Kraving Dravka by Zoey Draven

Chapter Thirteen

“What’s the use for a long engagement?” Derek Larchmont’s voice boomed around the dining room. It was grand and tastefully furnished with Old World pieces Valerie knew must’ve cost a fortune.

Plush red velvet dining chairs. The long and flawless stretch of a mahogany wood table with gold inlaid beneath the silky varnish. It could easily seat twenty people, though only five were in attendance that night. Another shimmering chandelier dangled over the wood and Valerie wondered what would happen if it crashed down onto the table, breaking dishes filled with rich food and thick gravies.

Derek Larchmont’s wide smile and his twinkling blue eyes came to Valerie. “This is an arranged marriage, after all. In our circle, they are expected. There is no shame in getting married soon. We can wait for summer, in a few weeks’ time, since it will be more fashionable.”

“Dear,” Celine cut in, placing a palm on her husband’s forearm. “I think you underestimate how much time goes into planning a wedding. There are expectations. An event of the season, you see? We are Larchmonts. We mustn’t disappoint.”

Celine’s lips twisted a bit as she said those last few words, her eyes coming to Madame Allegria briefly before dropping away.

The beautiful blonde was seated next to her husband at the dining table. Valerie was across from her, Madame Allegria was to Valerie’s right, and Gabriel Larchmont, her intended husband, was seated next to her aunt. It was a small reprieve that Valerie had no reason to look down the table at him and she did her best to not meet his gaze too often.

Valerie swallowed and she reached for her glass of wine to soothe her suddenly dry throat.

“I think a quick wedding is ideal,” her aunt cut in, leaning back in her seat slightly, baring a glimpse of cleavage from her plunging neckline. “This is a matter of business, Celine. You said yourself Gabriel cannot claim his share of the company until he is married. You have a busy import season coming up, do you not?”

Valerie took another sip of wine before setting her glass down on the table. She’d barely opened her mouth once. Only to eat, though the food tasted like ash on her tongue. Which was fine because her shimmering teal dress was so tight across her abdomen that eating a lot was simply not possible.

“I agree,” Gabriel chimed in, though he smiled at his mother. He leaned forward, his eyes catching on Valerie, and he winked. “Can you blame me for wanting a quick wedding? Just look at my bride.”

The flush that bloomed across Valerie’s neck and cheeks had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with the fact that her gut was churning.

Celine was outnumbered. She seemed to realize that and pasted on a small smile, reaching for her wine. She’d already drained three glasses at the dinner table and motioned for more to the server lingering at the door.

“Of course, my dear,” she said quietly. “Whatever you want.”

Gabriel leaned back. Out of the corner of her eye, Valerie saw motion in Madame Allegria’s lap.

Her ears started ringing when she saw Gabriel’s fingers slide up the slit in her aunt’s black dress…and then his hand disappeared between her thighs.

Madame Allegria shifted, ever so slightly, a small smirk playing over her lips as she regarded Celine across the table. Gabriel’s fingers moved underneath the silky material of the dress.

Valerie jerked her head forward, more nausea rising in her belly.

Her aunt and Gabriel were sleeping together. Was that how she’d gotten Gabriel to go along with marrying her? Just another of her twisted mind games?

Of course it was. Madame Allegria was in the business of sex. And she knew how to use it to get what she wanted.

And now…her fiancé was running his fingers over her aunt’s sex, right at the dinner table, in front of his parents. This was the man she would be marrying, tying her life to.

Valerie stood from the table, pushing her chair back so suddenly that it nearly toppled over.

Everyone’s eyes cut to her but it was Celine that Valerie was looking at. Did she know?

“Everything all right, darling?” Derek Larchmont asked.

“Y-yes,” Valerie replied, before clearing her throat. She pasted on a smile that felt as brittle as Celine’s. “I need to use the powder room, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Derek said. “Our server will show you the way. For the rest of us, let’s retire to the sitting room for the night. We can have our dessert served in there.”

Valerie was unseeing as she followed the server from the room. He was silent as he led her down the hallway, up the grand staircase she’d seen on her first visit to the house, and halfway down another hallway.

“In here, Miss,” he said before opening the door and then backing away. “Do you need me to wait for you, to show you—”

“No,” Valerie said quickly. “That’s all right, thank you.”

She locked herself inside the small room, leaning her back against the door. It was hard to breathe in the dress so she stood there for long moments, staring at herself in the reflection of the mirror. Like everything in the house, it was gilded and heavy, leaning against the wall, and…expensive.

Valerie thought of Celine, feathering her gilded little cage. And she wondered if that was her fate too. To smile at people across the table at dinner parties and pat her husband’s arm and call him dear.

She smiled, a bitter twist of her lips, but in the reflection she saw her face begin to crumble.

She stifled the small sob that escaped her throat, clasping her hand over her mouth, and her mind went to Dravka.

Dravka, who had kissed her again just a few hours earlier. Just thinking about him, thinking about his dark eyes and gentle hands, quieted her sobs until she felt centered again.

She remembered the first time she’d ever seen him. It was the first day she’d been on Everton. A week after her mother had died. Madame Allegria had told her to go introduce herself to the Krave in the Cluster of the brothel. Alone.

Back then, Valerie had still been quite numb. She didn’t remember walking down the hallway to the Cluster, she didn’t remember opening the door, or standing at the threshold, seeing four pairs of eyes staring back at her as she hollowly introduced herself.

But then, her eyes had found Dravka’s. She remembered her heart giving a little throb at the sight of him and all at once, her breath had seemed to return to her. He’d been watching her carefully as she’d introduced herself. And once she was done? A small smile, secretive and knowing, had passed over his lips…and he’d never looked away from her.

As if he knew.

As if he’d always known, from that very first moment, that they’d…

Valerie blew out a long breath, regarding herself in Celine Larchmont’s gilded mirror.

Pull yourself together, she told herself. You can do this. You have to.

She patted her face, smoothing over the streaks of saline that had trailed down her cheeks. She used the toilet—which was nearly impossible in her tight dress, but she managed—and then washed up, taking deep, steadying breaths every few moments.

You can do this, she thought as she exited the powder room. Down the hallway, there wasn’t a soul in sight. As she navigated her way back to the staircase which led down to the lower level, she passed an ajar door.

A small moan made her freeze and made her turn.

It had been left open on purpose, Valerie realized. Because when she turned, her eyes darted through the door, into an office of some kind, with dark bookcases lining the walls and a darker desk the size of a car before them.

And on that desk was her aunt, her black dress pulled up around her waist, her legs wrapped around Gabriel Larchmont’s hips. He was driving those hips into Madame Allegria, his pace frenzied as he grinned down at her.

Val must’ve made a sound. A surprised sound. Because both Madame Allegria’s and Gabriel’s eyes found her.

Neither stopped.

If anything, Gabriel’s grin grew wider when he saw her watching. If anything, his pace quickened further, thrusting harder, like he was putting on a show. As for her aunt? Her eyes narrowed, as if trying to tell her something. Her expression wasn’t gloating. It was calculating and shrewd as it always was.

Gabriel’s groan broke whatever had kept Valerie rooted in place. His pace grew choppy, flesh slapping against flesh, and Valerie fled, knowing what would come next.

You look very much like your aunt.

That was what Gabriel had told her when she’d first met him a few days ago. Right in this very house.

The words weren’t all that strange, but something about his tone had felt off to her. Now she knew why. Now she knew why he’d agreed to marry her in the first place. Not only could he take part in his family’s company, but he would always be tied to Madame Allegria. And his wife? Well, she looked like the woman he was in love with, the woman he couldn’t have the way he wanted.

Valerie wondered what he’d do when he found out her aunt wasn’t capable of love.

Something shifted in her, cold and icy.

You can do this. You have to, she repeated to herself, finding that her hand was on the bannister of the staircase she didn’t remember finding. Behind her, Madame Allegria and Gabriel were no doubt making themselves presentable again.

Once on the main level, she searched for the sitting room, wandering aimlessly around that grand, empty house. It was beautiful from the outside but rotten within, Valerie thought. Priceless art hung from the walls, every inch was polished to perfection, everything chosen with careful precision and taste, meant to impress.

There was an open door at the end of the hallway, silvery light spilling out from within. Curious, Valerie ventured towards it, pushing it further open to step inside.

Her lips parted, her eyes going wide…but this time with awe and envy.

It was a conservatory.

The walls were made of glass, the silvery light of the moon shining inside. The fragrance of the flowers were heavenly, perfuming the air with a strange but addicting scent. White and red and pink and lilac and orange blooms met her gaze wherever she looked. There were even fruit trees, something she’d never seen before. Oranges and pomegranates and peaches.

Greenery mixed with the colorful flowers, creating a beautiful effect that overwhelmed her senses. Valerie thought she could get lost in there forever. She might even find some kind of happiness there.

Her eyes alighted on a white flowering bush a few paces ahead of her, tucked into its own gilded pot.

“Gardenia,” she whispered, recognizing the flower from pictures and research she’d done over the years. Its scent was said to be unparalleled.

“It’s my favorite,” came a voice, a voice she recognized.

When Valerie turned, there was Celine Larchmont, watching her from a bench nestled underneath a massive tree. A willow tree, she realized, though not as big as the ones she’d seen in pictures.

Celine stood from the bench, swaying a little, perhaps from the wine that night.

“You know them?” Celine asked, stepping up next to Valerie, her eyes going to the gardenias.

“I—I’ve read about them,” Valerie said softly, a little embarrassed to be caught there. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Larchmont, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Celine waved away her words, though her usual smile wasn’t present.

“Go ahead,” Celine encouraged, nodding towards the flowers. “It took me a long time to get them to bloom.”

This was Celine’s conservatory?

“You planted all these?” Valerie asked, wide-eyed, seeming to see the woman for the first time.

“Yes,” she whispered, looking around her endless little garden, silvered in the moonlight. “I did.”

Valerie stepped forward and leaned down to inhale the soft blooms. Her lips parted at their beautiful scent and the first genuine smile of the night crossed her features when she turned back to Celine.

“They’re lovely.”

Celine nodded, brushing her fingers over the delicate white petals. She stared at them in silence for a long time.

“They are,” Celine agreed. “Though I imagine their scent is only a fraction of what it was on Old Earth. I’ve often dreamed of what they smelled like there. These are hybrids, crossed with other flowers to survive within our colony. Pieces of what they once were.”

There was a sadness in her voice.

“Celine,” Valerie said softly, lowering her voice when she glanced at the open door, into the darkened hallway beyond. “I—”

Celine stepped towards her until Valerie could smell the wine on her breath. With a steady gaze, the older woman said, “I don’t want you to marry my son.”

Valerie’s lips pressed together.

She’d pieced that together herself.

“I don’t want you…or your family,” Celine continued, sneering out that last word, “anywhere near mine.”

Of course, she meant her aunt.

“You think I want to?” Valerie asked, keeping her voice quiet. “You think I asked for this?”

Surprise went through Celine’s eyes.

After what she’d witnessed tonight, Valerie wanted nothing to do with Gabriel Larchmont or his family. But she didn’t have a choice.

Celine went quiet and looked back at her night garden.

“Our marriage was arranged,” she said softly. “Derek’s and mine.”

Valerie figured as much.

“It works,” Celine said. “But only with a lot of understanding and forgiveness. And lies.”

Valerie’s lips pressed together. She understood what she was saying.

“So he doesn’t know?”

About Celine going to the Krave brothel.

“He’d kill me if he found out,” Celine whispered, not even bothering to hide her response. She said it so easily, as if mentioning the weather. “And she knows that.”

Madame Allegria.

“I do love him,” Celine said, “in my own way.”

Valerie nodded hesitantly.

“But this whole ordeal has spooked me,” she confessed and Valerie wondered if her tongue would be so loose without all the wine. “I want my son to marry. But not like this. I don’t want him to live this life.”

Valerie thought that ‘this life’ suited Gabriel Larchmont just fine, but she kept her lips closed.

“And I don’t want to be married to someone I barely know,” she told Celine. “But that’s the hand we’ve both been dealt.”

Celine’s eyes cut back to her. “Why are you doing this? For the money? For our family name?”

Valerie didn’t answer.

Instead, she asked a question she’d long wondered. “Do you care about him? About Ravu? You visit him almost twice a month. Every month.”

The color from Celine’s face drained, her eyes going stark.

“There you are!” came Gabriel’s voice from the doorway of the conservatory.

And all at once, their reality came rushing back around them.

Gabriel sauntered into the conservatory, as if he hadn’t been fucking Madame Allegria on a desk upstairs just moments before. He grinned at Valerie, like they shared a little secret now, and it made her flesh feel like it was crawling.

Celine turned to her son and reached up to brush a dark lock away from his forehead. Her touch was gentle, loving.

“Father sent me to find you two,” he told them both. “Dessert is waiting in the sitting room.”

Then he wrapped his arm around Valerie’s waist, his other going around his mother, as he steered them from the conservatory.

His grip on her was possessive. Valerie stiffened under his touch, especially when she caught a whiff of her aunt’s perfume.

“Shy?” Gabriel murmured to her when he felt her stiffen, whispering in her ear so his mother wouldn’t hear. His hand squeezed her hip, his palm hot through the thin layer of her dress. “You’ll get over it, bride.”