11. Talon
11
TALON
To the outside observer, I probably didn’t look angry as I sat there by the fire, my eyes on the dancing flames, my fingers resting against my lips. But make no mistake—an inferno raged inside me.
“One of those nights?”
My eyes lifted from the flames to look into the dark recesses of his empty soul. He hadn’t been there a moment ago, and like a phantom in the night, he appeared before me. To mock me with his taunts. To torture me with his mind games. A shadow couldn’t exist without the sun—but Bahamut could.
He sat in the other armchair, dressed in his dark blue uniform that looked like midnight. His eyes were serious, but his subtle smile was ready to play.
“You could say that.”
“I would ask what troubles you if I cared.” He sat back in the armchair, elbows on the armrests, the king of the dead facing the king of the living. “But I don’t.”
I looked at the fire again.
“What I do care about is the fact that you haven’t left this castle since we last spoke.”
“You’re watching me now?” I turned back to him.
He gave something of a shrug. “I hop in here and there.”
“I have a plan.”
“Plans are only as good as the opportunities to execute them.” He continued to stare, his eyes unblinking, still and hostile. “And that lack of opportunity is from you sitting on your ass waiting for pussy to fall on your dick.”
I stared at him as I felt the heat warm my left cheek from the fire.
He tilted his head slightly, waiting for me to unleash my ruthless temper.
But I kept it in check. “I’ve found a dragonian. Once she has what she needs, I’ll take back what’s mine.”
“And she needs your dick?” he asked like the smartass he was.
I let the question linger long enough until it disappeared. “Don’t question my determination. I want this more than you’ll ever know.”
He stared in silence.
I stared back.
He gave a subtle nod toward the door. “You have company.”
A second later, someone knocked on the chamber door.
When I looked back at Bahamut again, he was gone.
I left my bedroom and crossed the sitting room to reach the main doors. It was late, several hours after Calista had left my bedchambers, and I hoped she’d come back because I was the only thing that could extinguish the fire between her legs.
But I opened the door and came face-to-face with Natalie—again.
She wore a black satin robe with the string barely cinched, showing the lace bra underneath that exposed the swell of her breasts. She’d come here with intention—and that intention was on display.
“Natalie.” All I could say was her name because the anger was just too much to say anything more.
She looked at me with a mixture of emotions. Her eyes glinted with remorse, but the rest of her expression was hot in desperation. “I just wanted to talk?—”
“You did that on purpose.” Now that I could think clearly because my dick wasn’t hard, I understood. The servants must have told her I had dinner plans with my new guest, and that news sent her into a frenzy of jealous rage. She was determined to put a stop to it—and interrupting me was the only way to do that.
She was smart enough not to lie about it. “She’s a prisoner from the Arid Sands. Why would you want her?” Her strands of dark hair framed her beautiful face, and she kept her lips parted like she hoped I’d interrupt her to kiss her.
“ And you think you’re better ?” I asked incredulously. “You service the king for luxuries and a comfortable life. You fuck a man for beautiful gowns and diamonds in your lobes. You obey my commands for?—”
“I service the king because I want to.” Her steady voice ripped through my tirade, bringing my boiling anger to a quiet simmer. Her emotional eyes pleaded with me in their green glaze. Her feelings were written on parchment and presented to me as if in a diary. Her eyes dropped momentarily, like she understood what she’d just done and couldn’t take it back. When she found her strength again, she raised her eyes to look at me. “There’s nothing she can give you that I can’t.”
Instead of unleashing the anger that had been steeping all night, I forced it to submit. “Natalie, we’ve already talked about this. I feel nothing for you. I feel nothing for everyone. I’m incapable of feeling anything—for anyone. I meant what I said then, and I still mean it now. It was unwise to doubt me.”
Her eyes dropped quickly, like my words snapped an invisible cord. Her breathing had quickened, and a blush moved to her cheeks, not from embarrassment, but from pain. Her eyes didn’t rise again. “I still don’t understand your interest in her.”
“I don’t care to explain it to you. You’re dismissed from my service.”
Her chin jerked up at my announcement, her eyes wide like she’d been slapped. “What?”
“You heard what I said. I expect you to be gone in the morning.”
“Why?” She stepped farther into my bedchambers, forcing me to back up like she led the charge while gripping a spike. “Talon, please don’t do this.”
“King Talon,” I said coldly. “I have more reasons to get rid of you than to keep you.”
“But I don’t want to leave. You’re the man I want.”
“I can’t have a mistress who sabotages my conquests. I can’t have a woman who interferes with my private life because she thinks I belong to her.”
“It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“And I can’t have a concubine who aspires to be my wife. That is something I’ll never give you.”
“You must have an heir?—”
“Natalie.”
She did her best to combat the tears that pooled in her eyes.
“You’re a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart and mind. Give your love to a man who deserves it. I’m not that man.”
“King Talon?—”
“You will squander your youth and fertility waiting for a man who doesn’t care for you. Not only will I break your heart, but I’ll destroy your future happiness. You will be childless and alone. As evil as I may be, I don’t want that for you.”
The tears became too heavy, and they fell like pebbles down her face. “I would prefer to spend what time we have together, rather than apart?—”
“I don’t love you, and I never will.” I’d already said that to her nearly a year ago, but my words must have seemed insincere if she clung to hope. “I’ll never love anyone. You’re jealous I’m interested in a woman who’s not one of my whores, but I’ll never love her either. All I want is to fuck her the way I’ve fucked you and all the others. Your jealousy is misplaced. Now go, Natalie.”
She looked up at me again like she wanted to plead once more.
But I silenced the words before she could speak. “You’ll thank me for this—one day.”
I didn’t say goodbye to Natalie before she was dismissed from the castle. Commander Navarrese was instructed to give her enough money to buy a home in the village with sufficient savings to get by for a year until she figured out her next plan. But she was a beautiful woman, so I doubted it would take long for her to find someone to take care of her.
After sitting around and thinking all day, I let myself into Calista’s bedchambers.
She was where I expected her to be, sitting in the corner of the couch with her knees pulled to her chest, the fire quiet because the logs were almost ash. Instead of looking at me with the usual daggers in her eyes, she didn’t look at me at all. There was no anger in her aura, so her distance was caused by something else.
Embarrassment. Self-loathing. Discomfort.
Could be any of them or all of them.
I moved to the chair and leaned back, arms on the armrests.
She continued to look at the fire like I wasn’t there.
I wanted her to look at me, to look at my bare chest with the same desire she’d shown the night before…and failed to hide. But she seemed determined to shut me out this time. I’d dismissed Natalie for her own preservation, but I also did it because I was fucking pissed. If she hadn’t knocked on the damn door, I wouldn’t be here right now. I would have satisfied the itch I’d wanted to scratch since the moment I’d laid eyes on this woman. But now the itch dug at my skin…and made it bleed.
Minutes passed, and the silence with it. She stared at the fire like she was reading a book.
I stared at her like she was a marvelous painting.
It continued, the sound of the flames interrupting the quiet every few seconds.
“I apologize for last night.”
Her head slowly turned my way, and her green eyes caught the light perfectly, the question in her gaze.
“I dismissed Natalie from my service.”
After a few seconds of eye contact, she looked away again. “I hope that wasn’t for my benefit.”
“It wasn’t, but I want you to understand I’m unencumbered.”
“I think she would disagree.” She didn’t move an inch, but she managed to put more distance between us.
Natalie had made a mess for me—which was her obvious intention. “I don’t reciprocate her desires. She tried to sabotage our night because she wants me to herself, but I told her I’ll never belong to any woman.”
Calista fell into silence, her eyes on the fire again.
I stared at the side of her cheek, wanting something more from her, even her anger since it was passionate, just as passionate as the desire she’d shown last night, but now she seemed defeated. So frustrated that she’d slipped from my fingertips, my thoughts escaped as a whisper. “I want you.”
Her eyes flinched before they dropped into her lap. My words broke through the hard barrier, just a bit.
The bed sat behind her, unmade because she hadn’t let the maids in to tidy up. The white sheets were exposed, and there was an indent from where her body should be pressed into the mattress.
She whispered back to me. “I can’t…”
This was the same woman who had climbed the side of the castle to escape, who hadn’t hesitated to mount a dragon on her own and head to the skies. Can’t was simply impossible. “He no longer has power over you, but you continue to give it to him.”
Those words seemed to hook into her flesh because she turned to look at me.
“He marked your skin, but you choose to let those marks fester into scars. You want me, but you refuse me, which is exactly what he would want.”
Her emotions didn’t dance on the surface of her expression like they normally did. Now, they were tucked away, locked deep inside her chest so no one could see.
“Don’t fight me.” Even when I’d earned her kiss, it was restricted, only half of her heart in it, the other half somewhere on the outskirts.
“You don’t understand…” She looked away again.
I could have any woman I wanted. All I had to do was take a walk, and I’d find a partner suitable and willing. Too much time had already been invested in this acquisition, and no woman was worth this amount of effort. But something kept me there. Something made me fight. I didn’t know what. “Then help me understand.”
Her eyes dropped as she released a quiet sigh. “I told you there’d been no one else…”
“I know.” The one and only sexual experience she had was forced. Like I could ever forget.
“So…” She stared at her hands in her lap. Silence trickled by. She never finished the sentence.
“Continue.” I hadn’t been this patient with anyone in a very long time. She pulled out a version of me I thought was long dead.
Her eyes remained down, like a frightened child afraid to admit she’d gone through my private belongings, that her hand had slipped into the cookie jar when she knew it was forbidden. This uneasiness was a contradiction to the confidence she exuded at other times. “You have whores who know how to give you what you want. I have no experience…and you’ll be disappointed.” She started to fidget with the blanket in her lap, rubbing her thumb along the seam of the stitching, her cheeks ablaze from the light of the fire. “You’re the first man I’ve ever kissed.”
“And it was a good kiss.”
Her fingers stilled on the blanket.
“I want to show you how it could be. I want to replace the scars with kisses. I want to erase your pain and fill it with pleasure.” I didn’t care about many things, but her tale moved me when it shouldn’t. Something about it…made me feel. Made me experience an emotion I couldn’t explain. “Let me be your first.”
Finally, her eyes left the blanket and looked at me. No longer distant, the gates were wide open, and I could see everything she tried to hide. Underneath that fire, she was a broken soul, just like I was.
“Let me erase him.”
Her eyes flicked away again, like she realized she was actually considering my offer. Her breathing changed too, quicker than it’d been just a few seconds ago. A tint moved into her cheeks, a flush that had nothing to do with the heat of the fire.
I knew I was close. So fucking close. Adrenaline dripped into my bloodstream, and my heart started to palpitate. Just the idea of kissing her again, of feeling her soft thighs squeeze my hips, was enough to make my mouth go dry. I felt like a man who had walked through the desert for months without a drop of water—and she was a waterfall.
I left the armchair and walked toward her, seeing the way she tensed at my approach, the way she released a shaky breath at my proximity. I sat beside her and watched her avoid my gaze, watched her try to be as small as possible, as if I would forget she was there.
She was a whole different person.
I grabbed her chin and forced her stare on my face, seeing the way her eyes glowed like emeralds in the fireplace. I stared for a moment as I brushed my thumb along her bottom lip, tracing the succulent lips that I could still taste.
She was nervous, but she didn’t fight me. Her eyes flicked down to my mouth, but she didn’t kiss me.
“Let me prove it to you.” I usually took what I wanted without warning, but I had to slow down for her, to verbalize things that should be kept quiet. I’d never been good at words or expressing my intent, but I somehow figured it out when it was necessary.
She watched me, her eyes showing the internal fight she was having with herself.
I leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth. Then the other. Then my hand dug into her hair, and I planted a hot kiss on her neck. “Trust me.” I kissed her neck as I made my way down to her collarbone, tasting the warm flesh in front of the fire. My hand tangled in her hair and cradled her head as I kissed the other side, as I listened to her heavy breaths close to my ear.
Her hand finally made its way into the back of my hair, and she fisted the short strands as she let me kiss her everywhere, her breaths growing deeper and more desperate.
I laid her back on the couch, moving on top of her as I continued the kiss, only taking her neck and not her lips. My dick was barely restrained inside my trousers, so desperate to pop free and slide deep between her thighs.
I moved down her jawline toward her mouth then caught her lips, my heavy body suspended on top of hers, the fever between us hotter than the fire that burned nearby. Her mouth hesitated with inexperience, but it was still full of passion and desperation that made my spine tighten. I took my time and caressed her upper lip before I turned my head to give her my tongue. I hadn’t kissed a woman this thoroughly in many years, just kissing her with no other agenda, but I slowed down everything for Calista, so she could enjoy a kiss that should have happened a long time ago.
Her fingers dug into the back of my hair before she cupped the nape of my neck, mirroring my movements and picking up on the moves I was teaching her. Minutes passed, and the kiss became more passionate as she mastered my lips and tongue. One of her hands had moved to my back, and she let her nails test my flesh and muscle. She tilted her head and gave me her anxious breath, her arousal in the searing heat of her lips.
Instead of rushing to the end, I forced myself to slow down, to earn her trust rather than demand it. My hand moved to her hip and gripped her trousers before I started to tug them down, to reveal her underwear below.
She broke the kiss when she felt me tug down her bottoms. Her eyes still burned in desire, but the flames were masked with uncertainty.
“Trust me.” I pulled them down the rest of the way until they left her ankles. She was just in her underwear, so I hooked my fingers into the cotton and started to pull those down too.
Her hand went to my wrist before I could expose all of her.
My hand steadied, but my eyes pushed on. “Come on, baby.” I felt a twinge of pain when I said that because baby wasn’t a name I threw around lightly, but it slipped out in the heat of the moment. “Let me show you.”
Her fingers released my wrist.
I pulled down the material the rest of the way and exposed her pussy, the dark hair that had never been shaved. The curls were thick, and her glistening sex was hidden underneath the wildness. I preferred my women bare, but my cock practically burst out of my trousers at the sight.
Her breathing was elevated for a different reason than desire, and she lay there in tense anticipation of my next plan.
My arms hooked behind her thighs as I tilted her pelvis back and widened her knees. My stomach hit the cushions of the couch as my mouth lowered to her sex.
When she realized what I was about to do, she sucked in a harsh breath between her clenched teeth, as if she expected it to hurt or sting.
My mouth sealed over her sex, and I gave her a hard kiss, a firm suck with my lips.
All the muscles in her body stiffened when she felt that first touch. She sank into the couch as a quiet moan escaped her trembling lips. The breaths that followed were deep and laborious, like she couldn’t get acclimated to the pleasure that tingled throughout her whole body.
I kissed her and circled her nub with my tongue, keeping the pressure light because she’d never felt this before. It wouldn’t take long to build her up to the end, and I wanted her to enjoy it.
In seconds, she was moaning and whimpering, her hips starting to buck against my mouth on their own, just as she’d thrust into my fingers last week. Her hands dragged across her stomach like she didn’t know what else to do as she writhed uncontrollably, receiving so much pleasure but having no idea what to do with it.
I grabbed her hand and positioned it at the back of my head so she could pull me into her how she wanted, so she could fist my short strands as she ground her wet pussy into me.
My mouth was never between a woman’s legs. The only thing I wanted there was my dick so I could fuck and come. But having my face buried in her exquisite pussy felt like a treat. My dick was so hard against the cushions, and I found myself grinding into them as I pictured myself on top of her, our soaking wet bodies coming together.
Her breathing changed, and her moans turned into whimpers. The rate of her thrusts started to increase, and her nails punctured the skin at the back of my neck and nearly made me bleed.
Without trying to make her come, I brought her to the edge.
I pulled my mouth away and rose over her body.
She whimpered in frustration, right at the edge but unable to topple over.
I positioned myself over her, my face just above hers, and after I licked my fingers, I pressed them against her throbbing clit.
She gave a moan louder than all the others, her breaths like pants.
“Look at me.” I rubbed her clit hard with my fingers, lots of pressure in a circular motion.
Her eyes were on mine, and she gripped my arms, her legs still wide apart.
“Here we go.”
Her face was masked in a flush of red, and her eyes glistened with tears that she hadn’t shed. Her sexy little moans had turned to screams as she lay there and felt my hand vigorously rub her most sensitive area, the area no man had ever touched. “Fuck…” Her nails clawed into me as she dragged her hands down, and the explosion that ripped through her pussy made the tears come free.
She screamed in my face as she bucked against my fingertips, writhing and thrusting, her body unable to process the pleasure that had just exploded throughout her entire body. Her eyes closed at the crescendo, and she squeezed more tears free.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes snapped open, and she locked her gaze with mine as she finished.
I would beat my dick hard when I returned to my bedchambers, and this was the image I would come to. I wanted it seared in my memory like a branding iron against my flesh. My fingers were slick from my mouth and her arousal, and I automatically slipped them into my mouth for another taste.
In the midst of her heavy pants, she widened her eyes at my actions even though I’d tasted her for a straight fifteen minutes.
I rose from the couch and felt the stiffness in my muscles, the discomfort I hadn’t noticed in the heat of the moment. My trousers felt several sizes too small when they were forced to contain this fat dick. I needed to snap them loose and let my cock come free. If not, my head would explode.
“Talon.” She sat up behind me, her soaked pussy right against the cushion.
I turned to look at her, eager to leave and be alone.
“Come back…” Her hand moved to the cushion beside her, her cheeks blotchy from the redness that seared her skin, her eyes still glistening like diamonds in the sunlight. She still wore her long-sleeved shirt, but her legs were bare all the way down to her feet.
I studied her, my cock giving a jerk in my pants in excitement. I stepped back toward her, my head dipping farther to keep my eyes on her. My arms would stay restrained at my sides until I knew exactly what she wanted.
Her eyes dropped to my waist, and she gripped my trousers before she pulled them down my hips. They inched farther down until my cock popped free, springing toward the ceiling at full mast.
She stared at it.
I stared at her. I felt the oozing at my tip. Felt the arousal in my shaft that was so strong it was nearly painful. My balls clenched tightly on their own, just the way they did before I came. That was how fucking turned on I was.
After a long stare, her eyes flicked back up to me.
My hand reached for her throat, my thumb resting in the corner of her mouth. “Don’t tease me.” My thumb swiped over her cheek, waiting for those lips to open and that wet tongue to stretch out. “Open that mouth, and I’ll fuck it so hard you won’t be able to speak for a week.” My fingers remained, hoping she would part those soft lips for me, that she would grant me the invitation I was so desperate to receive.
Her eyes held mine for several long seconds before her lips parted. A glimpse of her tongue was visible, a shine distinct in the firelight.
My fingers gripped her tighter. “You’re going to have to open wider if you expect my dick to fit.”
She opened her mouth then stuck out her tongue.
A shiver ran through me, and it felt like lightning had struck. “Good girl.” My hand supported the nape of her neck before I put my hot dick inside, feeling my body smolder once my skin glided across her wetness. I shoved myself deep, making her gag and cough around my length, but she was careful not to let her teeth nick me.
Fuck, it was so good.
I thrust into her mouth at a slow and steady pace, careful not to overwhelm her pretty little mouth right in the beginning. I stood over her with her wet pussy soaking the couch, skull-fucking her until her eyes watered.
I had been hoping to fuck her tonight, but this worked just fine.
She pulled her mouth away, a spool of saliva stretching between the corner of her mouth and the head of my dick.
My fingers tightened on her throat because I didn’t want it to end.
But she grabbed my wrist and gave me a tug, telling me she wanted me on the couch.
I dropped into the corner of the couch, and my dick slapped against my stomach.
She moved on top of me and dipped her head, her ass in the air, and licked the bottom of my shaft from the base to the tip.
My head rolled back, and I closed my eyes because, damn…
Her small hand wrapped around my length, and she lifted the head so she could drop her throat over the base down to the balls. The deeper I went, the more she struggled, the more her eyes watered until new tears formed.
My hand dug into her hair to keep it out of her face and maintain a good grip as I watched her move up and down on my length, breathing hard through her nose as she pushed my dick deep and pulled it out again.
I liked standing over her, but sitting back and watching her work was a turn-on. I didn’t have to demand it or ask for it like I did with the women who serviced me. She wanted to do this. She wanted to suck my dick and make me feel as good as I’d just made her feel.
I’d already wanted to come the second her lips had touched my dick, but I held on because I was desperate to enjoy this for as long as I could. To feel that little mouth around my length, to watch how hard she worked to get me off when she didn’t need to do much.
My fingers fisted harder into her hair, and I thrust my hips up as I tugged her down, bringing her mouth and my dick together over and over. My balls clenched, I felt warm everywhere, and I felt the searing heat creep up my chest toward my neck. It was so hot it burned, but the flames felt so damn good.
My hand moved to the back of her neck, and I pushed her down, forcing her entire throat over my dick as I finished. The moan I released came out as a growl like a dragon, and I closed my eyes as the pleasure pounded through me in delicious waves. The pleasure throbbed in every part of my body, giving me a high that was higher than all the others.
And then I came crashing down, my eyes opening to see her fighting the gag, tears pooling from her eyes.
She pulled her mouth away, and her throat shifted as she swallowed.
“All of it.” With a climax like that, I knew how much I left behind, and it would take more than a single gulp to get it down.
She swallowed again.
“Show me.”
She obeyed me, sticking out her tongue to show her empty mouth.
I got what I wanted. I proved what I could offer her, and she liked it so much she reciprocated the pleasure. The seed had been planted—and now I just needed to wait for the flower to bloom.