Chapter 141: Remains
"Really...?"
THRUST!
SLAP—SLAP—SLAP—
The wet, rhythmic percussion of skin eting skin.
"Aaahh... aaa... aaah... aaaa..."
Breathy, broken cries, each one a shard of glass scraping down his spine. A voice he knew. A voice that should not sound like that.
"...cock feels that good, baby?"
A low, male growl. A voice that made his blood boil.
"Mmm... so good, East... your cock... So... crazy good..."
Bliss. Her voice. Wrecked. Adoring.
"Fuck."
A guttural, satisfied curse.
He saw them. Behind a stone pillar in a deserted corridor. He saw a foot, clad in a delicate loafer, sticking out from behind the pillar, swaying, trembling with each impact.
"It feels... crazy good, baby..."
He heard them. Every gasp, every slap, every whispered, filthy endearnt. The soft, low, rumbling voice of the lion...
Arzhen gasped awake in his own opulent chamber.
He was drenched in a cold sweat, his heart hamring against his ribs as if trying to escape. The luxurious sheets were tangled around his legs, a trap.
Whatever dream he’d just endured, it was an assault. Deeply unpleasant. It left a residue of sickness and a corrosive, simring fury in his gut.
The details fragnted and fled the mont his eyes opened, as dreams do, but the core of it, the feel of it, clung to him like a foul scent.
The sight. The sound.
Of them.
Fucking.
A low growl vibrated in his chest, unbidden. He sat up, shoving the sheets away, running a trembling hand through his hair.
"She’s dead."
He said the words aloud to the empty, predawn darkness.
She was dead.
He had made sure of it. He had held the proof in his hands. That Chapter was closed, the book burned.
And yet...
She was haunting him.
In his dreams. Twisted in the embrace of another man. Giving to another man the sounds, the surrender, the attention that had always been his due. Or so the narrative in his head insisted.
"Ha—"
It was a ghost that wouldn’t stay buried, choosing instead to taunt him from the arms of his rival. A ghost that was for so goddamned reason had a missing body.
"Cecilia..."
She’d worn a hairchain once. Delicate, the beads hand-painted ceramic in a soft, dusty pastel blue. It had caught the light when she turned her head. He’d noticed.
Then, the whispers started. Copycat. Trying too hard. The hairchain vanished. He’d assud she’d thrown it away in sha.
He’d found it months later, tucked in the back of a drawer in her room—their room, though he never used it. He would take it out, hold the cool beads in his palm, and then... mark it. Thoroughly. Drenching the pastel ceramics with the musky scent of his sen, branding it as his territory.
Then he would ticulously wipe it clean, leaving no visible trace, only enough so the scent would still be embedded in the porous glaze.
He saw her, much later, take it out again. Long after he’d begun his ritual, long after she’d stored it away. She held it up to her hair in the mirror. Then, she smiled. Just a little appreciation for the pretty thing.
Then her eyes caught his reflection in the glass. The smile softened into sothing warr, welcoming. "You’re ho, Arzhen."
He hadn’t responded. He’d turned cold and left the room. But the image, her with his secretly marked trinket, smiling that private smile, had followed him. It had driven him to the nearest bathroom, where he had to jerk off furiously, the scent of the ceramic beads and the mory of her smile fueling a release.
Those little pastel trinkets.
They looked good on her.
"Why—"
Why was this mory surfacing now? He didn’t know. But it felt connected. Sothing in the dream... and this mory of the hairchain, secretly claid by him. Both were about things of hers that were ant to be seen only by him, or by no one at all.
Hidden for life.
Only to put on and to admire in the mirror, never to see the light of day.
His Cecilia. She was supposed to be his. In all ways. Her smiles, her admirations, her body, her life. That smile in the mirror, with the hairchain... that was his. The version of her that existed when she thought no one was looking, that was his to covet.
And control.
So why did it start to hurt?
"Saintess, why don’t you practice singing the hymn at ho?"
"Well, the Prince doesn’t like too much stimulation."
"Why? Your voice is so beautiful..."
"It’s not about beautiful voices. It’s about being gentle to the ears."
He’d overheard that, once. She’d muted a part of herself for him.
"Is it worth fighting with Lady Elara just to install a pool indoor in the mansion, Saintess...?"
"It’s sumr. It’s good for cooling off."
The pool had been installed. He was the one who used it most. He’d never thanked her. He’d assud it was for status.
"Why did the new herbs I ordered never arrive?"
"Saintess... the Lady said it’s too slly..."
"What? But the Prince likes exotic scents..."
He’d found out, much later, she’d done these things. All sorts of small things. Never big. But never not big. For him, at least.
So, he made her his. In his heart.
His to own. His to live with. His... to kill.
The man in the dark bed grasped his chest, his fingers clawing over the fabric of his nightshirt, digging into the flesh over his heart.
"Where are you... Cecilia...?"
He couldn’t find her.
But Ruby had given him a new power.
He would use it. He would find her. To have her once more. And this ti, he would ensure she could never be taken, never be adorned by another, never haunt his dreams in another man’s arms. She would be his, finally and forever.
Her.
Or whatever remains were left of her.
Once he secured the power Ruby ntioned, no force on the world could stand against him. No one.
Not the golden lion. Not the Delanivis heir with his icy scheming. Not even the legendary wolf of the north, Arkai Dawnoro, in his frozen fortress.
He, Arzhen Vasiliev, would beco the apex. The strongest creature in the world.
Ruby... The na sparked a different, warr heat in his chest. She truly was the one. His fated star. His true mate. While the other had been a duty, a placeholder, Ruby was destiny.
She had called him, telling him how she missed him. His Ruby. And then, she had gifted him the key to everything.
She’d shared a secret vision. A glimpse of power beyond mortal asure.
Of the death of a dragon.
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