My pulse tapped a fast beat as we passed cavernous rooms with aristocratic furniture, ancient artwork, and overstuffed brocade couches, only to be assaulted by a different era as we cut through parlours with paper lanterns, potted bamboo growing as high as the chandeliers, and the soft wisps of incense.
Two worlds—blended and yet defiantly defined.
Despite the differences in decoration, a theme connected every room, thanks to the rows upon rows of security cameras. In every corner, above every painting, angled off every light fixture. A thousand pairs of eyes that had all been blinded and carved out, leaving the lenses shattered, cables severed, and most of them dangling as if they’d been yanked out by force.
“Did you do that?” I asked.
Lucien looked at me over his shoulder, his gaze following mine to the broken surveillance. His lips tipped into a thin smile. “I did.”
“Because they were spying on you?”
He nodded and continued walking.
“Are the drones theirs too?”
He didn’t respond for a while, leading me through another octagonal-shaped foyer that had eight paths leading off it. He took the northeast corridor, slowing slightly to say, “It pisses them off that they can’t see what I do on a daily basis. They’re nervous that I’m working on how to escape.”
“Are you?”
He grinned, savage and a little unhinged. “Of course.”
Our eyes held. A shiver ran down my spine. Once again, his beauty struck me speechless, all while a thousand questions weighed on my tongue. “If you’re the leader of your company and the last of your family, why—”
“So youdoknow who I am.”
“I...” I walked right into that one. Curving my shoulders, I said sheepishly, “I might’ve asked those girls outside about you.”
“How nice of them to gossip.”
“Are they right?”
He sighed heavily as if talking to me was a chore. “Probably.”
“Then why are you locked up here?”
“I’ve already told you.” Marching forward, he led me into another room.
The ceilings were just as high, the walls just as gilded with silk tapestries of phoenixes, dragons, and cherry blossom trees, but the aura was different.
The rest of the palace felt depressing and dark—a living mausoleum that was pristine and sterile, but this place...it seemed lived in.
The purple and black rug by the double glass doors leading into a private walled courtyard was sunburnt and fraying. A stack of books lay on a low table, their spines creased by careless hands. A chessboard sat mid-game, a few pieces tipped over as if the player had got frustrated halfway and swatted them aside. A water glass threw rainbows onto the polished wood where it sat on a windowsill, and a white knitted blanket was thrown haphazardly on the slouchy linen couch.
Glancing around was like peering into someone’s utmost privacy.
“You live here?” I asked quietly.
He headed toward a wingback chair by the huge stone fireplace. Sitting elegantly, his coat billowed around his legs, pooling on the floor. “Are you looking so intently at my home because you’re nosy or are you trying to find a weapon?” Slipping his hand into his coat pocket, he held up the dagger he’d stolen. “Because I hate to tell you, but this is the only weapon in this entire godforsaken graveyard, and I doubt they’ll let me keep it for long. They never do.”
Wait...did that mean they came and removed his possessions? Like he was a three-year-old who couldn’t be trusted?
“Graveyard. Interesting choice of words.” Drifting forward, I lingered by the couch. Whisper leapt over the back of it and sprawled in a divot that looked suspiciously panther-sized.
“It’s more a tomb than a home.” He shrugged, intriguingly chatty considering.
If he was willing to talk, then I wouldn’t stop him. Perhaps he’d fill in the blanks, and my throbbing head would finally stop hurting with mystery. “Why do they take weapons off you? Aren’t you allowed ways of protecting yourself?”
“Not when I could turn around and use those ways to end myself.” He flicked his thumb on the blade before stabbing it violently into the coffee table beside him.
