrow,” he says, softly. “I cannot drink from another sacrifice. I won’t.”

“You don’t have to.” I tell him. “I’ll be at the stone, waiting for you.”

“That is a tradition of the village’s making, you can wait for me wherever you like.”

“I know. But I’ll need to send away whoever is there for their turn.” If he doesn’t arrive, they will spend the month living in terror.