Chapter 12
1101 Words
Scarlett’s POV
We sat down in the east tower, we had just finished a meeting with his strategists. Now we simply sat and enjoyed the sun.
“I hate you,” I said flatly, it was more to myself than to him.
Draco didn’t even blink, only an eyebrow arched as his robe blew in the wind. “You’ve been saying that since you got here.”
“I mean it more now.”
He smirked. “If it helps you sleep at night but you know you don’t.”
“I definitely do.”
He took a lazy sip from his drink. “Then stop acting like you want me all the time…”
I blinked. “What?! I don’t.”
“You do,” he cut in. “You are always in my bed chamber and you never leave.”
My teeth clenched together. “That’s because I don’t have any other place to sleep, I don’t have a bedchamber.”
He shrugged. “You don’t need one, since you already sleep in mine.”
Arrogant bastard.
“Your ego is insufferable. You know that right?”
He stepped closer to me, his voice became lower. “And yet you moan when I touch you.”
“Shut up.”
His grin widened. “Tell me again how much you hate me, Scarlett.”
I glared at him, my fists clenched at my sides. “Do you think this is a joke? You killed my family.”
His smirk faltered.
“I know,” he said. “I’ll never forget that.”
“Good then.”
I turned to leave.
His hand caught mine. I looked down at our fingers, I was annoyed at how my skin burned when he touched me.
“I’ll never be the man you think you want,” he said, his voice low. “But I’m the man you need.”
I yanked my hand away but my heart hammered against my ribs.
And then I did what I shouldn’t have. I kissed him. Hard.
It wasn’t gentle. I put tongues clashed, teeth grazed and hands gripped too tight.
He pressed me against the wall, his mouth fierce, his body harder and my breath caught as his knee parted my legs.
“There’s my fire. You’re angry.” He murmured against my mouth.
“I want to kill you,” I whispered back.
“But you won’t.”
“What makes you think that?”
His hand slipped under my dress. “Then why are you dripping for the man you want to kill?”
I slapped him.
He grabbed my wrist.
And then he kissed me again, harder and deeper, as it he wanted to swallow my words or shut me up.
We didn’t make it to his bedchamber.
He took me right there, against the wall, with the sunlight hitting us as we watched the gardens below.
I was backed into the stone, heat against skin, thrusts that made my legs shake and wobble.
He bit my shoulder and I bit his neck.
“You so desperately want to hate me,” he growled, “but your body speaks the truth.”
“So does yours,” I panted. “You think you own me, but you don’t.”
“That seems unlikely, I’m the only man who can make you come like this?”
His mouth covered mine before I could answer.
And when I rode into my orgasm beneath him, I cried out into his mouth and he held me like I was a precious artefact.
Something that belonged to him.
***
The palace was changing and I wasn’t the only one who noticed it.
The halls were cleaner, the guards were sharper and the omegas moved faster but not in panic. They moved with purpose.
There were less public beatings and less screamings in the servant quarters.
Draco still rules like a god on a throne made out of fear but something about his cruelty had somehow dulled or reduced.
Could it be because I was there?
Because I was at his side and the omegas noticed?
Lira brought me tea in the garden and said, “He’s calmer these days, on a normal day. We’d have offended him by now.”
“I doubt that,” I muttered.
“He hasn’t done any executions in almost a month.”
I scowled. “Is that a metric for peace? No executions.”
“No, but it’s progress.”
She was right and it scared me that he was changing for me.
***
He asked me to ride with him the next morning.
Not in any war wagons or with any guards.
Just us, with two horses and open trails through the forest.
I hesitated.
He noticed that.
“What?? You think I’ll push you off a cliff?”
I met his eyes. “You’ve done worse to your adversaries.”
He smiled at me. “You’re not my adversary. I’ll never do that to you.”
Damn him.
I believed the bastard. Just a little.
When we returned to the palaces, we were covered in dust and flushed. I caught his hand as I dismounted from the horse.
“I hate how this feels.”
He looked down at our linked fingers. “Oh! You hate everything, it’s not supposed to be easy.”
“I don’t understand, what’s not supposed to be easy?”
He stepped close.
Then he kissed me, this kiss was soft. Softer than any kiss he had ever given me.
His lips softly teased mine like he’d been waiting for a moment alone, for him to savor the kiss.
He kissed me like he loved me.
And I couldn’t….
I didn’t pull away from the kiss.
***
Hanna’s POV
Across the corridor…
I saw them again.
I heard a gasp but it wasn’t Scarlett.
It was me.
From the alcove where I stood, hidden behind a wall.
They were not even in bed. They weren’t f*****g like animals, the way I knew Draco did.
Instead they were kissing. Softly. Gently.
Like they meant it.
Beside me, Lirah said nothing but her face went pale. Her lips were pressed together.
“You saw that,” I whispered.
“I did.”
“They aren’t having s*x now.”
“No they’re not.”
“That was… different.” I said.
Lirah turned to me slowly. “What do we do? We can’t let this happen.”
“No,” I said, my voice cold but shaky. “We’re going to get rid of her.”
- Writer
