Chapter 132 - 0132
Lorelei POV
Terrified of him?
Was I?
I mean... who in their right mind wouldn’t be?
I had literally watched this man shoot a maid right in front of me without so much as blinking. Sure, she had a criminal record and had tried to drug him, but it had still been a brutal, merciless thing to witness with my own eyes.
But as I sat there looking at him now, I realized something.
I wasn’t afraid of him.
At least, not in the helpless, paralyzing way I used to be.
The reason I was so shaken right now had nothing to do with him at all.
The problem was... how was I supposed to explain that without revealing who I really was? Without exposing my past?
The timing of all of this couldn’t have been worse.
I let out a soft, weary sigh before slowly pushing myself upright until I was sitting across from him on the bed.
"Do I have a reason to be terrified of you?" I asked quietly, holding his gaze.
The second the question left my mouth, I saw his entire body stiffen.
He leaned back slightly, and for the briefest moment, the overwhelming dominance that always surrounded him seemed to crack.
His dark red hair was a complete mess, strands falling over his forehead in every direction, as though he had been dragging his hands through it over and over before coming in here.
"I... I haven’t been treating you well," he admitted, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly confession that caught me completely off guard.
If only he knew the truth.
As twisted as our situation was, he had still treated me a hundred times better than my own biological parents ever had.
The thought alone was enough to drag me right back into those memories.
All the horrible, agonizing things I had endured beneath my own family’s roof...
And then seeing my mother again after all this time, standing there as if the years between us had never happened...
The emotions I’d been desperately trying to keep buried finally overwhelmed me.
A single tear slipped down my cheek before I even realized I was crying.
I didn’t notice it until Kaelen reached toward me.
His large hand gently cupped my face, and his thumb brushed across my cheek, carefully wiping away the tear just as another one escaped.
"You are not a prisoner here," he whispered, his amber eyes locked onto mine as though searching for even the smallest sign that I believed him. "Not anymore. So there’s no reason to be afraid of me."
"I’m not..." I whispered hoarsely, desperately trying to swallow the sudden lump rising in my throat.
Before I could finish my sentence, Kaelen leaned in and captured my lips.
He kissed me with a fierce, quiet intensity, as though he was trying to pull every ounce of pain out of me through that single kiss.
And somehow...
It worked.
The suffocating memories that had been clawing their way back into my mind suddenly faded into the background, replaced by the overwhelming sensation of his lips moving against mine.
His tongue brushed gently past my lips, silently coaxing me to part them for him. Before I even realized what I was doing, I gave in, and the bitter taste of alcohol spread across my tongue.
So he really had been drinking.
When he finally pulled away, I was left completely breathless while he lingered only inches from my face, his warm breath fanning softly against my skin.
"I already spoke to Princess Nala."
He said it so suddenly that my brows immediately drew together.
"Why?"
"You two can go to the club tonight."
My eyes widened instantly, and a sharp gasp escaped me as I instinctively pulled away from him.
"How did you...?"
"Darius told me," he answered before I could finish, leading me to silently curse Darius to the high heavens.
I should have known those two didn’t keep secrets from each other. The traitor had probably rushed straight back to the estate at the first chance he got just to tell Kaelen everything.
But after everything that had happened today, I had absolutely no desire to go anywhere anymore.
Seeing my mother had drained every bit of excitement I had felt about experiencing that world.
Right now, I didn’t even want to step outside this bedroom.
"You don’t have to worry," I said quietly. "I’m not going anymore. Just tell Princess Nala that I can’t..."
But the rest of my words died in my throat as my eyes settled on his face, and I froze when I saw that Kaelen’s expression had completely fallen.
The dangerously arrogant Alpha King sitting in front of me suddenly looked... defeated.
His broad shoulders lowered ever so slightly, and a shadow of disappointment crossed his face, followed almost immediately by something that looked painfully close to self blame.
His jaw remained tightly set, but his amber eyes... they held a raw, wounded look that made my chest tighten.
It was as though my refusal had convinced him that I truly felt imprisoned by him.
Goddess... since when did he start looking so pitiful?
It almost didn’t suit him.
Seeing a man of his stature look so utterly crushed felt strangely wrong. I hadn’t even said anything that harsh, so why was he looking at me like I’d just shattered his heart?
"I’m hungry now," I blurted out before I could stop myself.
The words slipped out on pure instinct, and the moment they hung in the air, I regretted them.
I still wasn’t hungry. My stomach was still tied into nervous knots, and the thought of food honestly made me feel sick.
But seeing the utterly defeated look on his face made me swallow hard before I hurried to add, "But... I don’t feel like feeding myself. Can... can you feed me instead?"
Heat crept into my cheeks as soon as I said that, and for a long moment, Kaelen simply stared at me.
But then something bright flickered across his amber eyes. First surprise, and then unmistakable relief.
It washed over his features so quickly that I almost missed it until, slowly, the corners of his lips lifted into a small smile.
"Of course," he replied quietly.