The wood was now quiet, and the storm of his anger had been hurled off into blackness. I should have enjoyed the room as Lucian retreated. I was disturbed rather than reassured.
"Why are you telling me this?" More mildly than I meant I demanded.
His gold eyes had watched me all the time, and looked unreadable. Since you think I am a monster. And perhaps I am. But not all the scars I have were mine.
I took a sharp breath at his frankness. My heart was throbbing; my head was telling me not to look, to put the cover back together, which I had struggled so valiantly to preserve. But I was unable.
I saw the man under the Alpha. Fragments that he struggled so much to hide.
"Lucian…" I said, I knew not why his name on my tongue was any other now,--and yet a little softer, a much more secret.
His eyes grew dark, but not angry. Be careful, he said under his breath, and as I walked near him enough to have the warmth of his body touch mine. Say my name again, in that same tone, And I may forget to release you.
My breath caught. I should have pushed him away. I ought to have reminded him--and myself--that I wanted liberty. But it was heavy air and magnetic and it felt like the Moon Goddess had a hold of the strings.
He had a hand next to my face, but not quite touching me, shaking with control. for that not even the truth is worth something I do hate you, he said, that I should not be able to tell you?
I looked in those eyes of his for inhumanity and hypocrisy. And found pain. Bare and cold and shocking in its reality.
No," I said, hardly a word. I do not hate you so very much. I slipped the words out of my mouth involuntarily. His lips turned in a not-quite-sneer, a weak sort of thing, almost … hopeful.
And that was worse than frightening.
Because I knew at the time:
The Alpha King was doing than breaking my chains. He was breaking me.