Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Emperor

by Felicity Heaton

  Her mother’s grip on her hand tightened, stopping her from leaving the bed. She looked back at her.

  Her mother laughed. “Do not be so overdramatic. They are only holding him because he is trying to kill anyone who goes near to him, even his kin. Your father asked me to take you down there. The Varkans believe that he will calm down if he sees that you are not harmed.”

  Sophia frowned. “Will they take him away?”

  Her mother’s eyes widened.

  “You’ve fallen for him!” she said with a strangely serious expression, one that unsettled Sophia.

  She blushed. “It’s pointless. He says he can’t love.”

  “I know love when I see it and can feel it,” her mother said on a laugh.

  “Feel it?” Sophia said and clutched her mother’s hand. “What do you mean, feel it? I can’t feel it. I tried... this is all because I tried to see if I could feel that he loved me.”

  “Love is not one feeling that you can sense, child,” her mother said with a sigh and smoothed her hair, pushing each rogue strand back into place. “It is the culmination of many feelings. It is something you have to see with your eyes. That boy... no... man, very definitely a man, loves you or he would not be shouting your name from the cells.”

  “He is?” Sophia said, unable to believe what her mother was saying.

  Her mother nodded. With a grin, Sophia stood and raced from the room, running for the cells. She held her skirt high so she didn’t trip as she bounded down the steps that led into the dungeon beneath the palace. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness and then she rushed on. Her heartbeat quickened when she heard Regis. He was shouting something but she couldn’t understand it. The old language again. Other voices joined his as she followed it, trying to find him.

  She skidded to a halt when she turned a corner and saw a row of men stood in front of one of the cells. She raced over and pushed her way through the guards, coming out beside her father and the emperor. The Count of Aeris was pinned with his back against the bars, Regis’s arm across his throat. Regis snarled, his eyes still bright red even in the darkness, and went to bite the count.

  “Stop!” she screamed.

  Regis froze and looked up at her.

  “Beauty has timing at least,” the Count of Aeris drawled and she gasped when she saw the blood on his cheek and throat. “Although you might have come quicker to tame your beast.”

  Regis snarled and released the count. She went to help the count but stopped when Regis roared. It froze her blood and she tensed.

  “It is not wise to anger him,” the Count of Aeris said as he got to his feet and rubbed his neck. “Soothe him. Bring him back to us.”

  She stared at him and then at Regis. “I don’t know how.”

  Emperor Varka stepped forwards and Regis growled again. “Speak with him. He has been calling you.”

  “But he’ll speak in that old language won’t he? I don’t understand—”

  Regis reached out to her and she realised that she didn’t need to understand anything he said, she could feel it all in him, every emotion behind whatever words would leave his lips. They would tell her what he wanted to say.

  She stepped up to the solid steel bars. Varkan steel. All the bars of the cells at this end of the palace were Varkan steel. It was supposedly indestructible, even to the species who mined it. They had placed him here because they knew he wouldn’t be able to break out. He growled and reached for her again, black claws scratching impatiently at the air.

  Taking a deep breath, Sophia placed her hand into his and frowned when he drew her slowly to him, his grip so light that it stunned her. He closed his eyes and she walked forwards, following her hand. Silence filled the dungeon and she trembled as he leaned his cheek against her hand. It was strange to have such power over one so strong. Her presence alone had calmed his thirst for violence. Opening her hand, she furrowed her brow and touched his cheek. He was bleeding. Long thin lines cut across his face and his neck. The wound on his arm where he had blocked the guard’s blade was deep, blood coating his forearm. His chest was marred with cuts and scratches, smeared blood. His blood.

  “Who hit you?” she said, looking over his face again, and he opened his eyes and looked at her. He said nothing in response, merely leaned into her open palm and held it against his cheek.

  “I have not enjoyed your deception and you have a lot to answer for,” her father said behind her. She presumed he was talking to Regis.

  Turning to look at her father, she pleaded him with her eyes. “Release him, father. It was all my doing. Punish me instead. I made him bite me. I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt him anymore. I am a woman, and I can accept responsibility for my actions.”

  Tears streaked her cheeks and as the first sob broke free of her lips, Regis growled and pulled her against the bars. She closed her eyes as she felt his arms around her and a strip of his chest against her cheek, edged by cold steel where the bars pressed in.

  “No one will be punished,” her father said and she smiled. “But there will be some explaining to do once the Count of Sagres is calm.”

  She blinked away her tears as her father turned to the Count of Aeris and Emperor Varka.

  “Take the Count of Sagres to his room.”

  A guard near the cell door opened the lock and the door slid open, forcing Regis to release her. The moment the door was out of the way, he grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her so close that she couldn’t help smiling. He still wanted to protect her.

  The Count of Aeris tried to get her free but Regis clawed at him, making it quite clear that he wasn’t going to leave her. She looked at her father to see him standing with his arms folded across his chest and a grim look on his face.

  “Can I go with them?” she asked.

  An amused smile touched her father’s lips and she frowned.

  “You are much like your mother in matters of love. When I saw you enter this universe thirty Lyran years past, I had a thought that you would be like me, but I see now that you have grown into a woman as headstrong and wilful as your mother, willing to sacrifice yourself for one you love,” he said and she blushed and dropped her gaze to the floor. She had never thought of herself like her mother in personality as well as looks.

  “Perhaps there is a little of you in me too, father, for I was willing to run away to avoid an arranged marriage.”

  He frowned. “My sweetest daughter, you did not believe that I would give you to a man whom you did not wish to marry?”

  “I thought perhaps you might, if they offered the right things in exchange.”

  “Never!” He stepped forwards to touch her face but Regis growled and held her tighter. Her father smiled and shook his head. “I would have kept you for my own forever but I knew that you were lonely and desired to meet someone to call your equal, your love. Having found such a good match in my Terea, I thought you might wish to look beyond the sphere of Lyran society for your love. I only invited these suitors so you might be able to find someone you loved without having to leave... foolish as it sounds... here.”

  Sophia smiled. She didn’t think her father was foolish for trying to bring the universe to her. She only wished that perhaps he had done it in a more tactful manner such as a ball or something where she wasn’t meeting one species at a time. It had been the thought of a queue of them waiting for their time with her that had made her uncomfortable. It had made her believe that he wanted to give her to the highest bidder. She hadn’t thought about the fact that he had kept her here and had continued to refuse her desire to travel while still granting her the freedom to do as she pleased.

  “Forgive me?” he said and looked as though he wanted to put his arms around her.

  Her smile widened. “Of course. Although, I never wanted to leave here. I still don’t.”

  “You mean you’ll refuse to leave?” The Count of Aeris stepped forwards, a frown marring his beautiful features. “Even if the emperor... no
... even if Regis will marry you, you will not leave Lyra Prime?”

  “Regis knows that I will not leave this planet. Lyra Prime is my home. What does it matter if I remain here even if Regis marries me?”

  “It will matter a lot when Varka—”

  “Van, that’s enough,” Emperor Varka said and she blushed with shame when she looked at him. “We will take the Count of Sagres to his room.”

  “I’m sorry about all this,” Sophia said and tried to move but Regis was holding her too tight. “I think I might have to go too.”

  Her father nodded.

  Taking Regis’s hand to show him that she wasn’t going to leave him, she started walking. He released her and followed, holding her hand so tight that she could feel her bones creaking. He was strong. He was incredibly strong. Yet she had brought him to his knees. She followed the emperor and count up through the palace, back to Regis’s room.

  “Emperor Varka,” she said and the man didn’t respond. She walked a little quicker to be closer to him. “Emperor Varka?”

  The man turned to look at her with wide eyes and then smiled. “What is it, little one?”

  They stopped outside Regis’s door and she glanced at it and then looked back at the emperor.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t love you. It wouldn’t have worked.”

  He continued to smile. It held a hint of darkness that unnerved her. Something about it, about him, spoke of intimate knowledge of violence and death. He looked like the royal assassins did sometimes when she chanced upon them in the city.

  “Give the Count of Sagres more blood and he will calm down. We must call home to apprise them of the situation but will not be far away. If he loses control, we will sense it and come to you. Come, Van.”

  With that, he was walking along the corridor. She had expected more of a protest or perhaps disappointment. He didn’t seem at all bothered that Varka’s ties with Lyra weren’t going to be strengthened through marriage. Perhaps he was only thinking of the money he could save and the fact that Lyra wouldn’t be getting Varka Two.

  She opened the dark wooden door and walked in, leading Regis to his bed. He sat down on it and she was relieved when she released his hand and he didn’t make a fuss. She could sense him watching her, studying her every move. His feelings were still as strong as they had been when they were last in this room together, ebbing and flowing through him, through her. Looking him over, she sighed at the cuts that marked his pale skin, cutting over the contours of his muscles. No one had admitted hurting him. Had they all been guilty to some extent? Even his friend and the emperor? Even her father? She supposed they weren’t to blame if they had hurt him in order to protect themselves. After all, he had been attempting to kill the Count of Aeris when she had arrived at the cell.

  “Are you alright?” she said and touched his cheek. His blood red eyes never left her face. “I’ll clean you up.”

  She went to the bathroom, unsure of what to do. She had never had to clean wounds before. She ran water into the stone basin until it felt cold and then wet a cloth with it. She returned to Regis and sat beside him on the bed. He turned to face her when she did and for a moment, his eyes flickered to her throat. Ignoring the spark of desire it lit in her, she cleaned his cuts, carefully washing away the blood, and bound the wound on his arm. She couldn’t help noticing how fantastic his body was, or the white scars that marked his skin. He wasn’t a stranger to wounds and pain.

  Her gaze wandered his body until it reached his hands. They rested on his knees, relaxed but holding them. She could sense the tension in him, the desire to touch her. It seemed he was in control of himself, at least for now. She frowned when she noticed a black finger thick band that ran up both of his arms on the outside. She looked a little closer at it, fascinated by the intricate markings that created the line, markings that varied from slashes to swirls to what looked like symbols. Her eyes followed the black line upwards over his biceps to his shoulder and from there up his neck. They were beautiful.

  Without thinking, she ran her fingers down the line nearest her, tracing it and revelling in the warmth of his skin. The marks were familiar but nothing came to her—nowhere she had seen them before or what they might mean.

  Dropping the cloth, she took hold of his hands, one in each of hers, and then ran her fingertips along the marks, following both at the same time towards his neck. When she reached it, she caressed the line of his jaw and then brushed his lower lip with her thumb.

  Regis growled, grabbed her upper arms, and pushed her onto her back on the bed.

  Give him blood.

  That was what they had told her.

  Sophia shut her eyes when his mouth closed over hers, his kiss stealing her breath and setting her body on fire.

  Give him blood she would.

  ****

  Chapter 6

  Sophia stared at the ceiling when Regis’s mouth left hers and he kissed a trail along her jaw and then down to her throat. She swallowed and lay sprawled out on the bed, ready for anything. Ready for everything. A moan left her lips when he kissed her throat and then wrapped his lips around it, sucking the skin. She longed for him to use his teeth.

  She ached for him to bite her.

  She would give anything to feel it again.

  Involuntarily, her body arched against his, her thigh rubbing between his legs. He growled and sucked her throat harder, but still didn’t bite her. She would surrender everything to feel it. Her birthright, her family, her blood. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t sacrifice in exchange for him.

  It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the emperor or that her species would gain nothing from the match. She didn’t care.

  She only wanted him.

  She loved him.

  Her eyes shot wide when he nicked her neck with his teeth and she shuddered along with him when he growled and sunk against her, his body half covering hers. Her hands swept up his arms and she clawed his back, lost in the glimmer of pleasure and the promise of exquisite ecstasy. His hand roamed down the other side of her neck and covered her right breast. She bit her lip and moaned her approval, hoping to encourage him.

  They had told her to give him her blood.

  She wanted to give him more than that.

  So much more.

  Regis growled again and shifted, moving to kneel between her legs. Sophia gasped when he ground against her and she felt his hard length. Her heart raced. She had decided to give herself to him but it still hadn’t quite prepared her for the reality of it or the fact that he didn’t seem quite with her.

  She had thought perhaps that he would come around a little once he’d had a taste of her blood. Right now, he didn’t seem at all conscious of the fact it was her.

  Or was he?

  “Regis?” Sophia whispered as he devoured her throat with kisses so intense that she yearned for his touch. They drove her wild with need and when he pushed his hand beneath her skirt and placed it over the bite mark on her thigh, it sent her out of her mind. She raised her body into the touch, into him, and threw her head back. Her breasts pressed against her corset, straining for contact with him. Her heart ached and thundered, begging him to relieve her.

  He muttered something in her ear, his breath hot and sultry, his words carrying a promise of seduction even though she couldn’t understand them. She longed to know what he was saying, what words he husked against her skin between kisses. He felt hungry, full of desire and passion as strong as her own. There was an aura of desperation around him, of hope and fear.