Chapter 14
1247 Words
Scarlett’s POV
The silence sounded like a trap, like it was trying to tell me something.
The palace had been too quiet, I expected more. I expected the concubines to have tried different schemes on me, especially with the show Draco had put up at the last court meeting.
The calm in the Coyote Palace had a name.
The calm was me. I brought that calm, I still couldn’t wrap my head around it but I guess me being by Draco’s side brought some form of order to the palace.
I was the reason things were changing and it wasn’t because I had asked for it. It wasn’t because I had wanted to play Luna but because Draco…. He made me look like their Luna.
***
The concubines hadn’t confronted me openly…
Not yet at least.
They were far too practiced in evil subtlety for a public confrontation.
Currently their war was waged with cold glances in whispers and in some strategic accidental run ins. None dared to do anything in particular.
I wondered if it was because they feared what Draco would do or because they hadn’t quite figured out what I was capable of.
The first time there was even the slightest confrontation was at the bathhouse.
I had planned to go there and have a proper bath in an actual bathhouse. I knew Draco had his private bath house but I didn’t even know where it was neither did I want to run into Draco naked this early.
I was still a bit sore from yesterday’s activities.
I entered alone, there was steam curling around the marble pillars, inviting me to find my way into the pool of water.
That was when I saw them, Hanna, Lirah, Kina, a younger concubine and two others. They were already in the water, and they were laughing about something.
Hanna was at the head of the bath, as the self imposed leader of the concubines.
I smirked.
The laughter immediately stopped the moment they spotted me.
I turned to leave. Not sure if I was ready to be in a bathhouse with five concubines that definitely didn’t like me.
“There’s no need to rush out, Scarlett,” Hanna purred. “There’s plenty of room for everyone.”
I paused. Of course there was,
I wanted to say, He doesn’t want any of you anymore.
Instead, I walked toward the water, my chin high and I slipped out of the robe I wore, Draco’s robe and I stepped in the water.
The silence thickened.
“You must be exhausted,” Lirah said, her voice ripples with false sweetness. “With pretending to care about politics and keeping Draco satisfied.”
I didn’t answer.
“You know, he used to do the same things for me,” Hanna added. “The walks. The gifts. The way he looks at you now? He used to look at me like that.”
I knew that was a lie, but I wanted to hear her play all her fake cards.
I looked her dead in the eye. “And then what?”
Her face twitched with anger.
“Then nothing,” she muttered. “It always ends.”
Kina laughed bitterly. “That’s an advice to not get too comfortable playing Luna. You’re not the first and he doesn’t keep favorites for long.” She chuckled.
Hanna shot her a sharp glare.
Oh! These concubines were going after each other.
I leaned back against the tile, perfectly calm. “He hasn’t touched any of you in over a month.”
That shut them up.
Kina simply smiled like she was happy that she wasn’t being touched.
The heat from Hanna’s anger could boil the bath pool.
“I’d say I was sorry,” I added softly. “But I’m really not.”
***
That wasn’t the last time.
They started talking near omegas and making sure they heard pieces of their fake conversations.
“I heard she’s been feeding him lies about the ports and stuff.”
“Maybe she’s a spy.”
“She’s definitely dangerous. If only the Alpha could see her for who she truly is.”
But the thing that really surprised me the most was they didn’t want to destroy me with cruelty.
They wanted to destroy me with doubt. Planting doubt in the heart of the omegas and people that admired me.
“He only likes you because you’re new, you’re fresh meat,” Hanna said one morning as we crossed paths outside the courtyard. “He doesn’t actually love you. He’s incapable of love. It’s not even possible.”
I stared at her. “You’d know that, right?”
She smiled tightly. “I know him better than you ever will.”
I walked past her.
Maybe she did know him better.
But she wasn’t the one in his bed every single night. She wasn’t the one he had kissed in the garden, the corridor, the staircase and even his war room like no one else in the world existed.
That was me.
***
Draco didn’t even see the other concubines anymore.
They were still fed, they were still dressed and adorned in silk and perfume oils.
But they weren’t summoned.
Not even once.
He touched no other woman but me. He ate with no other woman but me. And he f****d no one else but me.
And he never did it out of obligation.
He did it because he wanted to do it, he wanted to do it every single time.
***
That afternoon when I returned to the chamber, he was at the window, half naked and standing in the way of the sun. His shadow darkened the bed.
He didn’t turn when I closed the door.
“How was your walk?”
“I actually had an audience with your concubines.” I said, my voice dry.
He turned, his eyebrow raised. “And how were they?”
“I think they tried to break me.”
He crossed the space between us in two long steps. “Tried huh? I take it they didn’t succeed.”
I shook my head.
He tilted my chin up. “Good because I don’t need you in a sour mood for what I want us to try today.”
And then he kissed me, hard, deep and possessive.
Like he was reminding me of who I was to him.
I melted into the kiss, my hands slid up his chest, my mouth opened to his. Everytime he touched me, I remembered how to feel complete and forgot every other thing.
He undressed me slowly even though I wasn’t wearing much. He took of his own trousers, slowly like in surrender.
“You’ll ruin me at this pace,” I whispered against his throat.
“Good,” he growled. “You’ll be my ruin as well.”
He carried me to the bed, like he had been craving me beyond control.
And when he moved inside me, when his hands tangled in my hair as he filled me from behind, his breath caught against the back of my neck.
I felt everything I wasn’t supposed to.
Need.
Trust.
I came beneath him, again and again.
And when he finally collapsed beside me, still panting from our f*****g. He looked at me like I was his peace.
Like he was home.
I didn’t sleep.
Because I understood that I had slowly begun to love him back.
- Writer
