Chapter 156: Your precious little prize

Elvira started to thrash wildly against her assailant until her eyes caught a flash of striking blonde hair and intense green eyes.

She whirled around, coming face-to-face with Joffrey. His features were twisted in a terrifying blend of shock, rage, and utter disbelief.

"What the fuck, Elvira?" he seethed, his fingers digging painfully into her arms. "You’re alive? You’re fucking alive?"

"Let go of me!" Elvira snarled, trying to wrench herself free. "What the hell are you doing here? Someone could see us!"

"I don’t give a fuck!" Joffrey hissed, leaning down until his breath burned against her ear. "I need answers right fucking now."

"Keep your voice down!" Elvira rasped, her eyes darting nervously around the shadowy expanse near the garden perimeter. Any of the guards patrolling the area could easily spot them together. They needed a hidden space.

"Follow me," she muttered tightly.

She grabbed his wrist and yanked him across the lawn toward the outer boundary. A narrow, dirt path cut through the dense underbrush, leading away from the garden where they were.

When they were far away from prying eyes, she stopped under a massive oak tree and released him.

"We’re safe here," she said, smoothing down her hair. "The guards don’t circle this far out."

She turned back to Joffrey, who was staring at her as if she were a ghost pulled straight from his nightmares.

"Stop staring at me like that."

"How are you alive?" he demanded, his voice dropping into a harsh, controlled whisper. "Where have you been? You’re supposed to be dead."

"Your father should be the one giving you answers," Elvira sneered, her tone laced with disdain. "He’s the one who saved me that day. Him and your mother."

"He didn’t say a fucking word to me," Joffrey growled. "I heard rumors from the servants whispering that you were residing here with Dorian. I refused to believe it until one of my father’s guards confirmed it. The old man never intended to tell me."

"He ordered me to stay away from you, so I guess he didn’t want you to know yet," Elvira replied coolly. "Not that it matters. You would have discovered it eventually. I hear you’re now part of Dorian’s Gammas, while Serena is one of the handmaids to his wife."

"It’s all a ploy," Joffrey snapped, his jaw setting hard. "To keep an eye on everything that happens. When we strike, it will be from within the heart of his home."

He shook his head abruptly, stepping closer until he towered over her. "Don’t deflect, Elvira. What happened back then? Tell me before I completely lose my mind."

"Joffrey..."

"What about the child?" he pressed, his green eyes burning with raw, unhealed fury. "Did the baby survive? Where is he?"

"Joffrey, stop!" Elvira snapped. "Stop hounding me! And no, the child died! You have no right to interrogate me about that pregnancy when you were the bastard who exposed our affair to Dorian in the first place!"

Joffrey recoiled as if he had been struck. The memory hit him really hard. He had been utterly obsessed with her back then; crazed to the point of self-destruction.

When she had fallen pregnant with his child, he had begged her to abandon Dorian and run away with him. He had assumed she would comply, considering she had willingly entered his bed behind Dorian’s back.

He had been dead wrong. Elvira was insane; a wildly crazy woman with a violent alter ego. That crazy edge had been what drew him to her in the beginning. That, and his sick urge to own everything that belonged to Dorian.

Despite their secret betrayal, Elvira had remained devoted to Dorian. She had mocked Joffrey, calling him half the man his cousin was, while letting Dorian believe the child in her womb was his heir.

In a fit of desperate rage, Joffrey had spilled the truth, exposing the affair and revealing the truth about the baby’s real father, while he prayed Dorian would reject her.

But it backfired.

Elvira’s mind had shattered under the public disgrace, driving her to leap from the cliffside, while Dorian had beaten Joffrey within an inch of his life before banishing him into exile.

​Now, as Joffrey looked at the woman who had once driven him to madness, the old obsession flared back to life, warring violently with a deep primal lust he couldn’t suppress.

"Fine," he said, forcing his breathing to steady. "You said my father saved you. How?"

"Conri returned for my body after Dorian left me down there to rot," Elvira muttered. "He smuggled me out of Wintercrest and placed me in a specialized facility in Ashidore under medical restraint. Once I stabilized, I was transferred to a private asylum."

Joffrey gritted his teeth. "And you’ve been locked away there this whole time?"

"Until recently, yes."

"What did my father demand in exchange? He doesn’t save lives out of charity. He used you for a purpose."

"That is between your father and me," Elvira snapped. "If you want answers, ask him yourself. But you already know the ultimate goal: Conri wants Dorian dethroned and executed, and I am the weapon he built to do it."

"You would ally with my father to destroy the man you claimed to love?" Joffrey sneered. "Fascinating, coming from the woman who refused to leave him for me."

"What occurred between us is in the past," Elvira retorted smoothly. "Dorian no longer looks at me with love. I have been replaced. The only way I can reclaim what is rightfully mine is by aligning with Conri to slaughter the little brat he married."

"You wouldn’t dare!" Joffrey snarled, grabbing her shoulder. "The girl belongs to me. Leave her out of your schemes."

Elvira let out a low, humorless laugh that echoed unnervingly through the dark trees. "You haven’t changed at all. Still desperately coveting everything Dorian owns, including his women. You are pathetic."

Joffrey’s hand snapped up, clamping down on her jaw with crushing force. But Elvira merely stared directly into his eyes, her smirk widening despite the pain.

"I won’t harm your precious little prize," she whispered playfully against his fingers. "In fact, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy watching you rot with obsession over her, just like you did with me."

Joffrey shoved her back violently, his chest heaving. "Stay away from Alyssa, Elvira. I don’t give a damn what deal you made with my father. Keep her out of it. I’m going to make Dorian watch me fuck her! She will be my Luna after he’s dead."

"And you honestly believe she will willingly sit beside you after you murder the man she loves?" Elvira mocked, her voice dripping with venom. "Wake up, Joffrey. She will never look at you with anything but disgust."

Her smirk softened into a dark, seductive curve. "However, if you need a woman to satisfy that sick lust in your blood, I could be persuaded to return to your bed. Under several conditions, of course."

Joffrey bared his fangs in a low growl. "I don’t want you. I don’t care that you crawled out of the grave. You are dead to me."

Elvira didn’t utter a word. Instead, she reached out, her fingers gliding down his chest and closing firmly around the prominent bulge in his trousers.

Her smile sharpened into a blade. "Liar."

Joffrey seized her wrist, wrenching her hand away, but he couldn’t deny the violent surge of heat pooling between his legs. The burning hatred he felt for her only amplified the raw, primal urge taking over his senses.

"Fucking whore!" he spat.

Abandoning all restraint, he shoved her hard against the rough bark of the oak tree. His hands moved in a rapid, frantic blur as he unzipped his pants, freed himself, and pushed up the hem of her gown.

Grasping her thighs, he hoisted her off her feet and drove into her with one brutal thrust.

Elvira bit viciously into his shoulder to muffle her scream, the metallic taste of his blood filling her mouth. Joffrey pinned her against the tree trunk, slamming into her repeatedly in a desperate, rough rhythm until his entire frame stiffened. He groaned sickeningly as he poured himself inside her.

When he finally released her legs and stepped back to adjust his clothes, Elvira slid down the trunk, her lips curving into a triumphant, mocking smile.

"I see my hold over you hasn’t faded in the slightest."

Joffrey pulled his zipper up, glaring down at her with unfiltered contempt. His sharp eyes caught the talisman resting against her collarbone.

"What’s that around your neck?"

"A necessary tool," she muttered, smoothing her crumpled dress over her hips. "Currently, I am playing the reformed victim to earn the trust of Dorian and his little wife. It’s all part of Conri’s strategy. If you want details, take it up with him."

She pushed away from the tree, dusting off her skirt before casting a cool glance over her shoulder. "It was delightful catching up, Joffrey. I’ll see you around."

She turned and slipped back down the trail toward the mansion. Joffrey waited a moment longer before veering off onto another path, vanishing into the shadows of the woods.

High above the clearing, hidden within the dense foliage of the oak tree, the shadows shifted.

Samantha swung her legs over a thick branch and dropped to the ground below. She had been reclining up there for hours; it was the tree Seth was killed and buried, and she went there often to mourn him.

She stared in the direction Elvira had gone, her heart hammering against her ribs as the weight of what she had overheard and witnessed settled in her mind.

Adjusting her cloak, she turned and headed back into the mansion, wondering what to do with the information.