Astelion POV
Slowly opening my eyes, my mind felt incredibly hazy, trapped in a thick fog of exhaustion. The heavy drapes of the bedroom were pulled tight, but faint slivers of late afternoon light managed to cut through the darkness. The moment I tried to shift beneath the ssheets, a wave of intense soreness radiated through my entire body.
My head throbbed, my neck and back ached, and my legs felt completely heavy. Even the most intimate parts of me burned, a stinging reminder of the relentless, bruising passion from the night before.
I rolled over, my hand sweeping across the mattress, only to find the space beside me cold and empty. Winced at the stiffness in my spine, I forced myself to sit up against the dark headboard. That was when I noticed Kiono sitting quietly in a leather armchair across the room, illuminated by a small reading lamp, a heavy leather-bound book resting in his lap.
Seeing me stir, he immediately closed the book, a warm, soft expression flooding his features. He stood up, walking over to the edge of the mattress, and sat down gently next to me.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," he murmured, his eyes bright with affection.
"How are you feeling?"
I let out a low, ragged breath. "Sore is an understatement."
A smile spread across his face. He leaned in, wrapping his strong arms securely around me, and pulled me into a protective, comforting hug.
"Your meal will be up soon," he whispered against my hair.
Before I could even wrap my arms around his bare shoulders, a sudden, sharp knock resonated through the doors.
"Kiono, are you here?" a refined, elegant voice called out from the hallway.
"Yes, mother," Kiono answered smoothly.
Mother.
The word hit me like a splash of ice water. My head snapped toward him, then toward the locked door, before my eyes darted down to look at myself. In my panicked haze, I hadn't even realized that he must have carried me out of the tub, completely cleaned the sweat and fluid from my skin, and dressed me in one of his oversized black button-down shirts to sleep.
I swallowed hard, a lump of pure anxiety forming in my throat as I stared at him.
"Is the young lady that you want me to meet in there with you?"
his mother asked, her footsteps shuffling slightly outside.
"Yes, she is," Kiono replied casually, raising his voice so it carried through the wood.
"But she is quite occupied at the moment."
My eyes widened in sheer horror. I practically lunged across the mattress, slamming my palm firmly over his mouth to cut him off.
"What are you doing?!" I hissed under my breath, my face burning.
"That is your mother!"
Kiono's eyes crinkled with amusement beneath my hand. From the hallway, there was a faint, knowing sigh, followed by the muffled sound of footsteps echoing away from the door as his mother walked down the grand corridor.
Once the coast was clear, Kiono gently pulled my hand away from his lips, pressing a soft kiss directly into the center of my palm.
"Relax," he chuckled, his voice entirely unbothered.
"My mother likes me enough not to care."
"Still! Have some respect," I snapped, pulling my hand back and wrapping the sheets tighter around my torso.
"Plus, I don't want to make a bad first impression."
"Too late," Kiono laughed, a wicked, teasing glint in his eye as he leaned back.
"The whole house heard us last night."
I felt the blush explode across my cheeks, hot and sudden. Desperate to change the subject, I looked around the dim room, trying to gauge the light.
"What time is it?"
"It's almost 5:00 PM."
"Whatttt!!" I practically shrieked, my jaw dropping.
"I have been sleeping all day!"
"Pretty much, you missed the wedding too," Kiono laughed, reaching out to gently ruffle my tangled hair.
"You had a rough night, I could tell."
Another knock suddenly rattled the door frame. Thinking it was finally the servants arriving with the food tray, Kiono stood up from the bed, completely unbothered, and walked over to pull the heavy wooden door open.
But it wasn't a maid with food.
Standing in the threshold, her arms tightly crossed over a gown, was Eina.
The air instantly left my lungs. My heart stopped beating, a cold, suffocating wave of pure panic seizing my chest as I peeked out from behind the bedpost and locked eyes with her.
Why is she here? How does she know him?
Eina's calculating eyes raked over Kiono's bare chest before her gaze drifted past his shoulder, landing directly on me huddled under the covers. A look of icy disgust contorted her features.
"Seriously? You're fucking the palace maid?" she spat, her voice dripping with condescension as she looked back at Kiono.
"Father would be greatly disappointed that you wasted his time over a maid."
Father.
The word echoed in my skull like a detonating bomb. Father.
A sickening, horrific realization slammed into my consciousness, so violent it made my stomach physically retetch. Eina was Cion Tokio's daughter. And if Kiono was her brother...
No. No, no, no.
The world began to spin in a terrifying, chaotic tilt. Blind panic overriding the agonizing soreness in my limbs, I frantically tried to scramble out of the bed, desperate to get away from him, away from this room, away from this entire bloodline. But the moment my feet hit the floor, my weak, trembling knees completely gave out. I collapsed heavily onto the rug with a sharp cry.
"Astelion!" Kiono yelled, his face pale with sudden alarm as he rushed across the room to help me up.
"Don't touch me!" I screamed, a sob tearing out of my throat. I frantically scooted backward along the floor, kicking my legs out, my entire body shaking in a mixture of disbelief, horror, and profound disgust.
I pressed my back against the far wall, staring at him as if he were a ghost.
No, please, gods, no. This can't be happening. Please tell me this is a nightmare.
The emotional overload inside me I screamed out in absolute agony, and a massive, invisible wave of force erupted from my body.
The heavy bedroom door slammed shut with such explosive, terrifying velocity that the wood splintered, hitting Eina squarely in the face and throwing her back into the hallway before the heavy iron lock snapped into place, sealing her out.
Tears blurred my vision, pouring down my flushed cheeks as I looked at the man I had given everything to. My voice cracked, a broken, weeping sound as the betrayal sliced through my soul.
"Please," I cried, choking on my own breath as I clutched my chest. "Please tell me he isn't your father."
"Your scaring me", he said walking closer to me.
The agonizing realization hit hard Cion. The man who had laughed as my mother screamed, the monster who had burned my entire world to ash he was Kiono's father.
A wave of nausea surged up my throat, and before I could even try to suppress it, I retched, vomiting right onto the edge of the rug. I choked, my chest heaving as the bitter taste of bile and absolute betrayal filled my mouth.
"Astelion!" Kiono's voice cracked with an intense, frantic alarm. He took a fast step toward me, his hands reaching out to comfort me, his eyes wide with absolute confusion.
"What is happening? Talk to me, please—"
"Don't touch me!" . I scrambled even further backward until my spine slammed hard against the wooden base of his nightstand, drawing my knees tightly to my chest. "
Get away from me! Don't you dare lay a single finger on me!"
Kiono froze in his tracks, his hands hovering uselessly in the air. The sheer bewilderment on his face he looked entirely lost, completely blindsided by the sudden wall of terror I had built between us.
"Astelion, you're shaking. Did Eina say something? Just let me help you—"
"I said stay back!"
The emotional detonation inside me completely shattered my restraint. My power coiled and shattered.
The light in my eyes didn't just flash this time, it completely consumed them, burning. A low, vibrating hum resonated through the very foundations of the room. The glass windows behind the heavy velvet drapes began to crack.
Then, the telekinetic storm erupted.
The heavy leather armchair he had been sitting in was lifted entirely into the air, hovering feet above the floor. The books on his shelves violently tore themselves from their bindings, swirling around the room in a chaotic, levitating vortex of paper and leather.
The massive crystal chandelier above us groaned, its glass droplets rattling furiously as the invisible, crushing weight of my raw aura expanded outward.
Kiono staggered backward, his eyes widening in pure shock as he was forced to shield his face from the gale-force winds whipping through his own bedroom. He could feel the magnitude of the power radiating off me.
"Astelion, stop! You're going to tear the room apart!" he shouted over the roaring wind. He tried to force his way through the invisible, telekinetic barrier pushing him back.
"Look at me! It's me, Kiono! Why are you looking at me like I'm a monster?"
"Because you carry his blood!" I screamed, tears cutting hot, clean lines through the sweat and grime on my face. The pain in my chest was so immense I felt like I was physically suffocating, my heart fracturing into a million jagged pieces. The betrayal burned worse than any physical wound. The man I loved, the man I had trusted with my body and my soul, was the spawn of that monster.
The levitating furniture trembled in midair, completely bound to the rhythm of my heartbreak.
"Please," I wept, the light in my eyes flickering as the crushing weight of reality settled into my bones. "Tell me it's a lie. Tell me Cion isn't your father."