56. Soren
Chapter fifty-six
Soren
Enna curls into a fetal position outside my door, lying in a puddle of grime. Water drips from her hair, rolling off her bare skin. Her shoulders tremble, and she hugs her arms to her chest. Her spines flex in and out of their sheathes, a nub appearing where her broken one used to be.
Captain Nara squats beside her, shooting me a panicked look. Her hands hover over Enna, hesitant to touch.
“What happened?” I demand, storming down the hallway.
My newest guard cowers in the corner, looking like someone pissed in his lushfruit tea. Enna is lying in a puddle, and my guard service stands there, supervising her misery. He splutters excuses as I approach. I cut him short with a hand around his neck. His eyes widen under my grip.
“Fetch the servants. My lady requires a warm bath.” I crouch beside Nara. “He’s discharged.”
She nods. “I already told him that.”
With the back of my hand, I brush Enna’s forehead. She jerks at my touch, her eyes flying open. Shadows dance across her tired face. Her gaze rises to meet mine for a moment, then her eyelids close again.
“Any ideas?” I ask Nara.
The captain sighs. “She hasn’t been here long. There’s a trail of grime up the stairway. Looks like she crawled here from the dungeon. No signs of injury that I can see.”
Enna’s mouth curls down at the corners, and my heart aches to see her so unhappy. I lift her to her feet, folding her into my chest. Her skin smells pungent. I inhale again and—“You smell of dead fish.”
Nara unlocks my bedchamber door, kicking it open with a promise to keep watch.
I walk Enna gently toward my bathtub. She nuzzles underneath my chin, and my breath hitches. Already I can feel my heart slowing, lulling me into that sense of wholeness whenever she’s in my arms.
“She’s a monster,” she whispers. Her lips brush the skin of my neck. “She always has been. You should have killed her.”
“You saw Odissa.” I shudder at the image of my Enna, swimming in the gunk of the dungeon.
Servants rush past me, dropping warm stones into the bath, setting out fresh towels, mopping Enna’s puddle on the floor. I set her at its edge, shifting her so I can see her face. “Hey, look at me.”
Her eyes open, brimming with fresh pain. I stroke her cheek, plowing a clean line through the dirt.
“Let’s get you cleaned up. Then you can tell me everything.”
She nods slowly.
With a towel, I wipe the grime from her face, her neck, her chest.
“Thank you,” she whispers. The towel brushes across her nipples, and they pucker. She sighs and leans against me.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I settle behind her, pulling her into my chest, and work to clean her stomach.
She nods, sucking in a breath, and then her words rush out. Enna recounts her life in the Drink, her miserable guppy phase, then her parents’ murder. Odissa and the oath bound in blood. 2,747 kills. How she can remember the face of each one. Then, finally, the deal they made with Tephra.
My pulse quickens. I lift her arm, wiping her clean. Moving the towel down each leg, threading between her toes, I then reach between her thighs.
“Soren, there’s one more thing… I killed your princess.” She grows still in my arms, waiting for my reaction.
I consider her words for a moment, the impossibility of it all, the violent twists of fate that brought my Enna here, into my arms.
“You killed her,” I say, testing the words aloud as the reality sets in—I’m in love with an Abyssal death-dealer.
She straightens in my arms. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice suddenly cold. She leans away from me, ready to stand. “If you no longer want anything to do with me, I understand.”
“She didn’t deserve to die.” I wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her back into my embrace. “And you didn’t have a choice.”
She shakes her head.
“Tell me, what was she like?”
“You’re not mad?”
“Humor me, Wicked.”
Enna thinks for a moment. “Gentle. Soft. She didn’t even fight me in the end. A real princess, worthy of your hand.” Her voice cracks, and she clears her throat.
“I’m sure she was.” I trace the curve of her arm, her muscles flexing under my touch. “But that doesn’t make you less worthy of me.” Her spines lift, and I trail my finger along their sharp edges. I nuzzle into her neck, nipping at the skin that covers her gills. “Mine.”
She shifts, and her ass presses against my growing erection. I reach around her, unhooking the clasp of her belt and freeing the loincloth.
“Soren,” she moans.
“Let’s get you clean, Wicked,” I whisper into her hair. “Care for a bath?”
She twists in my embrace, and her hands loosen the tie on my shirt. “That depends, Your Highness,” she says, a note of humor in her voice. I sigh in relief at the sound of it. “Will you be joining me?”
“Get in the water,” I whisper, shoving her. She splashes into the pool, transforming from the plunge. I strip out of my pants and dive in after her.
We circle, devouring each other with our eyes. She traces the walls with skirting fingers. Her black tail flicks lazily, turning her at the corners. I flex my muscles, and her eyes note the movement, missing nothing. I get the sense I’m caught in a cage with a predator.
With each turn around the pool, the world shifts and clicks into place. I understand Enna with clarity. The skillful flex of her fins, the shift of her weight to glide, soundless—each movement with a fluid grace she’s mastered over her life in the Drink. Not as a royal handmaid, not as a shadow-guard, but as a lawless killer.
Why does that turn me on?
My cock strains against its scaled sheath, desperate to bury in her heat. Her nostrils flare as she scents my arousal.
“Do you want me, pretty prince?” Her voice drops low, blooming with seduction.
I shudder. “Yes.”
With a growl, she launches herself at me. Her fingers knot into my hair. Her mouth meets mine in a battle of tongue and teeth. We ravish each other thoroughly while our gills do the hard work of breathing. We moan in unison as she presses her body against the length of mine. The tips of our tails twine together, soft and smooth. Her scales glides against my hidden sheath and my cock stiffens to attention.
I groan, and she angles herself, teasing me with the touch of her slick slit. In this form, every nerve ending is a live wire.
My cock slips through the thin membrane of my sheath, hard and ready for her. It’s longer and thicker in my tail form, curved and coated in hard scales to reach deep inside her. She eyes it with wonder, and her fingers find the velvety tip. She strokes over the scales there, her careful touch a shocking contrast to the fire in her eyes.
Her fangs prick my bottom lip. “Claim me.”
I position myself at the entrance of her slit, growing harder when I brush against her heat. She’s soft and ready for me, already slick with need. I slip inside, filling her to the brim. Her channel in this form is deep but narrow, and the soft walls clamp down tight around me.
“You’re so tight, Wicked. So tight and wet.”
She moans, twisting into me so that our tails slide, nudging my cock deeper. Her eyes roll. “ Goddess , I thought you were huge before,” she whispers. Her walls flutter around me, flexing to accommodate my size.
“There is no goddess here,” I growl. “Only you, my love, and I intend to worship you.”
She whimpers at my words. I kick my tail and rock into her, slow and firm, gradually building my momentum. Her tail wraps around mine, her hands tighten in my hair, and she clutches me as I rock her world.
I take my time worshipping her body. My hands roam her soft skin, tracing the circumference of each scale. I take inventory of every part of her, from the velvety tips of her nipples, the soft underside of her breasts, to the joint of her hip, with a soft, puckered scar where her wound had been. My thumb passes over the spot, and she shivers, tightening her grip on me. I drive into her again and again, until her walls grow unbearably tight. Pleasure builds deep in my belly with every thrust. Then, with a gasp, she clamps down hard. She bursts with a rush of heat, and she writhes against me, milking my own pleasure from me. We come together in waves, steadily crashing against each other until we slow and settle to the bottom of the pool, two limp bodies in a warm sea.
I hook my thumb under her chin and tilt her face. Her eyes are wide and searching, blissed-out. I hum at seeing her so bright, so alive. “I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life being devoured by you. Slowly, one scale at a time. My heart is yours.”
The words flood me with a thrill of pleasure. I stare at her, memorizing every inch of her face. She has sunk her little teeth into me, body and soul, and I never want her to loosen her hold.
And tonight, I will make her my queen.