Chapter 75 Elena Heart- POV
I woke up with a groan that felt like it had to climb out of a deep well. My head throbbed in time with my heartbeat, and my mouth tasted like iron and expensive tea.
I expected the damp floor of a Guild cellar or the hard wooden slats of a carriage, but the surface beneath me was soft. Too soft.
I forced my eyes open, and for a moment, I thought I was still dreaming.
I wasn't in an inn. I wasn't in a dungeon. I was lying on a massive four-poster bed draped in heavy, velvet curtains the color of crushed plums.
The ceiling above me was a masterpiece of gold leaf and frescoed clouds, illuminated by the flickering glow of a marble fireplace. The air didn't smell like the city; it smelled of aged cedar, beeswax, and that faint, lingering scent of sandalwood.
I bolted upright, my hand instinctively flying to my thigh, only to find my dagger gone. Even my midnight-blue dress had been replaced with a soft, silk tunic that felt far too comfortable for a prisoner.
"Easy, little bird. You were hit with a high-grade paralytic. If you try to stand now, you’ll only find the floor again."
I whipped my head toward the sound of the voice. Sitting in a high-backed velvet chair near the fire, a glass of amber liquid in his hand, was the man from the garden.
But he wasn't wearing the guard's mask. He wasn't wearing the spectacles or the fake mustache.
He was wearing a royal robe of deep navy, his chest bare beneath the silk, revealing the faint, glowing lines of the dragon core etched into his skin. He looked every inch the King who had died in the North, yet here he was, alive and dangerously composed.
"Where the hell am I?" I rasped, my voice sounding like gravel.
"You’re in the West Wing of the Palace," he said, standing up. He walked toward the bed, the firelight casting long, regal shadows behind him. "My private quarters. The only place in this kingdom where Grace’s hounds and Leo’s spies cannot reach you."
He stopped at the edge of the bed, looking down at me with a gaze that was no longer 'Dark' the guard, but Xavier the Sovereign.
"I caught the men following you," he said quietly. "They didn't make it to the Cathedral. Neither did the man with the silver serpent pin. James is... cleaning up the mess."
He sat on the edge of the mattress, the weight of him tilting my world. He reached out, his thumb tracing the faint scratch a rose thorn had left on my cheek.
"Now," he whispered, his eyes burning with a terrifying intensity. "Tell me how an assassin from a fallen house knows about a mole on my captain's backside and a Duke who doesn't exist. Tell me the truth, Elena. All of it." Xavier sat on the edge of the mattress, and the weight of him tilted my entire world. The straw rustled beneath him, a soft sound that seemed impossibly loud in the stillness.
Moonlight caught the silver scars that traced his chest, turning them into rivers of liquid metal. His presence filled the small space, crowding out the faint smell of drying herbs until there was nothing but him, smoke and cedar and something darker, something that made my pulse quicken.
He reached out. His thumb found the faint scratch on my cheek, the one a rose thorn had left when I'd been careless in the garden. The touch was feather-light, almost reverent, and yet it burned through my skin straight down to my bones.
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. His fingers lingered there, tracing the thin line as if memorizing its shape.
"Elena..." The way he said my name, sent a shiver cascading down my spine. His voice was rough, low, scraped raw with something I couldn't quite name. "Now."
His eyes locked onto mine. Blue as frost over deep water, burning with a terrifying intensity that made my stomach clench. I'd seen him angry before. I'd seen him cold, calculating, cruel even.
But this, this was different. This was a man standing at the edge of a precipice, demanding answers before he stepped off.
"Tell me how an assassin from a fallen house knows about a mole on my captain's backside and a Duke who doesn't exist."
Each word fell like a stone into still water, rippling outward. His thumb pressed slightly harder against the scratch, not enough to hurt, but enough that I couldn't forget it was there. "Tell me the truth, Elena. All of it."
He leaned closer. His breath ghosted across my ear, warm and insistent, carrying the scent of him until I was drowning in it. The words vibrated against my skin, sinking into me like hooks. I should have answered.
I should have given him the explanations he deserved, the truth about House Valerios, about my training, about the network of whispers and secrets that had kept me alive when everything else burned.
But his lips brushed the shell of my ear as he spoke, and I lost it.
The memories crashed over me like a wave I hadn't braced for. His mouth on my neck in the darkened corridor. His hands gripping my hips as he pulled me against him, hard and demanding.
The sound I'd made, helpless, wanting, as he'd pressed me into the mattress and made me feel complete for the first time in my wretched life. The way he'd whispered my name like a prayer, like a curse, like the only word that mattered.
Gods, I missed this man. I missed him with a ferocity that stole the breath from my lungs and the sense from my head.
The weight of his secrets and mine, the danger we both carried, the impossibility of what we were, it all dissolved in the face of this desperate, aching need. I didn't want to explain. I didn't want to confess or justify or defend. I wanted, needed—him.
I kissed him back.
Not gently. Not tentatively. I surged up and captured his mouth with mine, hard and fierce and unrelenting.
My hands fisted in his loose black hair, pulling him down to me as if I could drag him inside my skin and keep him there. The kiss was a claim, a confession, a surrender all at once. I poured everything into it, every lonely night, every stolen glance, every moment I'd spent aching for him while pretending I didn't.
He was my anchor, and I clung to him like I was drowning.
For one heartbeat, he went still. I felt the shock ripple through his body, felt his breath catch against my lips. I'd taken him by surprise. Good. Let him feel as unmoored as I did.
Then he kissed me back.
His response came with the same eagerness, the same desperate hunger. His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck, gripping tight enough to hold me exactly where he wanted me.