Lloyd
Renae swiveled, displeasure curling her thin lips. Her fingers rose, snapping twice to the bed. "I'll have you know there are worse ways to cause you pain. Lay down. Now."
Lloyd's gaze flicked to the bed and back to the Luna's hazel eyes--Kier's eyes. "Randale knows. It's only a matter of time before Kier finds out. I cannot do this with you anymore, Renae." He paused, pain tightening his throat. "You gave your word to help Nadine get out if we did this. You have done nothing to that effort."
Renae shrugged off her robe, placing it against her chair. She settled on the edge of the bed, raising her skirt high enough for Lloyd to peek the smooth skin between her thighs. The heady scent of arousal teased his nostrils. "Getting a message to Atticus is harder than you think it is, and receiving a response is just as difficult. Your sister will be home, safe, as long as you play your part. I'll have no more complaints from you. Come here," she said, parting her legs wider.
Lloyd hated that his blood heated when she did that. She was older by more than three decades, but thanks to the slow aging of their kind, she looked barely thirty.
And she'd looked much younger when she'd come to his room and relieved him of his virginity in a time when he'd been his most vulnerable. One could only tell by her eyes that there was an ancient, cruel soul within. An ugly and appalling evil, a striking opposite from her painstaking beauty.
"The Howling is distraction enough. Supplies go out in a few hours and the sentries are much too busy helping with the arrangements to notice us leave. You will take me to her," he said, his voice low and menacing. "Or this is where it ends for us."
Luna Renae's head sliced left in a way that it did whenever she was trying to peer into one's thoughts. She soon tipped her head back and laughed, dropping her legs from the bed's wooden frame. "You are such a disappointment, Lloyd, throwing away everything for foolish sentiments," she cooed, walking to her nightstand.
Pulling the drawer open, she threw a letter to the floorboard beside his feet. "Nadine will not leave Atticus's side because she's borne him children, and in her words, she loves him. Not even her brother matters to her as much."
Lloyd crouched low, taking the letter with shaky hands. How long had Renae kept this from him, giving him false promises just to keep him on a leash? Nadine had been sweet, and had barely mated with Atticus before he turned rogue, taking a good number of Neredians who loathed the past king’s reign. He knew it’d be hard to bring her back, but he didn’t think she’d refuse to even see him.
Opening the letter, he read its contents under Renae’s watchful gaze. It was Nadine’s not so graceful writing and his heart wrenched at the words perched on the page. In the years they had separated, she’d birthed two boys. Both Alphas. He squeezed the letter in his palm, chest heaving. “Why didn’t you tell me he made her Luna? He’s made her queen of the rogues to get to me.”
Renae shrugged. “I wasn’t sure which was more important to you. Your duty or loyalty to your kin. What might you have done with the information? Planned a rescue and got yourself captured or even worse? I was only trying to keep you safe, Lloyd. I am all you have. Only I can love you the way you truly crave to be loved. Only I can need you like you long to be needed. I’m the only reason why Nadine will be safe. Me.”
Lloyd’s eyes burned with frustration and fatigue. So much of it. And Lloyd didn’t stop Renae when she shrugged out of her chemise, her breasts bouncing as she walked to where he stood against the door. “Close your eyes, Lloyd.”
He did, without having to think of it. She hated the green of his eyes, sometimes expressing her irritation that they weren’t a darker color. That way, it would have been easier to pretend he was someone else when they came together like this. Someone she did want in her bed but couldn’t have. Lloyd never asked questions. Renae taught him everything he knew of sex. She taught him how to please her, and asking too many questions turned her off.
She also taught him how to hurt her. Only her. She didn’t like sharing the things she owned.
Did that mean she needed him? Loved him? No. She only loved whoever she had him pretend to be when they had sex. She didn’t even call him Lloyd when he fucked her. She called him ‘Hunt’ or ‘Prince’. He supposed it was fair, since he thought of a fairer maid when he was with her. Someone smaller with a heart of fire and gold.
Renae’s fingers caressed his stubbled cheek, her breath tickling his lips. “I need you brutal tonight. Brutal enough to leave bruises. You’d do that for me, won’t you?”
“Renae,” he breathed when her fingers delved into his pants and retrieved his throbbing cock from it, running them over the sides, slowly.
She suddenly froze, and squeezed him hard enough to cause waves of pain to seize his body. “Not Renae. Call me Maddy.”
“Maddy,” he whispered.
Her fingers loosened and travelled up his torso, undoing the buttons of his shirt. “Good,” she murmured and pressed a kiss to the top of his chest. “Hurt me.”
Lloyd shoved her against the wall in a split second, his claws digging into her skin and his teeth ripping through flesh. Her legs curved around him and he held her in place while she gasped and moaned, holding my closer. If he ever got a moment with Jess, he would be kinder. Gentle. Not like the savage beast Renae had made him into. He would be tender. He would tell her he loved her, always had since that day he’d visited the school and found a slight thing beating up a boy twice her size with a rage no child should have possessed.
Lloyd had been amused enough to visit the school again, but she hadn’t been there when he returned. A couple of years later, he found her in the castle, a beautiful fiery angel, looking at Kier like she was in love with him. And he knew he’d lost, though he wasn’t sure how. Or why.
Renae’s nails bit into Lloyd’s skin as he pushed into her, slamming all the way up to the hilt. She cried out, biting his shoulder with a muffled moan that sounded much like, “Hunter.” Panting, lust sundering him, he grabbed her wrist, pinning it against the wall hard enough that she whimpered and wriggled her hips against him, demanding more.
“R—Maddy,” he breathed against her skin as he rammed into her, her sweet cries filling his ears. His focused sharpened to the place where they joined, the unholy sounds their bodies made as he fucked her, so much so he didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until it was too late.
The door swung open, hard. “Mother, you can have the crest back—”
Lloyd pushed off Renae, panic seizing him and he shielded her with his body. He shoved his cock back in his pants and very slowly, he met Kier’s gaze.
His Alpha stared at him, confusion creasing his brows, and his lips parted as his gaze shifted behind Lloyd, straight to his mother who was very naked and reeked of arousal. Kier blinked and shut his mouth. His head angled and his breaths slowed. Lloyd had never known fear like he did in those moments. He knew he would die, but he didn’t think it would be by Kier’s hands.
Seconds passed, and Lloyd watched the expressions shift on Kier’s face. Confusion. Disbelief. Shock. And then it came. Rage. Lloyd waited and would not have fought back if Kier chose to kill him in that moment.
But Kier simply turned around and walked out the door without a single word.
"Fuck," Lloyd cussed.