Lycidas' POV
I looked down at him, my jaw tight. "If you want the thing between us to work," I said, my voice low and dangerous, "you need to know some ground rules. The first and most important one is that you stay the fuck out of my family business. Do you understand?"
He met my gaze, his eyes calm, unflinching. "Yes, Your Highness, I understand. But the thing is, since you entered the Kingdom, all your actions have been under the control of the Court. They reported your arrival to His Majesty, who summoned me last night..."
I grabbed him by the throat, slamming him against the mirror. The glass cracked under the force, shards raining down around us. His face was scratched, blood trickling down his cheek, but he didn't struggle.
"Did you go and see my brother last night?! Did he fuck you?!" I roared.
He whispered, "Your Highness, Lucian is sick now. He didn't..."
"If you mention my brother's name again," I snarled, "I'll break your neck."
He whispered, "Sorry, Your Highness. It will never happen again."
I let him go, stepping back, my chest heaving with rage. I couldn't get rid of the image of him being alone in a room with my brother. I turned to the wardrobe, grabbing anything within reach and hurling it across the room. Clothes, shoes, hangers - they all went flying, crashing against the walls, the floor.
When I finally stopped, the room was in ruins. Finn was curled up in the corner, his arms wrapped around his knees, trembling.
The sight of him, so vulnerable, so broken, made something in me crack.
I walked back and forth in the room for a while, eventually sat beside him, my hand brushing the blood from his face.
"Does it hurt?" I asked.
"I'm already used to it, Your Highness," he said in a quiet voice.
"Tell me about yourself," I said, my voice softer now. "Things happened to you in the past."
He hesitated, his eyes downcast. "Your Highness, I don't really want to bore you with my pathetic life experience..."
"Are you disobeying my orders?" I interrupted, my tone sharp.
He flinched, then began to speak, his voice barely above a whisper. "My mother was a rogue who was raped by Lucas' father. She died after giving birth to me. I was sent to your brother Leo's laboratory as a child, used as an experimental subject for enhancement projects. Later, I escaped and was brought to the slave market, suffered humiliation, and lost my memory. Then I was sold to a nightclub, where I worked as a male whore. After that, I met your sister Leah. She bought me, and I stayed by her side."
He stopped, biting his lip, his eyes distant.
I stared at him, something dark and possessive stirring in my chest. I'd thought he was just another freak that I fucked, another pawn in this twisted game. But now? I just wanted to own him, to consume him.
He looked up at me, his eyes pleading. "Your Highness, someone like me doesn't deserve your attention. But the truth is, I fell in love with you from the first moment I saw you. I'm willing to do anything for you, just to stay by your side."
I reached out, gently brushing his cheek. He leaned into my touch, desperate, like a wounded animal begging the mercy from a hunter.
Then, I stared into his eyes and smirked, "How many people have you said this bullshit to? And how many of your customers have bought it?"
The light in his eyes was gone, replaced by dark cloud of disappointment.
"I'm sorry, Your Highness..."
I didn't wait till he finished and pushed his head away from me.
His face hit the wall, the impact reopening the wound on his cheek. He wiped the blood away, his expression blank. "I'm sorry, Your Highness. It will never happen again."
I stood up, pulling on my clothes.
He sat there like a motionless ragdoll and whispered, "Your Highness, His Majesty's convoy is waiting for you now."
I didn't say a word and walked out of the room.
Before I left the slave market, I couldn't shake the feeling that Finn was scheming something.
He was a puzzle, one I wasn't done solving. And that annoyed me.
But the thing that annoyed me more than anything was that I had to meet up with Lucian.
I would rather die to see his face again.
Lucian's POV
I sat in the wheelchair, its cold metal frame gnawing at my hips, and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror. My hair had turned stark white, a shroud of frost spilling over my skull. My face was pale as a vampire's, bloodless, and my lips had faded to a sickly gray, smeared like ash across a corpse's mouth. I looked like a wraith, a hollowed-out husk of the Lycan King I'd once been. The room reeked of mildew and rust, a fitting crypt for what little remained of me.
I closed my eyes, blocking out the grotesque mockery in the glass. My mind churned with fractured shards -Leah's smile, her scream, the gaping hole where her eye had been - but I clawed them away, groping for stillness. I reached inward, fumbling for the MindLink, that brittle thread I'd stretched toward her a million times before.
Leah, where are you? I know you''e alive. Please, answer me. I miss you…
The plea echoed in the void of my skull, raw and ragged. But, as always, the darkness devoured it. Nothing returned.
The silence broke. Hands clamped onto my shoulders, heavy and abrupt. My eyes flew open, pulse stuttering, and there he stood - Jalin, towering behind me in the mirror. I hadn't seen him in days, maybe weeks; time bled into a festering wound I couldn't close. He wore a pristine white diplomatic suit, a cruel contrast to the threadbare pajamas clinging to my wasted frame. His eyes met mine in the reflection, cold as frostbite, indifferent to the wreckage he'd carved from me.
"Your Majesty," he purred, voice a honed edge, "the convoy escorting Lycidas has arrived. Why haven't you dressed?" His fingers tightened, sinking into my flesh like claws. I turned my head aside, mute. Words were ash in my mouth, useless against him.