The Devil's Duchess-Chapter 52: His Salvation

Soft moonlight spilled through the gauzy curtains, painting Marcella’s chamber in silver streaks. She tossed on her bed, wrapping herself in the cocoon of her thick velvet sheets.

Marcella felt like she could sleep in peace for the first time in weeks. But her peace was disrupted soon.

"I know what you taste like now." Her skin grew hot at the familiar sultry drawl fanning against her earlobes from behind.

Marcella jerked violently, whipping her head toward the sound. Heat bloomed beneath her skin, instant and uninvited.

Her eyes fluttered open, meeting his black inky irises that stared down at her—close. Too close.

Berith.

????

He was above her.

Marcella’s body tensed instinctively, her limbs stiff beneath the sudden weight pressing down on her.

A chill skittered down her spine even before her mind registered what was wrong.

His presence loomed, knee wedged between her thighs, his arms braced on either side of her head, caging her in like some beautiful, merciless predator.

His black hair was tousled, like someone had dragged fingers through it, and his eyes..

Gods, his eyes.

Molten. Feral. A glint of something unholy stirred in their depths. Hunger.

Marcella blinked, trying to make sense of the vision above her. "What are you.."

The words barely had time to form before his mouth crashed down on hers in a kiss so fierce it knocked the breath out of her.

Heat roared across her cheeks. She was stunned.

His lips devoured hers with reckless heat, consuming her breath, silencing every protest. Her eyes bulged out, her mind scrambling for sense—reason—escape.

"G-get off me!" Marcella gasped for air, the words muffled under her breath.

She shoved at his chest; palms flattened against sculpted muscle that refused to yield. But Berith didn’t budge, not even an inch. His body was far too strong to be moved by a mere shove.

And then he deepened the kiss.

Gods.

His tongue slid against hers, slow and devastating, drawing a shocked gasp from her throat that he greedily swallowed. Heat slammed through her like a lightning. A flush bloomed across her cheeks, down her throat, curling low in her belly.

The worst part—the most terrifying part—was the tiny, traitorous part of her that didn’t immediately pull away.

Then..Gone. Just like that.

The weight above her lifted. The heat vanished. Her lips were empty.

Berith was nowhere to be seen. The curtains fluttered as if stirred by a passing shadow. Her blankets still rumpled, her lips still tingling.

Marcella jerked, shooting upright in bed. Sweat clung to her skin as her breath came in short, sharp bursts. Her heart leapt to her throat as her eyes scanned the room. No one. Just cold stone walls, and moonlight.

Had she imagined it?

A nightmare, perhaps?

Marcella reached up and touched her lips, the taste of him still burning on her tongue like sin.

She hated him. Gods, she did.

And yet...

Why did her body still buzz with the memory of how alive she had felt when he was inside her?

Marcella sucked in a shaky breath, bile and heat warring in her throat. Eyes squeezed shut, she swallowed down the betrayal of her own desire and muttered into the darkness, "I’ll kill you, Berith."

*****

The morning sun slanted lazily through the vine-wrapped trellises, casting gold-dappled shadows across the courtyard. Birds chirped in the distance, too cheery for Marcella’s liking.

Berith sat across from her. Unbothered. Untouched. Unaffected.

Their breakfast meant to be civil, perhaps even warm had soured into silence.

Berith lifted a slice of honeyed apple to his lips and bit into it with maddening grace, chewing thoughtfully like a nobleman who’d never done anything wicked in his life. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Marcella stared at him, fork idle on her plate. Her appetite had vanished the moment he greeted her with that damnable smile, as if nothing had happened, as if her ears hadn’t burned all night from the words he had whispered in the dark.

How could he sit there so... calm? So infuriatingly civil? His hair to her astonishment was neatly combed now, not the wild disarray from last night. Gone was the disheveled hair that had brushed against her cheek as he kissed her like a man possessed.

She squinted her eyes.

I know what you taste like now. The words hummed again, hot and close, curling like smoke through the corners of her thoughts.

Yet here he was buttering toast as if he hadn’t crept into her room and stolen a kiss that still burned on her mouth.

Marcella gripped her teacup a little tighter. Her fingers itched to shatter it against something. Preferably his face.

"Slept well?" Berith asked casually, as if the question were harmless, as if he hadn’t wrecked her peace and then waltzed into the morning like a man who dreamt only of virtue.

"Like a baby," she drawled, voice syrup-thick. Her gaze never left his face. "Aside from the... dreams."

Let him pretend. She would play along.

Berith gave a low hum, lazy and noncommittal. "Good dreams, I hope."

Annoyance squeezed her lungs, "Uninvited ones, actually."

His mouth tugged up at her arched brows. "The worst kind," Berith murmured with mock sympathy, reaching for a slice of pear next.

Marcella rubbed her thumb over her cup, debating how much to tell him. She tilted her head, studying him, trying to peel back the mask he wore so effortlessly. "Strange how vivid they were. I could’ve sworn," she continued, watching his face like a hawk, "someone was in my room last night."

Berith paused mid-chew, but didn’t flinch.

Marcella held his stare. There was no guilt in his expression, no apology waiting on his tongue. Just those maddeningly unpredictable whiskey eyes of his.

"That’s unsettling," he said lightly, tapping a single finger against the rim of his teacup. "Perhaps you should ward your door better."

Marcella’s lips twitched—half scoff, half smirk. So that’s how he wanted to play this. Coy. Detached. As if last night had been some fevered hallucination of her own making.

Wild. Absurd. Utterly Berith.

She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, "And what if it wasn’t a dream?" Doubt turned her statement into a question.

Berith didn’t blink. He leaned back in his chair, languid and lovely, like a devil lounging on a throne. "Then it must be madness," he said, each syllable smooth as silk, spun to wind around her throat.

His audacity. It was almost impressive. Almost.

But Marcella wasn’t the kind of woman who let audacity go unchallenged, not when it tasted like him.

Her jaw tightened, a sneer curling her lips. She channelized the old Marcella--the one that had once made nobles flinch and traitors pray for mercy.

"How dare you," she hissed, eyes gleaming with fury. "You broke into my chambers like a thief in the night, kissed me while I slept and now you sit here, sipping tea like it never happened?"

"I did?" Berith drawled, lazy amusement surfaced in his eyes. "How tragic! What proof do you have?" He only lifted a brow, that infuriating smirk playing on his mouth like a man thoroughly enjoying the game.

She shouldn’t be surprised. He was Berith Montclair after all, who changes like a chameleon’s changes its color.

Marcella leaned forward, elbows on the table, lifting her chin. "Deny it all you want, but I remember it."

Berith tilted his head, his dark irises gleaming with something wicked because even devils knew when they’d been caught in the act. "If I had said that," he claimed, "it would’ve been in a dream, wouldn’t it? Maybe a fever or your own wishful hallucination."

Marcella stood so abruptly her chair screeched against the stone, loud and jarring as her fury. "You’re insufferable," she spat, cheeks flushed with something between fury and shame. "You violate people’s boundaries and then play coy when they call you out on it."

Berith, maddeningly unfazed, picked up his cup. "You’re not ’people,’ Marcella. You are... you."

The line was so utterly clichéd, she barely held back her snort. Why is he suddenly being so cheeky?

Berith leaned forward just slightly, his voice dropping low and intimate. "You tell me," he said. "Did you enjoy it?"

Her grip on the teacup tightened, her knuckles paling. Marcella suddenly wished it wasn’t empty. She had never been tempted to throw a tea in someone’s face, and he would’ve deserved every scalding drop.

"If I did," Marcella said sweetly, a sly smile curving her lips. "I would have moaned your name. Loud enough to wake the entire duchy." She sat back in her chair with a casual flick of her hair. "Didn’t hear that, did you?"

For a second..just a second, Berith blinked. Oh, this woman.

Then, a smirk tugged at his lips. Dangerous. Lethal. Infuriatingly unbothered. "Good," Berith stood, yanking his cloak off the back of his chair with that unnerving grace. "Then you’ll never forget me."

As he walked past her, the edge of his shoulder brushed hers, his warmth skimming her skin. Berith leaned in close, his breath ghosted over the shell of her ear, "Next time," he murmured, "lock the door or don’t."

And just like that, he was gone disappearing again.

Marcella sat frozen, pulse stuttering, between a scoff and a gasp. The air still thrummed with his presence, thick with something wicked and impossible to name.

****

Berith turned to the corner of the archway with all the grace he could fake and all the shame he couldn’t hide. The moment Marcella was no longer in his sight, the breath he had been holding escaped his lungs like a punctured sigh.

He clenched his jaw. The stone wall ahead blurred for a second, from sheer disorientation.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Marcella had looked at him like he was something vile, like the very sight of him turned her stomach and she wasn’t wrong.

He had kissed her. Pinned her. Caged her with his body like a predator scenting prey.

That moment hadn’t been intentional. It was pure instinct.

Berith ran a trembling hand through his hair, fingers raking the strands that still remembered the feel of her bedsheets tangled beneath his elbows.

He hadn’t meant to go to her room. He never meant to go to her room.

But last night, that thing inside him—the creature, the darkness with too many names and too many hungers had awakened.

A low growl built in his throat, suppressed quickly with the discipline Berith had mastered since childhood. He shoved open the heavy wooden doors to his private quarters, locked them behind him, and leaned against the wall.

She tasted like winter roses and sin, the devil inside him whispered.

Berith punched the wall. He welcomed the pain, a small, spidering fracture on his knuckles. He hated this. Her warmth. Her scent.

You know what she tastes like ...

He gritted his teeth, sinking into the leather armchair at the corner of his study, elbows on his knees, hands dragging down his face.

What shamed him most wasn’t the act—it was that some part of him wanted to do it again.

Again and again, until her lips bruised and her fire burned out and she stopped fighting.