Page 14 of Lord of Eternal Night (Darkmourn Universe 1)

His eyes took me all in. Trailing up my bare-chest, my shoulders, and stopping only at my own stare. I spluttered a breath as he released his finger from my mouth, moving it to the strand of loose hair that fell across my forehead.

“Thank you, Marius.”

He tilted his head, not once inquiring how I had come to learn his name. In a blink he was off me, seemingly floating across the slabbed floor to the door that my eyes soon found at the far end of the room.

“Where will you stay tonight?” I asked, keeping my voice as gentle as I could muster without dropping his piercing stare.

He paused, face turning slightly, only to show his side profile. “Is that an offer?”

Mother would want me to say yes. I could almost hear her answering for me.

“Am I in a position to make offers in your own home?” I questioned.

He grinned slowly. “No, no you are not.”

I blinked and he was gone, his final words hardly finished before he vanished. Only the phantom sensation of his touch was left.

Not even the air seemed to quiver as he simply disappeared. No door was opened or closed, no pattering of footsteps. Just… gone.

I relaxed my hold on the sheets at last, letting them slip over my chest once again.

You have done it. My attempt had got me into the heart of his own personal domain. This was more than a step in the right direction. Even if it meant nearly risking my life to get here. If I failed, I died either way.

I leaned back in his bed and sighed, hands resting behind my head.

Rather die by my hands than his.

6

Iwoke to the itch of sunlight across my eyes, groggy yet comfortable in the creature’s bed. I smiled through the sluggish feeling that soddened my limbs as I put my back to the light, face squished against the down-feathered pillows.

Peaking an eye open, I got a view of the room I was in. The night before I had slept straight after my head hit the pillow.

I could not deny, his room was… grand. The bed far larger than the one I had been provided with. Even as I stretched out, I was miles away from feeling the edge.

It was surprisingly easy to feel at ease in this room. I suppose the glaring sunlight helped, knowing the creature, Marius, would not return.

“Marius.” I spoke his name aloud. It was strange not only having a face to the creature I had grown hearing about daily, but now having his name felt odd. As though I had obtained some divine secret that I could not share.

The strange girl beyond my own chamber door had called him by that name. But hearing it from his own lips made it seem real. As though I had not connected the dots before he told me himself.

All my life I had envisioned the beast I would soon kill. Never did he have a face or name. Now, only a handful of days into my stay in his cursed castle, I had obtained them both.

I allowed myself to lay back in his bed until my stomach grumbled for attention. It was the cue I needed to finally roll out from the welcoming embrace of the sheets. Just as it had been every day thus far, I knew food would be waiting for me.

Out from the warmth of the sheets, the room was deathly cold. The hearth was empty of cinders or wood. It was clear from the uncharred bricks around it that it had not been lit in a long time.

Which left me, naked, in the middle of the creature’s room. With no sign of my clothes around me.

My cheeks warmed at the thought of him seeing me like this, his cold hands removing the clothes from my body.

I could not deny the turn of my stomach, from sickness or something else entirely I was not certain.

Dragging the sheet from the bed, I wrapped it back around myself as I searched the room for something more suitable to wear.

Almost every cabinet, dresser and wardrobe that filled the chamber was empty. Only home to the small creatures that had taken up residence among the dark spaces.

But there, in the top drawer of a grand, wooden carved cabinet did I find clothing.

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