Filed to story: The Alpha Kings Hated Slave
It was everything she wanted to hear and more. This place was driving her insane. This place held everything she’d been running away from. The knowledge that the daughter of Cone was now the queen of Mombana wasn’t helping.
Why was the world so unfair to her?
He walked out, and she followed him. He was giving instructions to the maids to bathe her and give her as much food as she wants. He’d be seeing her again after she’d freshened up, he’d said.
The resentment she felt for him disappeared like the wind and new thoughts resided her damned mind. He’d forgiven her!
Suddenly, she was seeing Danika’s leaving as a great thing. It didn’t matter if she was queen; it was not a problem of hers because Lucien would be Vetta’s again.
Now, it will be just them both again.
But two hours later…
“I am stripping you from being my mistress, Vetta. And from today onwards, I’m setting you free.”
Vetta stood there staring up at King Lucien. She was finding it hard understanding those words he spoke. “W-what?” Surely, she didn’t hear him correctly. It was those memories again tormenting her and blocking her hearings, she concluded.
But his eyes…that guilt was still there. That remorse. And a new look too.
“Henceforth, you will no longer be a mistress to me, Vetta. I am letting you go.”.
“You-you’re throwing me away?” It was hard for her to believe. She could barely hear above the clamors in her head.
“No. No, I’m not throwing you away. I would never throw you away,” he stated firmly.
“But you’re stripping me from being your mistress. That’s throwing me away.” She couldn’t shout or even scream. It was too much for her to think that Lucien was actually throwing her away. The sense of betrayal she was feeling was too much.
He raised his hand and took hers into his. “I have been very selfish, Vetta. Please, forgive me for that. I realized all too late that I made a huge mistake placing the heavy burden of being a mistress on your shoulders fresh out of slavery. I should have never done that.”
Vetta could only look at his hand holding hers. At the back of her mind, her depraved body registered that it was actually the first time he’s reached for her on his own in a very long time.
“If I didn’t do that, I would have given you time to heal,” he continued. “You were always strong. Even bruised and battered, you have always been so strong. I must have selfishly relied so much on that strength. I didn’t stop to think that you’re still human and you had just been through hell.”
“I’m still strong. Nothing is wrong with me. P-please, don’t let me go. I wouldn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t know how to go forward,” she pleaded, her world crumbling around her. For amoment, she allowed herself to imagine her life without him in it. She wouldn’t know how to live that life. How could he throw her away like this?
“Vetta, I’m not letting you go or throwing you away, so stop that train of thought.” He squeezed her hand gently. “I have a house outside the palace, just on the outskirt of the perimeters. In the last two weeks, I had Zariel and Dargak clean it out and put it in order.”
“The big house? Built with expensive bricks and bamboo? With tiled roof and chimney?” she murmured, her heart so heavy.
“The exact one. It belongs to my father. A place he goes whenever he wants to get away for a little bit. Sometimes, he goes with his queen, my mother. You own that house now, Vetta. I am giving it to you. It has all the luxuries you will need. You need to go away from all this…to heal. The palace is not the best place for that.”
Tears blurred Vetta’s eyes. Why was he suddenly being so tender towards her after five years? This was the Lucien she had before Danika’s father took him from her. And even when he was a monster battling demons, she still wanted him that way-mostly that way because that’s how she is-but Danika had to come along and take him from her too.
“I don’t want to go. Please, don’t send me away.”
He led her to the leather cushion behind her and urged her to sit down. She did, looking up at him with the blurry eyes of a shattered person. He walked out of her bedroom and came back a few minutes later with a bowl of water and a soft cloth. Then he hunched down in front of her. Vetta stared wide-eyed at the king as he took her leg into his hand and unclothed it from the expensive silk and leather it was clad in. He stared at her bare leg. If scars had another name, that would be her legs. But he was holding them so gently like a person would hold porcelain.
And when he dipped the soft cloth in warm water and pressed it to her leg gently, tears left her eyes in massive drops.
Indeed, he was letting her go. That is why an almighty, powerful king like Lucien would be hunched in front of her…after all these years.
“Do you remember when I did this before?” he said.
“How can I ev-ever forget?” Three times he cleaned her legs like this at Mombana. The difference was that her legs were filled with fresh wounds then-wounds that had turned to scars.
In the silence that followed, he washed her legs gently and repeatedly while she sniffled uncontrollably, unable to control her tears.
Then he stared up at her. “I’m sending you out of the palace, Vetta, not because I want to let you go completely, but because I want to hold on to you the best way I can. Go out there and experience a different kind of life than the one you’ve always known.”
“You have lived as a slave, and you have lived as a mistress, but you have never lived as a free woman. I want you to go out there and live like that. Have new experiences serving no man. Be your own woman. Rediscover yourself. Rediscover Anarieveta.”
“Please, don’t say that name.” She shook her head miserably. “You’re sending me away. The best thing you can do for me is not to mention that name to me.”
It hurt so much.
His eyes took on the gentlest light. “Alright, I will not. But you understand my message, right?”
“The only th-thing I understand is that you’re touching me willingly. And you’re h-hunching in front of me with a d-dirty scarred part of me in your kingly hands. And you’re sending me away.”
“No part of you is dirty, Vetta. Not to me.” Done with her legs, he let them go.
She wiped her tears, staring at her ugly legs. “I can’t be Anarieveta ever again. Cone made sure of that. You don’t know half of the things I’ve done, my king. Or what it’s like living in a head like mine.”
“I have a good idea, because I know what it’s like living in a head likemine. You can always be Anarieveta again, you know why? The things you did do not define you.” He took her hand and placed it on her chest. “What defines you is your heart. Your heart defines you.”
“What is left of my heart is ugly.”
“It does not have to be so. That is why you must give yourself chance to heal.”
“King Cone took me from me. His daughter took you from me.” Red teary eyes met his filled with anger, hate and bitterness. “I hate Danika. I will always hate her.”
He shook his head firmly. “It was not her fault, Vetta. It’s time you give her a chance too. I hated her, you can remember. I didn’t give her a chance, and yet I saw her for who she really is. Danika is not her father.”
“But she’s nowhere to be seen. I heard she is in Mombana now,” she snorted. “She chose her crown, power and riches.”
He averted his eyes, his chest tightening. “No, she did not. I did something that was foolish and noble at the same time. I pushed her away. Even when she held on, I pushed her away.”
“Like you’re doing to me now.” She rose when he rose and crutched his kingly garment. “Please, don’t do this to me, Lucien. I don’t want to go.” But even as she pleaded, she saw the unmoving resolve from his eyes. He had made his decision and would not go back on it.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?