Born for Silk (The Cradled Common)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Aster

I follow Odio's shadow as it soars over the grass like a black mist. The crown-light bakes the atmosphere. This time of day can be stifling, the air thick, but I think I am hotter than the environment. Fired with ambition and—nerves.

Small beads of perspiration collect on my brows, as Odio guides me through The Estate, between renewed Romanesque buildings and down lanes, until his shadow climbs up a stone wall?—

I stop, staring ahead at the entrance to a hall.

Right. I look up to the sky, to the cloudy outline of an eagle. “He is in there?”

Odio hovers in the red haze.

Straightening, I take a big breath in. I’m about to walk with my head held high when I hear footfalls and a man yell, "You are not permitted in there."

I spin to see a Guard approaching, and brace myself for what I might say to him or if I am even allowed to speak to him?—

Suddenly, Odio lands with a thunderous pulse, and he is not happy, menacing even—wings outstretched, head arched low, eyes like darts. He blocks the man from me.

He lets out long screech, and the wave of his sound trips the Guard backward with its intent and warning. Puffs his chest. Scrapes his talons along the stone path, flicking loose rocks and dirt. I've never seen him behave like this, which means he's never been aggressive toward me, not once.

"I yield, Odio!" The Guard scurries backward on the floor with one hand raised in surrender.

Blinking at the spectacle, I decide it’s now or never. I slowly turn and walk between the twin marble pillars and into a grand foyer with high-painted ceilings and two elaborate wooden doors at the far end.

Voices come from behind one of the doors almost instantly. I peer back at the entrance, seeing Odio steadfast, and other Guards beyond him, trying to soothe the giant beast.

“You're going to trust the eagle to be her Guardian?” I hear a voice say, drawing my chin back to the door.

“I trust his loyalty more than I trust yours,” Rome states, his deep, otherworldly timbre resonating in my toes, flooding me with an ocean of tangible memories. The feel of his weight on me, his mouth at my forehead, and that powerful voice spilling praise across my skin.

My nipples bead and my core clutches and kneads together, wanting his pressure.

Shit.

I stifle a moan.

“That is truly hurtful, Sire.” The other man says, genuine offence lacing his tone. “I am your brother. We may not see eye to eye on certain political matters, but your heir is mine, too.”

“So, it's you.”

I walk to the door and press my ear to it.

“What is me?”

“You will not have an heir,” Rome confirms.

“Cairo—"

“Said nothing of you.”

Leaning away from the door, I wrestle internally with what to do. Stay. Listen. Leave. Mind my own business.

“Correct. I will not have an heir.”

Who will have no heir… his brother?

I hold my breath to the beat of my heart, the torturous silence amplifying the frantic organ. It’s too quiet, so inadvertently, I lean in again, my ear meeting the wooden grain, stamping it with sweat from my cheek.

“So, Aster will carry our blood into the next generations,” the man who must be Turin Two says. He is talking about me. They all know. “Her safety, now that it's no secret, is a matter of great importance to me.”

“You are Warden of The Estate,” Rome’s smooth utterance sails with further meaning. “You know every inch of it. You can ensure it is locked down and secure.”

“And the eagle?”

“I trust no man or woman to watch my little Silk Girl and not want to taste what is between her pretty thighs. I know I was unprepared for her affect, and I'm a far stronger being than most.”

My affect? On him?

My heart doesn’t just race; it gallops.

But then the room falls silent, as if everyone inside dissolved in one of my raging heartbeats.

Pulse pounding, I press my entire body to the door, no breathing, no words, just the lingering echoes of his last sentence to hook me and then dangle me?—

The door opens.

I stumble forward into a man’s hands. I look up and see Turin Two, a younger, far more Common looking version of Rome, smiling softly.

My mind stalls.

“Hello, little creature.” Rome’s voice sails from the other side of the room, curling around me effortless with power. “Are your ears extra big today?”

Abruptly, a Guard is at my back.

“Sire, I apologise”—he huffs— “The eagle let her in.”

“Did he?”

A ball of nerves and regret expands in my throat.

What the hell was I thinking, barging in on him?

Across the long span of a sweeping wooden desk, Rome sits in his casual black shirt, one arm slung over the back of a wing-back throne, looking every inch the man in charge, domination radiating from his very skin.

I swallow, and he watches the nervous action playing inside the slender column of my neck. His hot gaze roams around my body, indecent, intimidating, and tangible.

The hairs on my arms lift.

“Out now,” he orders.

I almost whimper.

Not wanting to leave, hating his reaction to merely order me away like one of his pets, I grit my teeth. Feel shame. Feel sad. With that, I turn on my heels to leave with my head still high, but his dismissal chews on my strength.

I hope he chokes on it.

“Not you.”

What?

I spin, quickly stepping aside as Turin Two, Kong, and two Guards leave the room, one after the other, and meet Rome’s dark gaze once more.

I missed you.

The Guard behind me shuffles. “Sire?”

“Must I repeat myself...” Rome’s eyes penetrate me. “Everyone out while I eat.”

The nerves in my throat expand, blocking air. I open my mouth, inhaling hard, before saying, “I should not have been listening, my king. That was…” Rude. Improper. Disrespectful— “Disrespectful.”

A slow grin spreads across his lips. “Don't apologise.” He pushes back from the table and widens his thighs, taking up so much space it is any surprise he fits at all. The chair is huge. The table, too. This hall is not for Common. “I said if you needed me, you could ask, and I would come to you.”

Liar. The thought comes, and I almost say it aloud. What is becoming of me? I feel wild and out of control. “That would have been a bit hard when you were hundreds of miles away for the past two weeks.”

Woah.

“You're angry.”

Warranted! Since you just left! Stifling the truth, I shake my head stiffly. “No. I have no right to feel anything like that toward you, my king. I told you I wanted to be your Silk Girl, and you gave me Meaningful Purpose. I have no right to be angry with you in the slightest.”

He chuckles. “Really?”

Am I amusing to him?

My lips curl in frustration. “Well, yes. I am then. But I'm not here for you or me. I am here because of Iris, so what will you do with her?”

His smile falls, and my eyes widen.

“Does it scare you how apathetically I will execute her?” His tone is anything but amused now. “Do you see the black hole in my chest? Is that why you will happily leave me for a peaceful, pathetic life with the babies?”

I shuffle my feet. “I don’t understand.”

He stares at me, unsmiling. “Come here.”

My hands start to shake. Have I pushed this too far? I am pregnant, which means I am untouchable. Is that why I am so quick to misbehave?

“Now!”

Shit. I force my feet forward, walking slowly around the giant table that seems more like a wall to me. I circle it and stop a foot away from Rome, eye to eye with him as he leans back, authority rippling through his relaxed posture.

His eyes pierce me, and I squirm. An angry sound comes from the armrest as he squeezes the leather. “Lay your little body over my lap.” He rolls up his sleeves, displaying thick forearms larger than my thighs and angry veins that ripple his scars and tattoos. He is a monster, and stunning, and I am completely at his mercy.

I can’t breathe. “My king?

“You walk in here” —he grips my wrist and pulls me to lay, face down, on his lap. “This tiny human with all this attitude. Asking for attention. Here it is.” His hand slaps my backside, and I buck into his thigh as a yelp bounces from my lips and a defiant moan builds in my throat.

I don’t want to want this.

He is spanking me

I’ve done the wrong thing.

I moan, long and rough.

“Yes.” His voice is liquid silk. “That’s what I thought.”

Slap.

Moan.

Feeding his fingers up the back of my leg, they dip beneath my skirting and trail up to my thighs. I roll backward into their warm caress. He meets my centre.

“Fuck,” he hisses, the pads of his fingers stroking the damp spot, circling it. “You are so mine.”

I try to remember why I’m here. “I don't need attention. I need answers, my king.”

He rubs my throbbing pussy through my knickers, firm circles that confuse me and that send my hips chasing the motion. “Answers to all the questions you should not have inside your pathetic conditioned mind.”

His words find a mark inside my heart, but his fingers draw whimpers of delight through my lips. “What?”

“I can smell your arousal.” The fabric between my thighs is soaked as he pushes it aside, dips his finger between my folds, and penetrates me.

I cry out in relief.

My muscles work and ripple along the length of his finger as he slides in and out of me, so deep and full, then empty and wanting. He controls me.

“I want this on my tongue. It's been weeks, and I'm hard as rock for you.”

“You left...” The truth falls from me.

“You're just a silly little girl. Why wouldn’t I?”

The backs of my eyes burn. “You don't mean that.”

“You desire to be a Sired Mother. Nothing more.”

Of course. That is what we are taught to want, trained to want, the perfect retirement. A special place. His words don’t make sense.

“Every Silk Girl wants to be a Sired Moth—” My sentence is cut short when he pushes a second finger inside me.

“And you do, too,” he purrs, dark.

My eyes roll.

I ignore his words; they drown in my racing heartbeat, in the rushing of my blood to the place where his fingers work at a meticulous pace.

“Pathetic, wet, little girl.”

“Don’t call me pathetic!”

He growls, stands and scoops me up with one arm as he goes. Placing me on all fours on the table, he comes up behind me, grips the back of my dress in both big hands, and rips it down the centre, exposing my spine and backside.

A dark sound rumbles throughout the room, thickening the air I try to breathe: a hiss from his teeth, a groan from his throat. “Is that what you really want? What if you could choose? What would you do?”

“I— I don't know. That's a scary question. I only know what is required of me, not what I want.”

A huge hand lands on my upper back, covering the plane shoulder to shoulder, and pushes me down until my cheek stamps the cool table.

“Remember to be very still for your king.”

That is all he has to say…

My eyes widen on the shiny wooden surface that spans out in front of me, as I listen to him unfastening his belt and lowering his pants.

A hand grips my hip, long fingers reaching to hold my pelvis. “I will feel myself here when I’m inside you.” The thick, hot bulb of his cock rubs between my thighs, travelling up and down the slick valley.

I push back into him, wanting the stretch, to be filled. Needing all the nerves that prickle inside me to be touched, stroked, praised. Like he can do. I never knew it before, but now that I know, I want it.

He hums. “Good girl. Arching your back like a wanton, little Silk Girl. It will hurt, sweet thing. I’ll see your pussy stretched to its limits.”

His grip on me tightens as he pushes through my folds, opening me up in one long, thorough thrust inward. “Oh, fuck, Aster. My sweet Aster.”

Sounds of relief, pain, fear, and excitement burst from me as he takes me from full to almost empty, and then full again. Each time he hits the end of me, hard, a spark of fire bursts through my abdomen, moments before warmth rolls the length of my inner walls as he draws out, thoroughly massaging every tender spot inside that secret place. Then he is inside me again.

I gasp for air.

His warm, rough hand on my hip bruises, his fingers holding my pubis, as though he can feel the area expanding with each pump of his hips. “I can’t stop. Tell me to stop, little creature. I don’t want to hurt you, but… fuck .” He pants and groans as he continues to use my body. “Use your claws on the table. I am watching. I will stop.”

My fear disappears.

Instantly, I lift my hands to either side of my head, but… I don’t dig my nails into the wood. I don’t need to. It’s painful in the most unnatural, pleasurable way and… He gives me the power to stop him, and so I don’t fear the pain.

I feel it.

Feel all the intensity of each thrust. Feel his heaving weight. The bite of his hand at my hip. The power in his thighs as he tenses.

I feel high—euphoric and crazed.

I feel free from my thoughts.

And when he starts to shudder and growl, the beast in him rears up with three punishing thrusts that buck yelps through my lips, knock reality from my vision, and show me three seconds of how powerful he can be.

He stays deep, his cock filling and pumping, filling and pumping, the pulses so precise, so powerful that pleasure bursts into my ears and seizes my thighs. And I tremble with my own release at the same time.

I mewl, lost, my body sore and heavy.

He holds my backside up with one hand.

“I'll make it easy then.” His voice is deep, strained, and deliciously satiated. “I'll erase the decades of conditioning. I will own you, body, mind, spirit. You will stay with me. Let me make myself very clear to you, little creature. You are mine. And this”—his hand presses over my womb— “child, is mine. Not The Trade's. Not The Cradle's. Mine!”

If a word could bite, the way he expels ‘mine’ would draw scarlet ribbons from flesh.

Panting, I lay lax on the table, my backside elevated by his hand.

Earlier, when I saw him again, my heart was hot and frantic for him, and I wanted to nurture that warmth. His words feed and nest in just the right place, and I realise, I want to stay with him, but… We cannot.

Can we?

“Everything we do is for The Cradle,” I say, utterly confused, completely spent.

As he slides his cock out, a choked cry burst from me. Being empty of his thick, pulsing pressure throws me into another wave of pleasure, where I’m left spinning and dizzy.

“Oh, my king …”

He lowers my backside, and muscles I didn’t know I had ache with exhaustion.

“That’s a good girl.” He brushes his palm down my spine, and I practically vibration with delight. “I will serve The Cradle. You serve me. Only me. Rest assured that you’re safe. That the men in power, the men you fear, fear me. You will never leave my side. You will never be sent away. You belong to me until the last beat of your heart.”

A trembling breath squeezes from my lungs.

“Say it, Aster. Who do you belong to?”

A happy tear slides to the table. “You, my king.”

“Forever, little creature.”

“Forever, my king.”