Slowburn | Enemies to lovers | dark romance | false prophets | Space Opera | triangle | strong femme characters | eventual Romance | Eventual smut |
A desperate Baron.
A yearning Duke.
A woman who weaves destruction with an army of fire.
In the m...
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As Hawk crept through the guest wing in the dead of night beneath the copper glow of the candelabras, she had the sense that she had made a terrible choice. Feyd was on other side of the door, having just thrown her out, but his presence felt entirely amiss. The candles flickered and the portraits of lesser men creaked on the walls, but it was not the silence that arose the tangibility of fear.
It was the stench.
The scent wafted from beneath the base of what she assumed was Rabban's door. It stung at her nose, sick, sweet, coppery. A gut wrenching mix of smells that she could pull apart and decipher in their singularity, but together, was the unmistakable scent of death. It hadn't been present when she arrived, or perhaps she had not paid close enough attention.
Hawk stirred nearer to the door, curiosity driving her forward. Through the cracks and thin wood she caught the faintest of a whimper, shortly followed by a deep, pained moan. She placed the fabric on her hands over her mouth and nose. Her skin smelled like sweet mineral and rose, like Feyd. Her lips smelled like wine and blood from kissing too forcefully, like Feyd. The scent of his skin grew muddied and tainted the further she leaned.
Crack, pop, bite and tear. The sounds emanated through the darkness in a rhythm of someone feasting. Hawk thought back to how many women had made the journey with the original Harkonnen troupe, a dozen perhaps. She hadn't seen them wandering the halls in the previous days, their presence remiss at meals or in the training yard.
It was cruel to eat one's captives. There was no glory in it, no honor in the use of a body that hadn't battled for its survival. To feast on the flesh of a concubine would have been punishable by death within the Galicine.
Hawk had more than a pulling urge to extend that to Rabban.
Instead, she turned on her heel and did nothing. Because that was the pattern of choice she had been making for too long of a time to give it up. The timid creatures were already departed from their bodies, she could not save them. She often doubted that she could even save herself.
-
At the arrival of a message from the emperor, all members of the receiving party were expected to be present. It was a bit of tradition in the high houses, a custom, a habit, Hawk couldn't quite tell the difference. The nobility had many rules and rites that often proved mundane and pointless.
