Page 91 of His Eternal Claim

A dark, predatory instinct rears its head in the back of my mind, growling in disbelief, pushing every reason aside.

After weeks of freezing me out, weeks of treating me like an executioner, she’s sitting across from me at dinner, practically begging to crawl into my bed. I press my lips into a hard line, saying nothing. I want to believe her. Fuck, more than anything on this earth, I want to believe the ice is finally melting. But a man in my position doesn’t survive by ignoring a sudden shift in the wind.

“Your Mother’s room is right down the hall,” I say, my tone deliberately neutral, testing the waters as I lower my fork to the plate. I lean back in my chair, crossing one leg over the other, keeping my eyes locked on her face. “You’ve spent every night this month tucked into her bed, Dolcezza. Why the sudden change?”

Her lips part slightly. She swallows hard, and her shoulders tense under the delicate silk of her nightgown, the same fabric that had nearly slipped entirely off her skin in my study a few days ago.

It’s red, lace, and something she’d never willingly wear in my presence, knowing how much it entices me.

“Mama is… she is still grieving,” she whispers, her gaze dropping to her lap for a fraction of a second before she forces herself to look back at me, holding mine. “Her grief is heavy, Zagreus. It makes the room feel… heavier. I need sleep. Real sleep. Without the nightmares.”

Without the nightmares.

She thinks I can chase her demons away. She thinks the monster who tore her world apart is the only shield powerful enough to protect her from the dark.

I let out a low, rough exhale, standing up from the head of the table and walking toward her, keeping my steps slow, giving her every opportunity to flinch, to retract the invitation, to run back to her Mother’s suffocating embrace.

She stays frozen as I stop right beside her chair, shadowing her.

I lean down, placing my hands on the armrests of her chair, trapping her between my body and the wood. The scent of her—that intoxicating mix of jasmine and clean skin—hits me like a drug. Tiny shivers run down her pale arms.

“You know what you’re asking for, don’t you?” I murmur, my lips inches from her ear. “If you come into my room, you don’t get to ask for a separate bed. You don’t get to pull away when I reach for you in the dark. If you sleep with me, you are giving up the distance you fought so hard for.”

I reach out, the back of my hand brushing slowly down the cool skin of her cheek, tracking the line of her jaw until my thumb rests firmly against her full, parted lower lip. She catches her breath, her fingers clutching tightly at the fabric of her skirt beneath the table, but she doesn’t pull away.

“I know,” she whispers against my thumb, her eyes dark, bottomless, and entirely unreadable.

I stare down at her, my mind screaming at me that something is different, that the little bird is acting far too brave.

But looking at her swollen lips, feeling the heavy reality of her submission, I don’t give a fuck what her reasons are. Let her play whatever game she thinks she’s playing.

Once she is in my bed, I will make her forget every other name but mine.

“Finish your dinner,” I command softly, my thumb pressing firmly into her bottom lip one last time before I pull away. “Then Elena will help move your things into my room.”

I turn on my heel and walk away from the table before the sheer intensity of my hunger makes me do something neither of us is ready for.

By the time I reach my room, the heat under my skin is a raging, suffocating fire. I storm into the bathroom, ripping my shirt open, the buttons tearing and hitting the marble floor with sharp, frantic clicks. I need to clear my fucking head.

I step into the shower, turning the handle straight to cold, but the icy water does nothing to kill the image burned into my retinas.

The red lace gown. She chose it on purpose. She knew exactly what that colour, that fabric, did to my sanity. And her full, parted lips against my thumb—fuck.

My breath comes in ragged gasps against the tile wall as my hand grips my cock. I stroke hard, fast, my eyes closed as I picture her pinned beneath me on that massive dining table, the red lace pushed up around her waist, her glassy eyes finally looking at me with something resembling desire instead of grief. I curse out loud.

She is driving me completely out of my mind. I am the king of this city; I command empires of blood and stone, and yet I am reduced to jerking off in a cold shower like a starving beggar because my wife offered me a crumb of her presence.

When I finally release, a harsh groan tears from my throat, my forehead pressing against the wet stone until my breathing slows down.

I step out of the bathroom with nothing but a dark slate towel slung low around my hips. Strands of wet hair cling to my forehead, and water drips steadily down the planes of my chest and abdomen.

Elena is there, quietly hanging a silk robe in the wardrobe.

I had emptied that entire half of the closet the day we got married. I knew it would take time, but I also knew with absolute certainty that one day or another she would be sleeping in my room. My patience is an investment, and tonight, the dividends are arriving.

My little wife is standing near the edge of the bed, her fingers twisting around one another. She is deliberately avoiding my eyes—or more precisely, the rest of me. But she fails.

I stand completely still, letting the water drops track slowly down my torso, rolling over my ribs. Her eyes track a single droplet as it slides down my stomach and disappears beneath the low edge of the towel. A dark amusement curls in my chest, and I almost smile. She isn’t nearly as indifferent as she pretends to be.