Chapter 20 #2
I gave a low, mocking curtsy before stepping back.
Unfortunately, he caught me before I could make a hasty retreat.
Once more he pulled me onto his lap, and held me against his strong chest.
“Ah, thank you. How does it feel to be treated as my slave?” Bringing the goblet to his lips, he took several gulps. His lips were stained red when he sat back with a sigh, looking curiously at me. “Have you ever tasted wine?”
I snapped my eyes away from his mouth. “Once, and it was disgusting.”
Daigen’s low, deep chuckle rumbled against me. “No doubt it was cheap swill.” He brought the goblet to my mouth. “Try this. Even your precious king imports it from my lands.”
Although I had drunk only ale back home, and tasted red wine but once, I didn’t want to lower my inhibitions around a man who could easily reduce them when I was sober. If my weapons in battle against him were my wits then I needed to keep them sharp.
He brought the goblet to my mouth, his voice lowering.
“Open your mouth, Narya.”
Gods, the way he said that, the gentle lilt of his voice made me shiver.
I parted my lips, and he tipped some of the wine between them. Bitter wine with a hint of citrus spilled over my tongue. Daigen watched my mouth, but then, as he pulled away, he stole a sip from my lips. I gasped into his mouth. When he let go, he was grinning at me.
“Delicious, no?”
“Pleasant enough,” I lied.
I still didn’t like it, but his kiss was another matter.
Daigen huffed a low laugh, the sound drawing several eyes to the table. Dark heads lifted in unison. They really were like a pack of wolves.
“Mm,” their king said with a click of his tongue. He set the goblet down and reached for the plate I’d slammed before him. “Pleasant enough indeed.”
He chuckled and smeared butter on the bread. “You must be hungry after skipping breakfast.”
He held the food out without looking at me. Of course he knew I hadn’t eaten.
My stomach confirmed it, empty with hunger.
I leaned in, and, with deliberate slowness, opened my mouth to accept his offering.
I ripped a piece off and moaned as I flicked the bread into my mouth with the tip of my tongue.
Daigen arched a brow as he watched me, his eyes fixed on the movements of my lips.
Then he started to laugh, and rage coiled inside me.
I didn’t expect him to do that.
“Why do you laugh at me?”
His eyes glistened with dark amusement. “Because you really are a little dove eating from my palm.” His amusement faded and he suddenly stared into my eyes as though transfixed by something he found in them.
Then he blinked and snapped his hand back, his cold veneer dropping firmly back into place. “Pleasant enough for you?”
“Yes. Thank you. Master.”
It was all I could bite out without biting his damned hand off.
“Good.” He threw the bread back onto the plate. “Now straddle my hips and feed me the berries. With your mouth.”
“With my—what?”
My shriek echoed through the hall.
There was a horrible silence that followed, and then Daigen’s chuckle.
The one that had no right whatsoever to sound attractive.
“You heard me. Straddle my hips, like this…” He spun me around as if I weighed nothing, and placed my legs at either side of him. “...and feed me those berries. One by one. With your mouth.”
I could only stare at him in astonishment. The crinkling around his eyes, the slight twitching of his jaw as his lips fought a barely suppressed smile…
“You’re enjoying all this, aren’t you?”
“Extremely. I can’t recall the last time I laughed in my halls,” he replied softly, then, his voice hardening, “Now cease your stalling and feed me. Can you not see that I’m wasting away here?”
It took everything within me not to let my ‘stubborn Moonstone pride’, as he called it, send me scrambling off his lap or hitting him. Whatever possessed me to simply obey him instead was clearly as demented as he.
Glaring at my own treacherous body, I reached back and cupped a handful of berries into my hand. Everyone was still watching. Amused, curious, slightly disgusted faces peered up at us.
“Does it not embarrass you to have them watching?”
His features hardened, his brows snapping together. “Let them watch. I’m their king. I care not what they think. Their duty is to obey me or suffer my wrath.”
The brutal harshness of his voice surprised me.
“You sound like such a benevolent king,” I muttered.
“More benevolent than some,” he ground out, then his tone turning somewhat playful again, he said: “They should be thankful I don’t have them sacrifice their firstborn as proof of their fealty to me. Like my grandfather did.”
My guts clenched and I could taste bile in my throat. Savages. That was what the Bloodstones were known as across the realm. There must have been a reason for the rumours of them to begin in the first place. Could it be that? It was horrific.
I frowned as I brought a berry to his lips, pausing when I found him grinning at me.
“You’re joking,” I said.
“You’re too tempting.” He tapped the edge of my nose. “It’s the reaction you give—the furious blushing of your cheeks, the way your wicked siren eyes fill with such loathing for me… Too tempting, indeed.”
When I went to shove a berry into his mouth to shut him up, he grabbed my wrist with but two fingers, holding me still.
“Your mouth, little star.”
His lips parted, flashing straight white teeth, and—I suddenly noticed—sharp canines.
After swallowing back my pride, I placed the berry between my lips and leaned in.
Daigen took the berry with a swipe of his tongue, kissing me.
Damn him! He’s sneaky. Juice slid down his chin.
I chased it with my tongue, my eyes open, daring him to flinch. He didn’t.
“Now you’re the dove,” I teased back, “eating from my beak.”
His hand fell upon my back, firm and hot. “No, little star. I’m the wolf who eats doves.” His fingers caressed me, searing a path down my spine as they trailed up and down. “You would do well to remember that the next time you’re tempted to throw wine in my face.”
I opened my mouth to spit something back at him but clamped it shut when Daigen slid his hand up my dress. He paused, watching me, waiting for my reaction.
I caught his wrist and guided him higher.
He swallowed as his fingers teased the shell of my thigh, edging toward the valley between them.
He held my gaze, his mouth tilting, daring me to fight him.
To resist now would draw attention, and I didn’t want his court to know what he was doing to me.
Or how my body betrayed me and how much I enjoyed it. I kept my hand on his.
“More?” he murmured, the word burning between us.
“Yes,” I whispered, hating how breathy I sounded.
Only then did I let go, and his fingers parted the silk to find me.
In that moment, I chose to yield. And what a beautiful surrender it was.
Beautiful and devastating.
“That’s it,” he groaned as his lips fell upon my neck, kissing me. “Yield to me, and I’ll give you the realm.”
I could feel the heat from his palm as he caressed me under my undergarments, then his fingers pried the thin material aside.
His mouth smothered my gasp when he eased his finger slowly inside.
I clenched around him, embarrassed by how wet I was and the moan that sounded in my throat.
His lips spread against mine in a wicked grin as he spread my wetness down my inner thighs and then thrust back into me, easing in and out slowly.
“How sweet you are,” he rasped. “Almost as sweet as your moans.” He rubbed his thumb over my clit, his dark eyes intently watching me. “Feel that? All this is for me.” His pace increased, and I gripped his shoulders, digging my nails into him as I fought back another moan. “Come for me, Narya.”
My heartbeat quickened and I closed my eyes, trying hard to quell the pleasure mounting within me. I was completely helpless in Daigen’s arms and yet it felt so wonderful. So… right.
“Look at me,” he ordered. “I want you looking at me when I make you come in front of my court.”
I shocked us both by kissing him. The court fell silent again, watching us, but I didn’t care. I let myself release my moan into Daigen’s mouth. He deepened his kiss, and my moan turned into a gasp as I shuddered against him. I could still taste the berries on his lips.
Unconsciously my palm fell against his cheek, my forehead rested on his temple, and I stayed there while I came for him, his name on my lips. At some point, I must have closed my eyes, for when I opened them, he was watching me, something strange and unguarded in his face.
Whatever it was vanished when someone cleared their throat.
Every muscle in Daigen’s body seemed to tense against me.
I frowned and followed his line of sight.
My own muscles tensed in my shoulders at the sight of èllia standing in front of the high table.
She was clothed in the most revealing black dress I’d ever seen.
The shockingly low neckline, and the slits that ran across her waist, down her legs, all the way to her red thigh-high boots.
“My lord king…” She dropped into a low curtsy. Her short black hair covered her features, except for her dark ruby lips which spread into a faint smile. “I beg your pardon for being late.”
“Did I not relieve you of your duty?” Daigen’s voice was a low, cutting drawl.
“You did, Your Majesty.”
“Then get up, and tell me why you disobeyed me.”
Slowly, èllia rose. Her smile had vanished, but that cold gleam in her brown eyes remained. She looked at me—more like she looked down at me, as if I were dirt to her—and then at her king. Her lashes flicked down in supposed deference.
“I found this,” she said, withdrawing her hands from behind her back. A navy cloak lay folded upon her outstretched palms. “I thought it pertinent to return it.”
The entire court fell silent.
I didn’t know why her tone made my skin prickle. It was only a cloak, one I’d left without thinking. But the way she held it, palms up like an offering at an altar, made my stomach clench.
Daigen’s hand on my back tightened, his fingers digging into my skin. “Where did you find this?”
“The archive, Your Majesty. I believe Lady Narya had been wearing it.”
Sharp, cutting eyes sliced through me.
“Did she now?” he said, slowly.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” èllia clicked up the dais and laid the cloak on the table in front of Daigen. “As I said, I only wished to return it.”
The hand digging into my back slipped away. Whether Daigen knew he’d been hurting me or not was unclear. He trailed his hand slowly over to the cloak as if he were in a daze. When his fingers finally touched it, he clenched the material into his fist, his knuckles turning white.
The teasing wolf was gone; only the brutal king remained.
“Worse than Moonstone pride is their disrespect.”
Daigen’s voice was a low murmur of barely leashed rage.
I looked between him and the cloak, at a loss of why he was so angry.
It had been in the wardrobe, and had I not been told everything in the chamber belonged to me?
I opened my mouth to explain that but his abrupt movement cut me off.
He grabbed my waist and pulled me roughly off his lap.
The cloak’s beautiful material crumpled in his clenched hands as he seized it and stood to address his court.
“Many of you remember. For those who don’t…” He raised the navy cloak. “The Moonstone Bastard sent this to my sister. She wore it to her Stargala. She wore it while they raped and butchered her, and three hundred more.”
The court’s hatred turned to me.
I stared back at them and then up at their king.
Why was he saying all this? I hadn’t known.
But even though I bore no Moonstone resemblance, I was considered one of them.
One of those who did such horrific things to the Bloodstone Princess and three hundred others.
If I’d known all that… I would never have worn the cloak.
Why didn’t Thràena tell me the full story?
I turned to the court again, facing the silent exteriors that were cutting me to pieces with their hate. Like I was being tried for a crime I didn’t commit.
“I didn’t know.”
Daigen finally looked at me then, his eyes inflamed with just as much hatred.
“Of course you didn’t. Your kind are quick to forget the ruin and curse you brought upon my lands.
Blood still weeps from Ultherion’s hands!
” He kicked the table; the goblet spun and bled.
He glanced at the finger prints he left on my arm and released me with a sharp breath.
“Go,” he forced out. “Before I do something I will regret.”
“Daigen—”
“Get… out.”
I wanted to leave, to run from the murderous look in Daigen’s eyes, but shock pinned me. One moment we were teasing each other and the next èllia stood there with the cloak.
With a bellowing curse, he kicked the table again.
It skidded and the edge bit my hip. Pain flared through me, but even then I still couldn’t move. When Daigen noticed my fear, a flicker of regret flashed in his eyes before he caught my arm again and dragged me off the dais.
“Get out!”
A hand found my shoulder, and gently whispered, “Come on now.”
Emerias’ voice registered as he slowly guided me away. All the while, I watched his king drive fists and boots into the table until the wood splintered to nothing, and the court stayed silent as though the hall itself mourned with him.
“I didn’t know,” I kept whispering. “I didn’t know, or else I wouldn’t have—”
“He knows.” Emerias glanced at me, his eyes void of the humour I often found in them. “Let’s go.”
The doors to the hall opened. I followed Emerias through them, glancing back once before they sealed over. Daigen had collapsed into his throne, his sister’s starlight cloak clenched in his lap between bleeding hands, while èllia ran to his side.
Thràena stared after me, her face completely ashen.
Something cold and heavy twisted in my gut: one of them had set me up.
I just didn’t know who lit the match.