Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Kronos
Humans were all curious, but the beautiful one in the chair beside him was by far the most captivating he’d ever encountered.
Her elevating pulse told him she feared the ‘outcome’ he’d referred to, so he might have expected her to toe the line and just eat the remaining lentils.
After all, she could have finished what was left in one mouthful.
As it was, though, she did everything but concede.
She looked at the food, considering her options, but only after she’d spent some moments considering his half-interested cock as though that were a meal option.
Then, after she’d finally weighed her choices, she decided to defy him anyway and leave the remainder of her nutritious dinner.
“Come with me.” He tugged her chair out from the table with one hand while offering her the other palm.
She glanced up, her expression concerned, but her delicate fingers took his, regardless. “Wh-where are we going, Master?”
“To deal with that new item on our agenda.” He glared down at her, half-angered and half-enraptured.
How was such a diminutive being able to wield such power over him? All those centuries he’d lived, fighting gods and putting humans in their place. He’d rarely encountered anyone he couldn’t handle, but then Kristina had come along, and something had shifted.
He hesitated as that thought hit him. He’d grasped her from the street and chosen to bring her there, yet she had changed things.
She’d changed him.
With her basic needs met, he should have been getting her back to bed so he could tend to Shelley, but there she was again, derailing his plans and delaying him.
She’d claimed to be nauseous and too full to eat the rest of his meal, but her rejection amounted to willful defiance. He’d told her the food was to be finished, yet she’d adamantly refused to comply.
He had no choice but to show her what that meant.
Karma didn’t lie, and Kronos’ consequence would stand.
Closing his digits over hers, he sent a silent intention out to Shelley’s chamber, urging her not to wake until he came to her. He didn’t want her final hours with him to be blighted with panic because he hadn’t attended to her, but he knew Kristina would require another hour of his attention.
“Come to me.” He didn’t look at her as she rose from her chair and obeyed. “Leave the blanket here.”
He heard the tiny whimper that escaped her throat at the command but noted that she, for once, did as he asked, coming to stand before him.
Releasing her hand, he snaked an arm around her, bringing her flush against his flesh.
His cock responded to her warm skin immediately, throbbing at her sudden proximity.
“Are you upset with me, Master?” Her gaze flitted to meet his fleetingly, and stroking his thumb along her back, he considered his response.
Was he upset? Her bold refusal to fall into line had irritated him, but holding her again had dispelled most of that feeling.
Glancing down at her intoxicating eyes, he realized there was no need for disappointment.
He had given her the choice to either obey or endure the repercussions, and she had chosen.
What came next was only a matter of housekeeping.
His lips twitched at that idea. Of course, it helped that the maintenance required was entirely to his liking.
“No.” His free hand rose to caress the side of her face. “Not upset. But when you disobey, there are consequences. It’s my job to teach you that.”
She swallowed, delicious, unspoken fear flickering in her eyes when she nodded. “I see your logic. You did tell me what would happen if I didn’t eat…” Her brow furrowed. “I just don’t understand why you need to teach me these lessons, Master.”
Smoothing her honeyed hair away from her face with his fingers, he almost pitied her plight.
Her accelerated progress meant she’d had virtually no time to accept her fate.
It had taken Shelley months to reach the stage where they would eat together.
She had needed to be coaxed from her cell, and all her food had been taken there in the early days.
Kristina had managed to sit calmly at the dining table on day one; a feat that still astonished him.
“The incongruence comes from how well you’ve done.” His tone was gentle as he explained. “You have come so far, so fast, that my structures do not yet make sense.”
He stroked along the side of her face until he reached her jaw.
“You’re right.” Her expression was aggrieved, as though she was fighting the urge to give in to her emotions. “It doesn’t make sense, Master.”
“It will,” he vowed, gliding his thumb along her soft skin until he reached her lips. Plump and enticing, he recalled how good they’d looked covered in his seed. “With time, my demands will be clearer, as will your place in this journey.”
She heaved in a breath, tears glistening in her azure eyes.
He stared into those depths, reading the emotions she was too afraid to tell him.
The normal array met his gaze; fear, fury, and confusion, but he sensed there was something else, too.
Skimming the pad of his thumb over her lips, he looked closer.
What was that other feeling her eyes conveyed?
“I hope so, Master.” Her voice was scarcely even a whisper.
“I’ll help you,” he promised, pushing the tip of his thumb gently into her mouth. “You know I will.”
Why was he pandering to her? His jaw tightened as he struggled to comprehend. She’d accepted she hadn’t done as he’d asked. Why wasn’t he just taking them both to deal with the punishment?
As her lips parted at his gesture, though, his cock leapt at the feel of her warmth, revealing the answer.
Kristina’s allure had subdued him, showing him the advantage of tenderness rather than only brutality.
He wanted his swelling erection back inside her, yearned for her to want him the way he longed for her, and he wouldn’t risk anything that crushed that delicate, blooming connection.
“Are you going to be a good girl and take what’s coming to you?” He pushed the digit deeper into her mouth, fighting the instinct to groan at her response.
She took his thumb without complaint, opening for him and even locking gazes as she ceded. Slowly, she turned her head, sucking on the digit as though it were his cock.
“Kris-tin-a.”
He hadn’t intended to disclose his fervor so blatantly, but those three heated syllables alone did the job, his guttural tone divulging just how badly he wanted her. Releasing his thumb, she kissed the tip and blinked up at him.
“I’ll be good, Master.”
He smiled at the vacant vow. What were the odds that she would be able to keep that promise? She couldn’t even be chastened when she was on the verge of being humbled.
“Do you even know how to be good, little one?”
“I am good,” she assured him. “It’s just that this…”
She twisted around as far as his hand at her back would allow, motioning to the room around them. “I don’t know what this is, Master. Don’t know what this means…”
“Give it time.”
What was he doing? It sounded as if he was negotiating with her, but he was Kronos. He had ruled the Titans. His word should have been law where the beautiful blonde was concerned.
“And you’ll help me?” One of her hands rose between them to his chest, her fingers pressing between his chest hair without his permission. “Master?”
The hand that had once cradled the side of her face shifted, his fingers sliding into her hair. “You shall do as you’re told.”
He had to claw back some semblance of control. Even if his shaft was dancing at her middle, making his interest all too overt, he had to be the one who set the tone.
“You said you’d help me.” Her voice was smaller, as though she was lost at sea, and his assent to assist was the life raft she was clinging to. “Please, Master.”
Fuck, what was she doing to him? Her fingers sliding along his skin was like fire in his blood.
“I’ll help you.” His fingers stiffened in her hair, drawing her head back to expose more of her wonderful throat.
He shouldn’t have been toying with her. They shouldn’t still have been dawdling in the dining hall, but her pleas had rooted him to the ground, muting everything except his need to cradle and reassure her. “But you have to do as you’re told.”
She pulled in a breath, her eyes wide as he leaned closer.
Don’t. The warning chimed in his head as his lips neared hers. Do not kiss her.
“Will you obey, little one?”
There was only an inch between them, her jugular wonderfully exposed as her eyelids fluttered.
“I want to, Master.” The gleam in her gaze suggested her sentiment was sincere. “I just don’t know how...”
Her voice trailed away with the admission, tears burning in her eyes.
“I’m going to punish you for not remembering my rules and not finishing your meal.” His tone was softer still. “And you are going to take what I have to give with humility.”
Her lips parted, her breath warm against his face. “Yes, Master.”
“After that, I’m taking you back to bed.” That sounded far more erotic than he’d intended it to.
“Okay.” She practically squeaked the reply.
“Then I will help you.” He breathed the words over her open mouth, finally succumbing to the urge to brush his lips over hers.
And I will have you.
“Thank you.” The frantic agitation that had danced in her watering orbs seemed calmer, her body relaxing against his.
He nodded, acknowledging her gratitude before his lips lowered to plant a chaste kiss over her lips.
Just one brief caress before he took them on. One fleeting moment of intimacy before he returned to his rules and structure.
“Master.” She rose on her tiptoes to return the gentle kiss. “Please.”
He gazed down at her, aware that he should have known better, yet already simultaneously realizing it was too late.
Whoever Kristina was, there was no resisting her.
He could exert authority and dominate her, and the minx most certainly would get what she was owed, but there was no point pretending he was the only one with control in their dynamic.
She was a fucking force of nature, and whether she realized it yet or not, she had more sway over him than anyone had for centuries.
There had been someone else once, a Titaness who had sat at his side on the throne and enthralled him, but that was many lifetimes ago, and much pain had passed between the two of them.
In all the long years that had followed, there were plenty of women, plenty of pleasure, and plenty for Kronos to occupy himself with.
But there wasn’t this.
His fingers relaxed in her tresses as the acknowledgement fell over him. There hadn’t been the connection, the curiosity, or the desire to cradle as well as to consume. There hadn’t been anything that rivaled the way she’d entirely devoured his attention.
It should have been nonsense to even consider such a strength of feeling so early in their association, but as he lifted her from the marble and his lips finally collided with hers, nothing had ever felt so right.
Kristina was his.
He would have her, hold her, and train her as he’d planned, but as the sound of her moan echoed in the space around them, he acknowledged she had the potential to be so much more than only another submissive mortal.
A lover who would understand him, one who would intrigue and inspire instead of irritate, and one he could console and care for.
Losing himself to the caress, the infinite possibility washed over him. Kristina could finally be the one who brought Kronos to heel.