Chapter 8 008

Maureen Laurent

Livia was pointing out the stained-glass windows in the upper gallery when the moan drifted up the stairwell.

Low. Filthy. Unashamed.

My feet stopped moving on their own.

Down on the mezzanine below, Nyxara had some poor captain of the guard pinned to a column. Her tail was coiled around his throat like a velvet leash while her hand worked inside his open leathers with slow, cruel precision. His head was thrown back, fangs bared to the ceiling, hips jerking helplessly into her grip.

I should have looked away.

I didn't.

Heat crawled up my throat, equal parts horror and something darker I refused to name.

A soft gasp slipped out of me before I could stop it.

Nyxara's violet eyes snapped up instantly. Found me. Held.

The guard kept thrusting into her hand like a puppet with its strings cut, but Nyxara smiled, slow and sharp, never breaking rhythm.

"Well," she purred, voice carrying easily over the wet sounds and the male's broken groans, "if it isn't the little moon herself."

Livia stepped half in front of me, voice trembling. "Lady Nyxara, the Luna is-"

"Perfectly capable of speaking," Nyxara cut in, eyes still locked on mine. She gave the guard one last lazy stroke, then let him go. He slid down the column in a boneless heap, cock still hard and glistening, chest heaving.

Nyxara wiped her fingers on his cheek like he was a napkin and started up the stairs toward us, tail swaying like a metronome of ruin.

Every instinct screamed at me to drop my gaze.

I didn't.

I lifted my chin instead.

She stopped one step below me-so we were eye-level-and tilted her head. The scent of sex and brimstone rolled off her in waves.

"Enjoying the tour, pearl?" she asked, soft as sin.

My pulse hammered so hard I felt it in the bite mark on my shoulder. Vuk's mark. Still tender. Still glowing faintly under the silk.

I forced my voice steady. "I was. Until the furniture started moaning."

A delighted laugh spilled out of her. "Oh, I like you."

Livia made a tiny strangled sound.

Nyxara's tail flicked out, quick as a whip, and curled loosely around my wrist-not tight, just a warm, velvet reminder that she could crush bone if she wanted.

"Run along, Livia," she said without looking away from me. "I'll finish the tour."

Livia hesitated, eyes darting to me in panic.

I gave her the smallest nod.

Because I was tired of being dragged around like a fragile ornament.

Because the Luna of the Northern Dominion does not cower behind her maid.

And because something vicious and curious inside me wanted to see how far this succubus would push before she bled.

Nyxara's smile widened, like she heard every thought.

She tugged once on my wrist, gentle but undeniable.

"Come, Pearl," she murmured. "Let me show you what the pack house looks like."I let her lead me down the stairs, past the guard still panting on the floor.

But I didn't lower my eyes.

Not once.

Nyxara didn't speak again until we were three corridors away from the moaning guard.

She walked like the fortress belonged to her hips alone, tail swaying, claws clicking softly on the obsidian floor.

Every wolf we passed dropped their eyes and bared their throat. She didn't acknowledge a single one.

Finally she glanced sideways at me, violet eyes glittering.

"Everyone knows you came from the southern auction block, Pearl," she said, voice lazy. "But no one seems to know how a lunar-veined virgin ended up on the slab in the first place. Care to enlighten me?"

I exhaled through my nose. The air tasted of brimstone and old blood.

"My fiancé sold me," I said quietly. "Silas Vane. He and his family murdered my parents, my unborn brother, everyone I had. Then they forged the papers that said I was born rogue, no pack, no rights. Ten million was apparently the going rate for my corpse once they'd bled the Laurent land dry."

I expected pity. Or a dramatic gasp.

I got neither.

Nyxara stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, turned to face me fully, and stared like I'd grown a second head.

"You're telling me," she said slowly, "that you were engaged to that golden-haired southern peacock, and you didn't notice he was a backstabbing, mother-murdering, sister-fucking psychopath until he literally sold you at auction?"

Heat flooded my cheeks. "He was... convincing."

"Pearl." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I've met rocks with better survival instincts."

A surprised laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. It hurt my ribs, but it felt good.

Nyxara's mouth curved, not quite gentle, but warmer than anything she'd shown me so far.

"Men," she sighed, resuming her walk. "They smile with knives behind their teeth and we still spread our legs for the sparkle. You're lucky the Moon Goddess has a sense of humor. She took your trash and traded up for the actual Devil."

I bit my lip. "I'm not sure 'lucky' is the word I'd use."

"No?" She arched a brow. "You're breathing. You're unmarked by anyone except the most powerful wolf alive. And you made him kneel, Pearl. I felt the bond snap into place from three floors away. That doesn't happen to unlucky girls."

We stepped through an archway into the upper gallery that overlooked the main hall. Down below, wolves in silver masks moved like ghosts, carrying trays of black wine and whispering about the tongue-less lord bleeding out in the infirmary.

Nyxara leaned her forearms on the balustrade, tail curling idly around the stone.

"So," she said, softer now, "are you enjoying the place?"

I followed her gaze. Torchlight flickered over statues of snarling wolves and crucified angels. Blood still stained the snow visible through the tall windows. Somewhere far off, chains rattled and someone screamed.

I thought of silk sheets soaked in us.

Of Vuk on his knees in front of me this morning, forehead pressed to the floor, voice cracked open and bleeding apology.

Of the way my body still carried his seed like it had decided to stay forever.

I wrapped my arms around myself.

"I didn't expect my mate to be the Alpha Devil," I admitted, voice barely above the wind. "It feels like the greatest privilege in the world... and the heaviest curse ever sewn into my skin."

Nyxara's tail stilled mid-curl.

For once the succubus didn't answer with a barb or a purr. She just studied me, violet eyes unreadable, like she was seeing something she hadn't expected to find.

Then the air changed.

It always does when he's close. Torches flare higher. The temperature spikes. My skin prickles like the moment before lightning.

Vuk stepped through the archway without a sound, yet every wolf in the hall below dropped to one knee in perfect synchrony, as if an invisible hand had pressed them to the stone.

He didn't look at them.

He looked only at me.

Seven feet of black linen and barely leashed violence, hair still damp from training, shirt half-open, the bite I'd left on his shoulder glowing gold against bronze skin. His gaze swept over me like hands, possessive and starving, and the bond in my chest yanked so hard I swayed.

Nyxara sighed theatrically. "And there it is. The devil on his leash."

Vuk crossed the gallery in four strides. He didn't slow, didn't speak; he simply slid one arm around my waist, hauled me off my feet, and crushed his mouth to mine.

It wasn't a greeting.

It was a claiming.

His tongue swept in like he needed to taste that I was still real, still his. Fangs grazed my lip. A growl rumbled from his chest straight into mine, vibrating through the bond until my knees buckled. I made a helpless sound against his mouth, hands flying to his shoulders more for balance than anything else.

He kissed me until my lungs burned and the world narrowed to the heat of him, the scrape of his stubble, the way his hand fisted in my hair like he was afraid I'd vanish if he let go.

When he finally pulled back an inch, his eyes were molten gold, pupils blown wide.

"Little moon," he rasped, voice shredded. "Four hours. I almost tore the fortress apart."

Nyxara made a loud gagging noise behind us. "Oh, for fuck's sake. I had her for seven minutes. Seven. I didn't even get to the good gossip."

Vuk didn't look away from me. "Leave us."

A flick of two fingers, like swatting a fly.

Nyxara's tail lashed once, hard enough to crack the air. "Charming as ever, my lord." She leaned in, lips brushing my ear so only I could hear. "He's worse when he's starving, Pearl. Remember that."

Then she was gone, hips rolling, tail flicking a lazy goodbye to the entire hall.

The moment her footsteps faded, Vuk's arms tightened until I could feel every thundering beat of his heart against my ribs.

"I missed you," he said against my temple, the words rough, almost angry. "I sat in council and smelled you on my skin and nearly killed three elders for breathing too loud."

I swallowed. My palms were still flat against his chest; I could feel the tremor running through him, ancient, immortal muscle shaking because I hadn't been in the same room.

"Vuk," I started, voice small, "it was only four hours."

He pulled back just enough to look at me, and the raw desperation in his eyes stole my breath.

"Four hours is a lifetime when you've waited three hundred and fifty years," he said. "When every second without you feels like claws in my ribs. You don't understand yet. Mortal hearts beat fast; immortal ones learn to live half-dead. Then you walked in and mine remembered how to beat at all. And now it won't slow down. It won't ever slow down again."

His thumb brushed my lower lip, gentle and reverent and terrifying.

"I'm not overdoing it, Maureen. I'm barely holding on."