Chapter 28
Osid
Most of the accommodations at The Crucible were unfit for beasts, let alone a king and queen.
Each night my back howled accusations of cruel and unusual punishment at the barren cots and rags I was meant to sleep on.
The honeymoon suite, however, was a different animal entirely.
The walls were lined with richly carved wood paneling, a soft-blue plasterwork ceiling adorned with what I could only assume was some other species of flying humans.
The walls were accented with rich tapestries of couples intertwined in loving embraces, and elegant crystal vases were filled with dozens of red roses.
Both the floor and incredibly oversized bed had rose petals artfully scattered across them.
After such a trying start, the sight of such an inviting room was a welcome reprieve.
Until my queen got ahold of it.
Blair crouched on all fours on top of the bed.
The sight of her ass hoisted high in the air was enough to fill my dreams for millennia, if it weren’t for the fact that she was goring every decorative pillow with a hair pin.
She sat up and yanked the pillow apart with her hands, sending feathers flying in all directions.
She searched the scattered fluff and found nothing, then tossed the ruined pillow to the floor and tried the next.
Leaning against the doorframe, I sipped a beverage she called champagne and watched her maul away. “Any chance we could keep one or two of those?”
She looked back at me with a confused expression, then huffed.
“All right, fine, but check these two without breaking them,” she said, tossing two pillows at my hooves.
She hopped off the bed and half crawled underneath it.
Her voice came out muffled as she said, “There’s no way there’s not some hidden camera in here, and I’m not doing a damn thing until I find it. ”
“Right.” Setting my glass down on an end table, I picked up a pillow and ran my fingers over it, deftly feeling for anything out of place. I wasn’t entirely sure what a hidden camera looked like, but I’d figure that out if I came across one.
She slid out from under the bed, face flushed. Her head whipped around to the lamp on the nightstand. “Aha!” She pounced on it and shook it like a rattling children’s toy, then smashed it against the wall and picked around the scattered remains. “Not here either…”
No item was safe from her rampage, and in mere minutes, the once-pristine suite looked like the battlefield after a bitter war.
She strode over to the wall mirror, tapping its edges, then rapped on the glass with her knuckles.
She froze when the knocks turned hollow. “Now I got you, you son of a bitch.”
Grinning like a mad woman, she picked up the chair by the desk and slammed it through the mirror, revealing a maze of wires.
“I KNEW IT!” she roared, and tore at the wires like a raptor disemboweling her latest kill.
When the evil mirror was destroyed, she threw herself onto the bed with a relieved sigh.
She lifted her head briefly to regard me, then let it fall back down and patted the space beside her.
I moved to join her and stopped to rest a hand on the side of the bed. “If I join you, will I end up like that mirror?”
“Do you plan on selling our secrets to the Biwban?”
“I do not.”
She patted the space beside her again, and I lay down next to her, staring up at the ceiling.
To my surprise, she scooted closer and curled into me, resting her head on my shoulder.
Blair threw an arm around my waist, plastering her soft body against my own.
Which was suddenly throbbing with need. I swallowed thick, determined to let her dictate how far things went tonight.
As much as I’d liked to end this night with my cock kissing her womb, any attempts at pushing Blair too far ended in a battle. And I was so tired of fighting her.
The feel of her curves against my side felt like a dream, and when her fingers curled against my shirt, her earlier words rang clear in my mind. I forgive you.
I would be patient. I would let her take the lead. Anything to keep her love and affection on m—
“I don’t love you,” she whispered against the heart she just shattered.
My brow furrowed. “I thought—”
“I don’t love you,” she interrupted, driving the knife deeper. “Not yet anyway. But…I think I could get there, if you give me time.”
“I…I can do time.” So long as she didn’t try to leave me again.
“And I want to be able to come and go as I please.”
She wants me dead. That’s the only explanation.
I took several slow, steady breaths. “Blair, you are my queen. I can’t let you go any more than I could stop my heart from beating.”
She worried her bottom lip. “I’m not saying I want to run off and leave you for another man or something.”
The mere thought had heat rising from my tail. I shifted the limb off the bed and hoped she wouldn’t notice the smoke.
Control yourself.
Her fingers left my shirt, and I squeezed my fist against the mattress to avoid pulling them back to me. Blair ran a hand over her hair and sighed. “It’s just…the thought of being tied to a man, relying on him for everything, scares the shit out of me.”
“You should rely on me. I’m yours.”
She gave me a soft smile. “I know, alien mate bonds and all that. But just—fuck, look, this is very much a me thing, but I need to know I’m not trapped.”
The thought of her leaving me again sent tendrils of rage down to my bones. I sealed my eyes shut, refusing to scare her off again. “This is my fault. I never should have taken you hostage—”
“No, it’s not that.” She paused. “Well, no, you’re right; you shouldn’t have.” Her voice took on a dangerous edge. “And don’t you ever, ever do that again. You hear me?”
At my nod, she relaxed. “But that’s not what I meant.
Long story short, my parents didn’t have the best marriage.
My mom didn’t have any money or a car of her own and was forced to be completely reliant on my dad.
A fact he took advantage of often. When I first landed here, I was grateful you took me in, don’t get me wrong, but I knew nothing about you or your customs or even your language. I was completely at your mercy.”
Realization dawned. “That’s why you fled.”
She nodded, burying her face into the crook of my neck. Shame rattled me. This poor creature was protecting herself the only way she knew how, and like a brute, I dragged her back into her worst nightmare. “Blair, I’m so sorry.”
“I know. But now that you see where I’m coming from, do you think you could give me a mount of my own or something? Just so I don’t feel trapped in the kingdom?”
“I’ll get you a fleet if that’s what it takes for you to feel safe with me.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t say no to an entourage.” She threw a leg over my own, and I let my hand fall to the small of her back to trace circles along the dip of her spine. “I sure hope the parents of your species are better than mine.”
“My father’s second wife killed him to put her son on the throne. I’m fairly certain it was my mother who killed my brother to subvert her plot.”
“…Holy shit.”
I nodded, smiling at her crass summation. “Holy shit indeed.”
“All right, I guess we are both bringing a little childhood trauma to the relationship. Wait, I thought Sankado couldn’t hurt their mates?”
“We can’t hurt our Zhali match. Neither Queen Pokatti nor my mother, Queen Sumire, were my father’s true match.
Their marriages helped stabilize our empire, and over time, I like to think they at least grew to tolerate each other, but I don’t recall either queen particularly anguished over his loss. ”
“Harsh,” Blair replied.
“That’s politics for you. Endless scheming, backstabbing, both literal and metaphorical. It’s the way things go.”
“What would have happened if any of them found their Zhali match? Would the marriage dissolve, or would it even matter if they didn’t come from a powerful political family?”
I thought about that for a moment. “You know, I’m not sure.
True matches were so rare they only made up around 3 percent of the population.
No one would ever try to separate the pair, as Zhali matches are a gift from the gods themselves, and to do so would be the same as spitting fire in their faces.
More than likely, the new match would have just been added into the royal court.
Either as a third queen for my father, or as a consort for either queen. ”
Blair perked up at that. “Wait, queens are also allowed consorts? Oh, don’t glower. I’m not asking for me. That’s less common on my planet, so I’m just curious.”
“A little too curious—”
She flicked my horn. “Osid.”
Adorable menace. I made a mental note to find Subject B 94 and paint the ground red with his viscera.
“Fine. Yes, queens were also allowed to have consorts. When it was time to try for an heir, both parties were expected to abstain while the queen completed a full cycle. Once it’s ensured that she was not already pregnant from her consorts, the two would retire to a separate estate to conceive.
” I cast a warning glance down at her. “You will not be afforded the same freedoms.”
She placed her thumb in the center of my brow and circled it, forcing the muscles in my face to relax. “For your sake, that rule better extend both ways.”
Desire pooled in my stomach at her casual possessiveness.
“Let’s make a pact, shall we? We’ll both abstain from all others, and I’ll give you a fleet of horncrest to choose from should you need to flee from me, but no more than a day or so. In exchange, never slowly poison me over time to instill our child on the throne.”
Blair snorted before laughing so fully that tears pricked her eyes. “It’s a deal.” Her soft fingers intertwined with mine. “Osid, there’s something else I need to tell you.”
Unable to deny myself any longer, I curled an arm beneath her back and brought her closer, kissing her neck, her cheek, her forehead. “I’m listening.”