Chapter Nine #3
“I don’t like your attention being elsewhere, Princess,” Malachizrien rumbled.
She felt a hard tug on her hair then. It forced her head back and Malachi dragged his nose up the side of her neck.
He nibbled her earlobe and then did the same to the pointed tip of her right ear.
Her nipples hardened. Her entire body blazed with heat.
Malachizrien released her hair to grip her jaw and turn her face away from his cousin.
“Look,” he said, tipping his head toward a group of courtiers who occupied loungers facing the dais and who gazed directly at her and Malachizrien.
“We have our own audience.” The courtiers’ eyes were darkened with lust and excitement.
There were others as well who eagerly watched to see what she and their king would do—what Malachizrien would do to his war prize that he’d captured from the enemy king.
“Are you still intent on pretending you won’t enjoy this, love?
” Malachizrien asked silkily. “I smell how wet you are, by the way.”
It was all the warning she got before she heard the rip.
Then her dress, though it covered little to begin with, was falling off her shoulders and breasts.
The sheer fabric collected in a heap at her waist. Malachizrien’s fingers dug into her hips, lifting her up and brushing the shredded dress aside.
She, the archprincess of the Aether Kingdom and betrothed to the Hyperion liege lord of the Six Kingdoms, was left entirely nude, straddling the Apollyon king, as he sat atop his wretched throne.
That this would erode whatever pedestal the prophecy had thrust her upon while baiting Rishaud with an act that would send him into a blind rage once the details got back to him was an understatement.
An acrid taste should’ve settled in her mouth at being used in such a manner.
But a deep-seated pettiness and anger took root, and she relished the embarrassment it’d bring Rishaud and the way it would undermine his supposed destiny and absolute authority.
Perhaps it was the churning storm of seething rage at the fact that Rishaud had sought to chain her, break her, and use a prophecy specifically about her to widen his rule that had her fully leaning into Malachizrien’s machinations and grinding against him with total abandon.
It certainly wasn’t the sense of longing—of need—that coursed through her.
Kadeesha reached her arms back and wrapped them around Malachizrien’s neck, grinding against him harder, reveling in the delicious friction.
A low growl erupted from him, and she somehow held back a moan of satisfaction at eliciting such a sound.
Skillful fingers rolled her nipples between them and kneaded her breasts.
Malachizrien’s teeth scraped the tender skin at her neck, bit down, and then one hand was moving between her legs and spreading her wide.
She was so wet that it took no effort for him to plunge two fingers into her, then adding a third, stretching her.
She rode his hand with all the voracity that she wanted to ride his cock with.
When his thumb circled her clit, she threw her head back, but once again bit her tongue to keep from moaning.
She was moving off pure fury and a rampaging need to underscore the point that nobody and nothing owned her except herself.
But that also meant putting on certain brakes and not giving Malachizrien any indication that he was driving her insane.
However, his adept fingers doing maddening things inside her and the hungry gazes of the courtiers who watched them combined to do something to her.
She typically fucked in private, so it was a revelation at this very moment when she learned she got off on being watched by so many eyes.
Or maybe Malachizrien was just that good that he scrambled her brain and made her forget which way was up and which way was down.
Either way, she felt the pressure build low in her stomach.
Felt it surge between her legs. Felt the floodgates about to open.
She bit down on her lip savagely to hold that particular response back.
“Don’t,” Malachizrien snarled in her ear, his hand tangled in her hair and wrenching her head back again.
“Don’t what?” Kadeesha asked innocently.
“Play stupid, for one,” Malachizrien barked, fingers ruthlessly pumping in and out of her in a fashion that made her nearly whimper and beg to feel his cock in their place. “For two, don’t hold your fucking orgasm back. Give it to me.”
“No,” she gritted out, her voice cracking in a grating way. “I don’t like you. I despise you,” she said as evenly as she could manage with his fingers thrusting her into oblivion. “I agreed to go along with this, but you don’t get that. Ever again.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said rough, low, and arrogant as ever. “Regardless of what you’ve decided, I have a reputation to uphold. So you will come and relish it when you do.”
“You can’t make me do that,” she snapped.
“Would you like to make a wager?” The question wasn’t really a question, though.
It was issued as a dark, carnal promise.
He crooked his fingers and they hit a spot that left her shaking while his thumb pressed down on her clit.
She felt tendrils of an icy chill skirt over the too-sensitive flesh.
Searing pain didn’t erupt like when he’d assaulted her hand with his void magic, but the sensation that hit her this time was still cold, an unending loop of frigidness that skimmed the line between delivering a sweet agony that left her breathless and a pleasure that splintered her mind—and all of it was delivered straight to her clit.
“Come for me,” he commanded.
She jolted and cried out, screamed the bastard’s fucking name, as she came so hard she saw stars.