All Chapters of The Cursed Alpha King's Forbidden Luna: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Yvaine's POV I climbed the stairs with a tray in my hands and a grudge in my chest, and I could not decide which weighed more on my mind.The word he said kept circling back. Zayden had looked at me in that hall the way a man looks at a stain on a tablecloth, and I could not stop turning it over. He could have shouted. He could have done anything but look at me with those shut eyes, as if I were a stranger who had broken something of his. I told myself it was for show. and it was starting to sound like a lie I was feeding a child.So I blamed Madam Marlowe instead, because it was easier to blame her. It had been her idea to offer me up as penance, and she had said it so warmly with her hand pressed between my shoulder blades. I decided I resented her. Then I remembered her hand smoothing my hair, and the resentment went out of me like air from a bellows, which only annoyed me more.The truth was simpler, and I liked it less. A part of me did not want to do this at all. There had been

Yvaine's POV.I looked at the bed beneath me, then at the man at the desk with his back to me, his shoulders drawn tight under his coat, then at my own bloodied hand. I could not decide which of the three frightened me most.The blanket he had wrapped around me smelled of cedar and smoke, and under that something warmer that I was beginning to recognize as simply him. The fire in the hearth had burned down to a low orange glow, and the shadows along the stone walls leaned toward the bed as if they were listening. I pressed my hand against my stomach to keep the blood off the sheets. It was too late. A small dark spot had already bloomed on the white cotton, and I stared at it, mortified.Zayden shrugged off his coat and hung it over the chair. He went into the bathroom, and I heard the tap run and stop. When he came out, his hands were clean and he was in nothing but a fitted shirt, the fabric drawn across his shoulders and the long lines of his back, showing far more of what was unde

Zayden's POV I woke to a soft breathing. It was slow and warm against the side of my neck, and a small weight was pressed along my arm that had not been there when I fell asleep. Under both, there was a scent of sun after rain on a warm step, crushed mint, clean cotton. Except this morning it carried something else, my own soap on her skin, and I found I did not mind that at all. I did not mind at all.I opened my eyes.Yvaine had rolled all the way to my side. The bed was wide enough for six people. I had stayed exactly where I lay down, on my own edge of the bed, with a respectable arm's length of linen between us, and at some point in the night she had crossed all of it. Her cheek was pressed to my shoulder. Her unhurt hand was curled into the sleeve of my shirt like a child's. The bandaged one lay on the pillow, held away from me, as if even asleep she knew to protect it.I turned my head. My mouth brushed her hair. Then I lay very still and let myself smile, because there was n

Yvaine's POV For four days now, I had been stepping around corners, and being very vigilant when Madam Malowe had anything to do near the King's Quarters or the throne hall. I had been avoiding him like a Rabies avoided water. Zayden had sent guards to fetch me twice. Both times, I made sure I wasn't there to be found.I was enjoying my title as Executioner far too much to crawl back into the role of the King's pet. And besides, how was I supposed to face him after that night?I had tried to bury it. But it kept clawing its way back. His hands on my skin, the quiet way he had fed me, undressed me, and dressed me again as if I were something precious. Every time I remembered, my chest tightened with feelings I couldn't name. One of them scared me more than the rest. It was the way my mind lingered on him, and the heat that crept up my face whenever it did.If I stood before him now, he would see it. And I would rather die than let him read me.So I would stay out of his sight a little

Zayden's POV She walked into my office like a child on her way to a scolding. She had her hands clasped, chin up, eyes fixed on a spot two feet in front of her boots, and it was adorable. Then I flicked the thought away. She crossed the floor, sat in the chair before my desk, and folded her hands in her lap. The bandage on her hand was new. It was tied in a neat, careful knot I wanted very much to cut off. I tapped my fingers on the edge of the desk. I had four days of words ready, but she started talking before I said anything. She told me everything, in a level voice of someone reading an inventory, without being asked and without once looking at me. The drink she owed Damien for the lie about Madam Marlowe. She spoke very politely, and I had to question myself if she was really the one sitting before. What kind of version is this? She talked calmly, but it was suspicious. When she finished, the room was quiet. I had learned something in those two minutes of her report. She h