Chapter 9

ChapterNine

She’d known the moment the magic protecting her emotions had cracked. But how was she supposed to not react when he’d bitten her neck? Selene hadn’t realized such an action would send tendrils of desire rushing through her body.

The warmth of his hand had sunk through her skin. She’d wanted him to touch more of her. She’d wanted him to drag his hand up her thigh, move it around her hip, and delve it into the place that desperately needed to be touched.

He’d find her wet if he did so. He’d realize how much she wanted him, even though he couldn’t feel it. Her body couldn’t lie, regardless of the feelings she’d buried so deep.

Already, in just a few days, she needed to release the pressure that built up. If she didn’t, then the entirety of the prison she’d built for her emotions would overflow. He’d feel it. All of it.

And yet, there was nowhere safe for her to do so. He’d put her room too close to his. She’d have to wait for him to go down to the great hall, or even better, out of the castle.

Oh, she was so screwed. He’d send her packing back to the Tower once he knew she didn’t actually have any special abilities to avoid his advances. But he hadn’t even been using his power on her when she was in his bedroom. And he’d seemed unaffected other than the slight surprise that she’d stripped without arguing.

Then he’d dressed her and...

A low moan escaped her lips before she could catch it. The demon had been right. Dressing her was somehow more intimate than undressing. She’d felt more bare in this dress than she had in her woolen skirts.

Although she was much cooler. Her flushed skin at least could thank him for that.

Sighing, she glanced at her bedroom door again. He’d said he would invite everyone who was anyone to the castle for the evening. Of course, she’d thought it was impossible to plan a party this late, but he had insisted it was the easiest way to do it. And from the sounds in front of the castle, everyone had arrived, even after such a late invitation.

Lust had claimed it was up to her, whether she wanted to meet his people or not. She’d prefer not. The nobility in this kingdom were less nobles in the common sense and more the favored beautiful ones who surrounded Lust. They did nothing. They had no responsibilities or jobs; they were just pretty, so they were well kept.

Selene understood why so many people in the towns stayed in their homes. Moving between kingdoms was costly. They had to remain or lose their life savings. But these nobles? They chose to be here.

She’d rather have nothing to do with them if they wanted to be around Lust more than they were forced to be around him.

“Are you not going?” a soft voice whispered from the doorway.

But... no one was there.

Tilting her head to the side, Selene tried to see through the veil of magic as her sisters had taught her. No magic obscured someone in the doorway, nor had the door opened. Instead, all she saw was a faint mist that pooled underneath the gap between the door and the floor.

“Hello?” she asked hesitantly.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your thoughts, but there’s a whole party downstairs dedicated to you.” The mist seemed to congeal on the floor, gathering up into what looked like a blob of... fog. Kind of.

Selene had no idea what she was looking at. “What are you?”

“A spirit.”

“Like a ghost?”

“Oh no, entirely different from that.” The mass of mist or smoke gathered itself up a little more and then two eyes blinked open from the center. Not physical eyes. Selene didn’t think she’d be able to touch them, and she could see straight through them. But they were there. “Is that better?”

“Not particularly.” Selene slid off the chair in front of her vanity and sat down on the floor so she could get a better look at the creature. “You said you were a spirit?”

It bobbed up and down. “I am.”

“But not a mortal spirit.”

“No.” She swore there was confusion on its face before it pooled closer to her and whispered, “I’m a spirit of affection.”

Confused even more, Selene asked, “What is that?”

“What is that, she asks!” The little spirit bobbed again. Apparently the movement was one of anger. Or perhaps disbelief. “She’s a sorceress, and she knows nothing about spirits. What are you doing here, then?”

“I... don’t really know.” Was she supposed to learn about spirits? Selene had heard of them before. Ghosts that lingered after someone’s death. But this clearly wasn’t what she’d come to think of in relation to hauntings.

The mist rolled closer to her and then an icy touch pressed against her hand. “Oh,” it squeaked. “You have quite a lot of affection in you.”

Selene furrowed her brows, too stunned to speak for a few moments. “How do you know that?”

“I can feel it.” The spirit patted her hand with a tendril that felt a little more solid than a few moments ago. “Spirits are all around us, all the time. Some of us want to take more physical forms, most never even think beyond their own emotion. But I am a spirit of affection and I can only feel that.”

This was so confusing.

“Are you saying you’re a spirit of an emotion?” she asked.

“There are many of us, yes.” It bobbed again in front of her, although this time it looked a little more like a nod than anger. “You’ve never met one of us before?”

“No.”

It giggled. “Yes you have!”

She definitely hadn’t. Selene didn’t think there were any creatures like this in the Tower, and she’d never come across one in person. She’d have remembered smoke talking to her like a person.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, then gestured around them. “This isn’t a place for spirits of affection. I imagine there’s very little of that in the castle.”

Although her words may have stung, the little spirit only sighed. “I know. It’s so hard to live here sometimes when people are so fleeting. But I do so feel that it’s the place to be. Does that make sense?”

Not at all. But Selene didn’t want to hurt the little one’s feelings anymore. For some reason, she was rather fond of this spirit already. It was an innocent beacon of light in an otherwise dark place.

She turned her hand palm up. “You were worried that I wasn’t going to the party?”

“Well, it was prepared for you.” The spirit coiled up in her palm, anchoring itself with tendrils that wrapped around her wrist, and sighed. “Oh, so much affection. Who is Ursula?”

She stiffened. “Can you read my memories?”

“A little.”

“Please don’t.”

It hummed, paused, and then said, “Too late. She’s quite lovely.”

And just like that, tears burned in Selene’s eyes. She hadn’t wanted to get homesick this early. But being away from her family already toyed with her emotions. “She is.”

“I didn’t mean to make you sad!” The little spirit patted her arm restlessly, looking around the room for something to help. “Make it come back, please. Don’t let you missing her make the affection go away. It’s not nice anymore.”

Sighing, Selene shook her head. “It’s hard to not let those emotions get out of control. Why don’t we go see what is happening in that party and that will help distract me?”

“It will!” The spirit bobbed up and down in her hand as Selene got to her feet and left her bedroom.

She hadn’t explored the castle much. She’d been terrified and shut up in her room, away from everyone. Though she told herself it was to hide herself away for a better plan, Selene knew she was just hiding. It was so different here. So vibrant. All those colors almost hurt her eyes.

And then she was meant to gather information, but from who? From where? She glanced down at the mist pooled in her palm and wondered if she was heartless enough to use this little being. Surely the creature knew the secrets of this castle and its king. More than anyone else, perhaps.

The spirit was all too happy to play her guide, and it directed her through the halls with ease. Selene’s gut twisted as she asked questions, knowing that the spirit couldn’t guess her deception.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked as they turned yet another corner in the labyrinth of this place.

“Something like six hundred years.”

Selene paused in her walk and then blinked. “Six hundred?”

“I’m very young for a spirit to have even this corporeal form.” It bobbed again, almost as though agreeing with her shock. “Some spirits just get lucky. Like myself.”

“Six hundred years old,” she repeated and then shook her head. “How marvelous. And what do you like to be called?”

“Affection.”

“Yes, I know that’s what you’re the spirit of, but what is your name?”

“Affection. It is my name and the emotion that I came from.”

A thought bubbled into her mind and she flinched. She didn’t want to ask it, but the words were already out of her mouth before she could control them. “Then is Lust...”

“Similar to me, yes. He was once just like me, in fact.” Affection sighed happily. “Someday, I wish to take a mortal form like him. I think feeling affection in that form would be much stronger. Is it?”

“I don’t know how you experience it through me,” she murmured, although her mind was already whirling with the implications of what the spirit had said.

Were the sorceresses wrong? She’d grown up knowing that the kings of all seven kingdoms were demons who must be purged from the land. But if they were spirits of emotions, then... Did that complicate things?

She wasn’t all that certain. If her sisters were aware that these were actually spirits, who seemed rather harmless now that she held one in her hand, would they want to fight against Lust so viciously?

Oh, her thoughts were all tied up in knots and she didn’t know what to do. Perhaps that was why, when she stepped back into the great hall, she didn’t notice as much as she should.

Instead, her breath caught as she looked up at the ceiling. They’d opened the glass ceiling to let the night pour in. The stars glittered above her and the clouds had gathered low. Some even slipped through the glass to hover above their heads in fine, glittering mist. Even the stars had pulled from their places in the sky to gently rain down upon her. Glittering faerie lights danced the moment her eyes lit upon them.

The torch light, which should have been warm and cheery instead, had taken on a bluish hue. It turned the entire world into something like midnight come to life. The sway of the pale curtains turned into the quiet sound of snowdrifts on a winter’s night. The carved people who held up the second floor had been draped in midnight blue velvet that pooled on the floor in icy heaps.

A few other lights glowed in the depths of the pools, though they were warm. The golden glow bounced and flickered off the scales of the fish that swept past them. Gilded and lovely, drawing her toward the pool like a moth to the flame.

The music in the air was quiet. The faintest strum of a guitar and a violin that sang along with it. Quiet, lovely, so peaceful she didn’t quite know what to do with herself.

Until she saw the bodies.

Countless people, all wrapped up in each other. Some of them were draped over the pillows, the red velvet exchanged for blue. Some of them were pressed up against the columns, skirts around their waists, and men already well underneath them.

A couple closest to her were halfway through their first act of sex. The woman’s breast was bared, and the man slowly dragged his tongue across her pebbled nipple. The woman’s moan cut through the relaxing sound of the violin.

“Oh no,” Affection whispered. “You don’t like this.”

“Not at all.”

“But this is... this is the castle. Is this not normal?” The little spirit grew agitated, obviously growing more upset the more uncomfortable Selene became. “We should go back. We shouldn’t be here.”

“No, we shouldn’t.” But she was no fainting princess. She wanted to make her displeasure known.

Picking her way through the bodies, she stepped over countless people locked in embraces. The closer to the throne, the more debauchery was revealed. Multiple partners, multiple people all plunging into whatever warm, welcoming hole was available. So many people that they were all tangled up together into one mass of limbs, so threaded that she’d never guess how many were there.

The sounds of their pleasure made her cheeks flame, but she refused to back down. Not when she knew this was his plan all along.

And there, sitting on his throne as if this were the most normal thing in the world, was their absurd king.

Lust had forgone his usual corset. Instead, a pale shirt was split wide over his muscular chest. Tight velvet pants hugged his thighs and did little to hide how affected he was by the display before him. But he cushioned his head on a fist and the expression he wore was decidedly bored.

That is until he saw her. She knew the moment their eyes made contact how her presence affected him.

His nostrils flared. His pupils dilated. He even sat up straighter in his throne, leaning forward as if to come to her, only to settle against the back once more. A young woman rounded the throne with a tray of wine and two stemmed glasses. She poured the red liquid into a glass, ignoring Selene, who was the only person standing in the entire room.

“So you came after all,” he said, his voice ringing through the atrium. “I thought you’d hide away in your room all night.”

She lifted the hand that held Affection, even though the little spirit tried to hide from his gaze. “I made a new friend.”

His eyes narrowed on the spirit. “You have other duties tonight.”

Selene watched as the young woman sat down beside Lust’s leg and dragged her hand up it. Dangerously close to what should have only been Selene’s if they were actually going to be married. She knew what the other woman was trying to do. And she didn’t care.

“I have no duties here,” she replied, her voice like the lash of a whip in this otherwise splendorous room. “You’ve made that very clear.”

His eyes flashed with anger. “Have I?”

“I will take no part in this.”

“This is how we celebrate in the castle, little moon. If you want to be their queen, you will do well to remember it.”

Affection was trembling so badly in her hand that it had lost all shape. It kept slipping between her fingers, trying to pool onto the floor and sneak away. But Selene just gathered it back up like a strange slime and held it in her arms. “I am not from this castle, nor do I have any wish to linger in this kingdom. You took me from my family. You made me come here even though you know I wished to remain in the icy north, within the safe walls of my Tower. And now you think I should endure what happens here? No. I think not.”

He planted his hands on the arms of his throne, then froze when her voice snapped out again.

“Don’t get up.” Selene curled her lip in disgust. “I have no desire for your presence.”

And with that still echoing throughout the hall, she turned and made her way back to the door that would lead to her quarters. She held her head up high, a foreigner in this strange world where people performed public acts that should remain private. She wore a gown that wasn’t hers. She was engaged to a man who would never truly desire or love her.

She didn’t let a single tear drip down her cheek for even a moment. No one would walk away from that party saying that the would be queen of Lust’s kingdom was weak.

But she heard their words before she closed the door. Strange. Odd.

Unnatural.

It was the last word that broke through the layers of her armor. That frigid lake inside her crackled, popped, and then released a deluge of emotions that flooded out the moment she reached her bedroom.

She’d thought what would come out would be a massive amount of lust, desire, and sexual frustration. But instead, it was only loneliness. A bitter, bone deep loneliness that made her skin feel icy cold and her heart brittle.