CHAPTER FIVE

The dining hall is similar to the one that was in the painting I threatened to torch, only slightly less wide. It is a long room with a very high ceiling and no pillars. The lighting in the room comes from numerous lamps that burn so bright everything in the large room is visible to you no matter where you are standing in it. Its high walls are adorned by paintings of all kinds similar in style and feel to the aforementioned one but of vastly different subject matters. There’s one of a war ship and another of a garrison. There is a large portrait of a pale woman staring judgingly at me and another of a really cute baby right next to it. Then there’s the paintings of beasts, some I recognize, some far beyond my imagination. Beasts with yellow eyes, four horns, tails lined with spikes, chests covered in fur, nipples red as a blood moon and tongues longer than their hands that split into two. It is all so gory but also so beautiful.

In the center of the room is a large long table. It is one of those tables a family of royals would use to entertain their guests. At the head of the table is Alden, completely filling up an enormous seat with his hefty frame. He has his hands on the table like a king about to pass a sentence and he is watching me as I stand in one spot and take in the room that I am in.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Alden’s voice booms across the room and bounces off the walls. I wonder how long before that voice stops making me shiver. I suspect that might never stop.

With a deep breath, I will myself to move and walk to the table. I stop at the other end of the table with my hands on my tummy. I do not sit and neither one of us says a word for several seconds. The silence is deafening.

“My dress is not fastened,” I say.

For a moment, I fear that I was not loud enough and that he did not hear me because he does not respond but when I look up and I see his orange eyes turning a wicked shade of red, I know that he did. Something stirs in my loins.

“Come over here,” he says finally.

His words are like an invisible force that overpower whatever inertia I might have. I do not even think twice before I walk along the table and stop at his side. Despite the small victory I had in the room negotiating my release, he is still an intimidating monster.

He watches me from head to toe and drinks me in before getting up on his feet. I too drink him in. This time, he has traded his blue buttonless vest for a green silky shirt that still does very little to conceal his bulging muscles. When he flexes his arms, it is as though the shirt would give in and rip. He has on black pants and the very noticeable bulge at the front of his pants jumps right at me. I look up immediately and see that he is watching me.

‘Turn,” he instructs and I do. I feel his presence behind me even before he touches me. It is like a warm awning that envelopes every fiber of my being. I want to lean into him but I stay still. When his fingers touch the bodice of my dress, I stiffen and my breath stops midway in my throat. I stay completely still. One loop after the other, he tightens my dress’ lace around me and with every fastening, I feel him inch closer until I can feel what is undeniably his warm breath on the nape of my neck. My entire body immediately shivers of their own volition. Goosebumps shoot out of every visible part of my body and blood rushes to my head in a sudden manner that temporary blackens my sight. Still, this is not enough. I desire that he is even closer. I want his lips on shoulder. I want him to suckle on that spot where my neck meets my collarbone.

He steps back and I am snapped out of my thoughts. Fuck! What is happening to me?

I take in a very long and deep breath before I turn around to face him.

“Don’t just stand there. Sit,” he says.

Feeling bold, I do not return to the other end of the table. Instead, I go to the chair two seats from his right and sit in it. He watches me intently as I carry out every movement before he returns to his own seat. For the first time since I arrived in this hall, I notice the food spread on the table. There’s a large turkey, a roasted pig, mashed potatoes, rice, vegetables, an obscene amount of wine and so much more food than just the two of us could possibly eat.

“Expecting more guests?” I ask cheekily to which he does not respond. Instead, a growl from my stomach fills the silence.

“Eat,” he says so I know he definitely heard my stomach.

I pick up a plate and begin to dish myself something. Admittedly, it all looks so delicious and smells so too. Even though I understand the dangers of eating in this strange place that I still have barely any explanation as to where or what it is, I am too hungry to refuse something that looks so good.

As I take a first bite from my plate food, I fight the urge to moan out loud, and then I notice that Alden is not making any attempt to pick up a plate and get some food for himself. Instead, he is sitting in silence and watching me. My mind imagines the worst possible scenario first – that this food is poisoned – so I stop chewing the piece of turkey in my mouth. Then, I think of a second possibility. I wonder immediately if he is the kind of man who is always served his food, by his servants perhaps. I wonder if he expects me to cater to his feeding like Brad used to always do.

“Why aren’t you eating?” I ask.

“It is rude to speak with food in your mouth,” he says as his eyes burn into mine.

I shift in my seat. Why do his words seem to hold so much weight and control when elsewhere I would have scoffed? I chew the food in my mouth and swallow and face him again with a sarcastic smile.

“Why aren’t you eating?” I ask again.

“I do not abuse my food by heating them up,” he says.

“What does that mean?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

“It means I eat as nature provides,” he says.

“Hmm. Sounds delicious… for you,” I say and I think he gets that I am making a joke, perhaps for the first time, because a faint smile plays at his lips but it disappears just as fast. “What is the point of this feast? Why have you cooked all this food just for my sake?”

He watches me for a few seconds as though analyzing my question before opening his mouth to respond. “It is rude to have a person spend the night in my house and not offer them food,” he says.

“So, you are a traditional man,” I say with a smirk.

“Man,” he replies and the word rolls of his tongue like a foreign object.

“Why did you kidnap me?” I ask him. Something about how semi-nice he is being to me makes me a little bold to ask this question and I hope that I am not overstepping my bounds.

“I did not kidnap you,” he says, his voice taking on an even lower octave. How many shivers can one voice cause to run through my body? “You came to me.”