Born for Silk (The Cradled Common)

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Aster

I rub my upper arm; my vitamin shot this first-light seems to ache while between my legs, my pussy throbs. I am swollen there, but it is proof of everything we shared last night.

The pain is sweet.

Smiling, I regard the perfect temperature in the courtyard as a gift while my black hair tickles my neck and sways around my back.

With a book each to enjoy, we sit on the lush grass. Tiny white flowers wiggle up between the blades. Our circle has a bite in the loop where Ana would have been sitting if she were well today. She is nauseated; we are told that resting in bed is best for the pregnancy.

I’m sure that is true.

She is not actually mourning.

This isn’t about Lord Darwin.

My heart hurts for her.

“The shot changes. The dose, the ingredients, it can sometimes ache,” Daisy offers, her eyes following my hand as I massage my shoulder.

I look to the right, seeing she has put her book down on her lap. “Not just vitamins?” I ask.

“Anything that will support our Meaningful Purpose,” Iris states, eyes glaring at me over the butterflied novel covering her face, measuring me up and down as though she can sense the discomfort between my thighs.

I stare back, deadpan. My eyes scream the fiery words: ‘I will be birthing an heir. Your worst nightmare has come to fruition— a Fur-born girl with no Xin Den genes is the king’s chosen Silk Girl.’

I smile, sigh the words from my mind, and decide to ignore her scrutiny.

So, for the hundredth time today, my gaze veers across the grassed yard to the marble stone building where Paisley converses with the other Watchers. She has not offered me so much as a greeting since I woke.

Blossom leans close to me. “She is afraid of Sire.”

“He wouldn’t hurt her,” I say, still looking across the lush courtyard to where she stands.

“My Watcher told me that he reprimanded her this past day,” she explains. “And now your Watcher believes she will end up like your Wardeness did. Hung.”

I snap my eyes to Blossom, feeling them wide and giving my shock away. “Pardon? How do you?—”

“She was executed,” she whispers again. “For being careless with you and Iris.”

My heart plunges to my stomach.

At the sound of her name, Iris’s ears pluck up, her body inching into the circle to better hear us. “What did you say?”

“It is the law.” Daisy sits taller, always ready to remind us of our vows. Her gaze dances between us as we mutter quietly; secrecy never looks polite. “We know nothing of the guidelines of a Wardeness. I’m sure what had to be done was done for the necessary reasons.”

“She was not a bad woman,” I mutter, swallowing down a lump that forms over more words.

“Good alone is not virtuous. Purposeful is,” Daisy offers, a half-smile set on her lips. She bends across and taps my thighs. “Smile. We will all have round bellies soon, just like Ana.”

Blossom giggles. “And huge appetites.”

“And everyone will adore us,” Iris adds, then clears her throat, the five words overly revealing.

“And we will visit the spa every day. Have mineral baths together. The Trade believes in water therapy.” Blossom retires her book, closing it completely and setting it down on the lawn. “You will join us this time? Won’t you? We go after the Watchers have finished their meeting.” She looks at me, eyes smiling. “You have a small bruise on your collarbone.”

I place my hand over the delicate area.

“I have a few, too,” she adds.

My fingers pan out to hold the marks he left on my skin, and I stare across the distance, losing focus to the memory of his warmth and words. So many hot words, I cannot pick a favourite.

I feel a smile, sense the other girls’ eyes on me, and then the misguided word ‘love’ tickles my brain. Ana—Ana is in love. I look at her empty spot of the grass, the broken loop in our seated Silk Girl circle.

Concern nests in my chest.

With a sigh, I push to stand and walk toward Paisley and the other girls born for parchment. I don’t need to hear the gasps behind me to know Daisy and Blossom are holding their breath as I stop in front of the five Watchers.

“May I speak with you?” I ask Ana’s Watcher, and Paisley stares at me wide-eyed, a flicker of annoyance revealing itself.

“That is not the way,” Paisley states through grit teeth.

“It’s fine,” Ana’s Watcher offers, touching Paisley’s arm. “You can ask in front of all of us. We have no secrets, Aster.”

“Can I see Ana?” Clutching my hips, I attempt to look older and more serious than my height and stature could ever really pull off. “She might need a friend. I could read to her.”

“She has requested no visitors.”

“Well”—I shuffle— “will you please tell her that I would like to. That I’ll just sit with her.”

The sound of metal groaning draws my eyes to the far side of the courtyard, to a great gate as it opens. My heart leaps into my head and bounces from left to right when he appears. A monster of a man, seven feet at least, carrying a stack of dead animals over his shoulders like a collar.

He stares at me.

The courtyard shrinks.

For a moment, it is only us.

I consider this to be a stolen moment, over too soon, but then he walks toward me, huge, powerful legs taking him faster than I can match my shallow breaths to his predatory stride. His every footfall is a statement, his intent warning the grass beneath his boots.

Breathing nervously, I back up until I hit the courtyard wall. He crowds me against it, uninterested in the others.

The girls are watching.

“My king,” I curtsy, unsure what to do, and the corner of his lip twitches with a smile.

“Did you just curtsy? It is a bit late for formalities.”

Suddenly, Odio’s hovering black shadow captures my attention. As he lands with a thud on the grass behind the king, the weight of nervous gasps rustle even the flowers.

I search behind him, checking the girls, but they are cowering together. The Watchers have the Silk Girls tucked behind them, like I did with Ana the day of the carnival. They would give up their lives for us…

“This isn’t the way it’s done. They will know,” I say, returning my gaze to the king.

“Do you trust your Collective?”

Iris’s face crashes into my mind, then a hallucination of the Silk Wardeness hanging by a broken neck.

No. The word halts on my tongue because Iris can be almost bearable to be around at times and she’s my oldest companion. I don’t want to condemn her this way.

I peer up at him, but our height difference and his close proximity to me make it a hard angle for my neck. My gaze locks on the frozen jowls of a dead beast leaking blood that slides down Rome’s leather armours.

My eyes widen, and I mutter, “Yes. I trust them.”

“Let them suspect, then.” His deep voice draws my gaze up to his heated blue eyes. “I have been thinking about you, little creature.”

Odio begins to pull at his feathers, making a spectacle that blocks the king and me from the girls in the courtyard. I wonder if the beautiful, winged god is trained in securing private moments for the king or if he simply caught a whiff of the gamey, dead animals.

Either way, I decide to revel in the stolen time we have in the lighter hours of the day. “You have?”

“Your moans echo in my mind.”

The heat from his words fire beneath my cheeks, illuminating them with the glow of arousal.

He runs his knuckles down my blushing cheek. “Is that pretty colour for me?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly, he slumps the beasts from his shoulders, dropping them to the floor, and I cannot help but notice the contrast between the lush greenery, white flowers, and the bloodied mass.

Behind Rome, Odio halts his pruning at the soft thudding sound. His keen gaze snaps to the gory heap.

Rome clicks his fingers to the side, snatching Odio’s attention. “Not for you. Wait your turn.”

Odio almost sulks, narrowing his beady eyes at Rome in angry defeat while he sharpens his beak on the thin bones between his black feathers.

Rome watches me.

Free from the dead animals, he leans on the stone above my head and dips, his mouth pressing to my forehead. Lips caress my skin, the words they expel stirring the warm pool inside me. “And how do you feel between your pretty thighs now that I have opened you?”

I press my palms to the stone by my thighs, flattened to the wall, cloaked by him, fingers flexing on the rough surface. The stone’s coarse skin reminds me of his rough abdominals pulsing as he thrust. “Swollen, my king.

“I was gentle.”

I know he was.

I could tell in the way he vibrated with restraint as he moved, using energy to control himself, and as his hands pawed at my thighs, idling on the right pressure.

My body is suddenly a furnace.

I reach up and touch the divot at his throat, wiping a crimson smear down the thick column with my thumb. “You're covered in blood.”

He lets me touch him, but my arm shakes as I hold it above my head to continue touching the sweat on his neck, feel the bob of his throat, so utterly virile, it’s dizzying.

“Not mine,” he assures. “Don't worry yourself. The only thing you need to be concerned with is growing my heir. You'll look so pretty swollen and flushed. Pregnancy makes a Silk Girl particularly needy. I imagine you'll spend many hours sitting on my face while I tend to you.”

“You'll tend to me?”

His smirk rattles my heart. “I'm as shocked as you are by my choice of wording, but yes. I feel tasting you will become an addiction of mine. I'll start tonight while you're too sore to take my cock. How does that sound?”

I lower my hand and smile. “Lovely.”

“Show your king where you want his tongue.”

What? My cheeks burn from pink to red.

I lean past him again and deduce that, as I cannot see the others, they cannot see me.

“Do as you’re told.”

With my heart thumping, my fingers trembling, and my core a warm pool of desire, I lift my dress to cup myself over my knickers. “Here, my king.”

His eyes lick over me, darkening in an instant. “You know I need my cum inside you,” he states, his deep timbre, bottomless and dangerous, rumbling behind a bar of teeth that cage his needy bite.

I press harder between my thighs; the lovely pressure squeezes a whimper from me. “Yes.”

His tongue runs along his lower lip, while his eyes scream his intent. “I'll put it there with my fingers tonight, nice and deep between your swollen folds. That is a kindness. But tomorrow, you will take me again.”

“I understand.”

He leans down and lifts the beasts from the grass as though they weigh no more than the white flowers they have crushed. “Behave.”

As Rome strides from the courtyard, Odio takes to the air, leaving me alone, pressed to the wall while the others huddle together in shock.