Page 104 of The Dark Lord Awakens
“Down, boy,” I muttered, turning the shower to cold. “We’ve got a kingdom to run. Can’t spend all day thinking about ravishing the butler, no matter how ravishable he might be.”
Once clean, I pulled on the ridiculous sleepwear again, too exhausted to look for alternatives. The shorts and tank clung to my still-damp skin like a second skin, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. If Azrael saw me in this, he’d either spontaneously combust or finally act on whatever was simmering between us. Either way, tomorrow’s problem.
I changed the sheets (a skill I’d thankfully mastered during my college years), hid the box of toys in the back of my wardrobe, and collapsed back into bed just as the first rays of sun crept through my window.
To my surprise, Mr. Snuggles was still there, curled up at the foot of the bed. He’d been so quiet during my cleanup that I’d assumed he’d finally left to do whatever dragons do when they’re not watching their masters engage in marathon sessions of self-pleasure.
“You’re still here?” I asked, too exhausted to be properly scandalized anymore. “Don’t you have some dark lord duties to attend to? Terrorizing villages? Guarding treasure? Anything that doesn’t involve watching me sleep?”
Mr. Snuggles made a soft rumbling sound that almost resembled a purr and padded up the bed to curl against my side. His tiny body was surprisingly warm, a comforting presence against my exhausted muscles.
“This doesn’t mean I approve of your voyeuristic tendencies,” I mumbled, already half-asleep. “We’re going to have a serious talk about privacy boundaries once I can feel my legs again.”
He made another purring sound, settling his head on my chest like the world’s most contented cat. Despite everything, Ismiled as I drifted off. There was something oddly comforting about not being alone after such an intense experience, even if my companion was a miniature dragon with questionable respect for personal boundaries.
As I hovered on the edge of consciousness, my thoughts returned to Azrael and the almost-moment we’d shared. Next time, I decided sleepily, I wouldn’t let him pull away. Next time those crimson eyes met mine with that unmistakable heat, I’d close the distance between us and find out if the reality could possibly match the fantasy.
24
Azrael
Azrael arranged the silver instruments on the velvet cloth, fingertips lingering on each polished blade like a lover’s caress. Moonlight transformed them from tools to talismans—beautiful and deadly, like everything he touched. He’d spent centuries perfecting each one, testing them on subjects who’d forgotten their place, refining them until they could extract symphonies of agony with surgical precision.
Lord Whatshisface’s voice from dinner still grated against his nerves like sandpaper on raw skin. The way he’d looked at Lucien—as if kindness equaled weakness, as if this luminous version of his master deserved less reverence than the cruel one.
During Lord Lucien’s centuries of slumber, Azrael had maintained order through calculated demonstrations of power, but he had allowed the noble houses their petty games and accumulation of resources, so long as they maintained the appearance of loyalty.
Three centuries. Three centuries in which new generations of nobles had been born, had grown to adulthood, had sired children of their own—all without ever witnessing the true extent of Lord Lucien’s power or wrath. They knew the stories, of course, the carefully preserved accounts of what happened tothose who had once defied the Dark Lord. But stories were not the same as memory. Tales passed down lost their edge, became distorted, exaggerated in ways that made them seem more like myths than warnings.
These young lords—Lord Whatshisface, Lord Superiore, and their ilk—they had never seen Lord Lucien reduce a man to ashes with a gesture. They had never watched him extract a still-beating heart and consume it before its owner’s dying eyes. They had never felt the suffocating pressure of his full power unleashed.
They knew only Azrael’s occasional demonstrations, which he had carefully calibrated to maintain order without destabilizing the realm’s fragile power structure during his master’s absence. Perhaps he had been too restrained. Too… merciful.
A mistake he would now rectify.
The memory made something dark and possessive twist inside Azrael’s chest. A feeling that had always existed but had been growing stronger, more demanding, more dangerous with each passing day since Lucien’s awakening.
Two hours since dinner had concluded. Long enough for the nobles to return to their estates, to lock their doors and believe themselves safe. Long enough for his precious Lucien to retire, to slide between silk sheets still warm from Azrael’s touch.
The image hit him like a physical blow—Lucien emerging from his bath, silver-white hair darkened with moisture clinging to that alabaster neck, skin flushed pink and glistening with droplets Azrael longed to trace with his tongue, those impossibly blue eyes heavy-lidded with exhaustion. His body responded instantly, a familiar heat pooling low in his abdomen, more intense than ever before.
Tonight, when Lucien had mentioned needing "more comfortable" sleeping attire due to the heat—those slenderfingers tugging at his collar, exposing the pale column of his throat—Azrael had felt something snap inside him. Like a dam breaking, like chains shattering. The primal, possessive need he had always suppressed now surged forward with an intensity he could no longer contain.
Not for the first time, but stronger than ever before. Beyond his ability to deny or control.
He wrapped the cloth around his instruments with quick, efficient movements. Lord Whatshisface required correction. Education. A reminder of his place in the hierarchy.
And Azrael needed the distraction. Needed something to focus on besides the increasingly vivid images playing through his mind—images that had haunted him for centuries but now refused to be banished to the shadows of his consciousness. Lucien beneath him, silver hair spread across black silk, blue eyes darkened with desire rather than sleep, those perfect lips parted on Azrael’s name.
His body dissolved into shadow, slipping through the castle walls like liquid darkness. The night embraced him, cool against the fever burning inside him. He flowed over the city, past the construction sites where Lucien’s vision was already taking shape, past the relief camp where his master’s compassion had transformed lives.
Every improvement a testament to his brilliance. A brilliance Lord Whatshisface and his ilk failed to appreciate.
Azrael reformed on the roof of the noble’s estate, a gaudy monstrosity of pointed spires and overwrought ornamentation. Typical. He extended his senses, mapping the interior like a predator studying its hunting ground. Sixteen guards, poorly positioned. Twenty-three servants, most asleep. And Lord Whatshisface—not in his bedchamber but in his study. With company.
Perfect. An audience would make the lesson more effective.
He slipped through a decorative grate, reconstituting himself in a darkened corner of the hallway. The voices from the study carried to his enhanced hearing with perfect clarity.
