57
I couldn’t sleep. I told myself it was just because my mother had knocked on my door twice already, promising to return every hour until I opened it.
But I actually did know why I kept tossing and turning under the cerulean-and-white blankets of my large bed, sinking deeper and deeper into the pillows of the same colors.
I wanted Amlach.
He was too far away from me.
Even though I had spent many nights without him when we were in Rubra, I could rely on the sheets soaked with his masculine scent. On the fact that when I woke up, I would find him by my side.
But the one I was in now wasn’t our bed. I couldn’t breathe in his smell on the pillow.
I lifted the tight sleeve of my cornflower blue robe to touch my right wrist. I missed the handcuff that connected me to Amlach, the chain that had always prevented us from sleeping in non-mirrored positions.
I made the mistake of picturing him in that underground cell, curled on that miserable mattress that couldn’t shield him from the dampness of the stone bench. Had he been given at least a blanket? Or was he shivering violently due to the cold? Had dinner been brought to him? Water?
I raised my arm above my head to grasp the elaborate wooden headboard, digging my nails into it to refrain from dashing out of the compound and going to him.
However, I doubted I would succeed because my ears had caught the footsteps of the guards who, by order of the king, had taken positions at the three main entrances to the palace and the secondary ones.
He had likely heightened surveillance at the dungeons as well, in case I managed to elude all the soldiers around the palace.
But I didn’t want to do anything that would compromise my father’s decision about Amlach.
So, I rolled onto my back and looked up through the pointed glass ceiling, observing the blanket of stars in the nearly black sky. Thin, elongated silvery clouds covered the bottom of the full moon, casting darkness on one side of my bed.
I turned and ran my hand over the pillow, imagining Amlach was here with me, stroking my hair the way we both loved, watching me until he was sure I had fallen asleep in his safe embrace.
Gradually, my eyelids became heavy, and as Amlach’s name echoed in every corner of my mind, sleep claimed me.
* * *
I woke up with a start, sensing I was no longer alone in my room. And I wasn’t.
“Amlach,” I gasped, sitting up abruptly.
He was standing by the wooden bench at the foot of the bed, his gaze so predatory it unsettled me.
“How . . .” I darted my wide eyes toward the door, expecting the sentries to rush in with their pikes aimed at him. “How did you get in?”
The ghost of a smile lifted the corners of his lips as he approached me with deliberate calm. “I didn’t.”
That’s when I noticed my nightgown had transformed. The sleeves were gone and replaced by two thin straps. The neckline was no longer round, revealing only the contour of my collarbones; instead, it was so deep that it reached the end of my cleavage.
This couldn’t be real.
“I’m dreaming,” I murmured.
Amlach’s smirk grew more pronounced. “Are you sure?”
In a stubbing motion, he grabbed the hem of the blankets and pulled them back to reveal the lower part of my body.
My skirt featured a side slit extending up to my groin, fully exposing my bare leg.
Yes, this was definitely a dream.
Yet, when Amlach sat on the mattress’s edge, which sagged under his weight, it felt so real to me that I instinctively pressed my hand on his chest to stop him from doing whatever he was planning, casting another worried look toward the dimly lit door.
Amlach gently grasped my ankle to spread my leg and flex my knee. I stared at him, captivated by the nacreous glow that, passing through the thin blue curtains of the pointed terrace doors, reflected off him, lending him an almost magical aura.
My heart jumped into my throat as he started running his rough palm along the inside of my exposed thigh, and I quickly looked at the door once again.
“Only I can hear you here, Nauriel,” Amlach said, his voice thick with dark sensuousness. “So, scream for me.”
Before I could react, he grabbed my hair so forcefully that I tilted my head back and cried out in pain, which quickly turned into pleasure as he penetrated me with two fingers.
“Amlach,” I panted, fighting against his grip to pitch forward and kiss him.
But Amlach fingered me again with such force that his hand smacked against my pubic area, prompting me to toss my head back with a hoarse sound. I bent my other knee as well, opening myself wider, with my heels firmly on the mattress.
“Again,” I gasped, clawing at his shoulders.
Amlach curled his fingers inside me like a hook, pulling me slightly closer, and grazed a spot that caused me to groan so loudly I blushed with embarrassment.
His tongue trailed up my chin until his mouth hovered over mine. “Harder?”
“Yes,” I whispered, my fingers threading through his hair.
I felt his smile against my lips, then his fingers started moving in a way that drove me wild. The heel of his hand was constantly pressing against my clitoris, giving me bursts of pleasure so intense that my legs trembled.
Amlach pounced on my neck with his teeth and started to suck, hurting me so badly that I couldn’t tell where my screams of pain ended and those of pleasure began.
“More,” I growled.
However, instead of fulfilling my order mixed with pleading, he withdrew his hand and released my hair.
Furious, I watched him rise on his feet and tower over me to his full height.
I started to protest, but Amlach pressed the fingers he had used to possess me against my mouth.
Feeling him spread my sticky arousal across my lips and breathing in its musky smell made my sex throb in a way that shocked me.
Without him needing to ask me, I slowly parted my mouth to invite him to put his fingers in.
His eyes burned with dangerous desire, and his nostrils flared as he slowly slid his fingertips over my lower incisors.
When I felt them on my tongue, I closed my lips around his fingers with a moan and, holding his gaze, I began to suck.
Amlach let out a hiss of pleasure and almost bared his teeth with a groan when I whirled my tongue around his fingers.
Then, all of a sudden, something changed.
His expression turned so grim that my first instinct was to pull back. But, with his two fingers still in my mouth, he grabbed my chin with all his hand and held me in place, squeezing so firmly that I thought he wanted to rip my jaw off.
Feeling perturbed by the direction my erotic dream had taken, I told myself to wake up. But I couldn’t.
All I was able to do was drown in the dire depths of Amlach’s eyes.
His jaw worked as he angrily breathed in. Finally, after what felt like forever, he let me go.
I watched him with my mouth slightly open, feeling both alert and excited about his next move.
Quickly, Amlach grasped my hips and shifted me to the edge of the mattress. I swung my legs off the bed, one on each side of his, as he observed me from top down with great satisfaction.
It was as if he had me exactly where he wanted.
How he wanted.
Very slowly, looking at me as if he couldn’t wait to eat me alive and gnaw me to the bone, he started to duck down.
Until he was kneeling between my legs.
He took the two flaps of the slit in my skirt with such composed control that I was left breathless. Then, suddenly, he yanked the fabric so forcefully that it made me jump.
I was shocked and naked from the waist down and fully exposed to his greedy gaze.
But that gaze didn’t leave mine, not even for a moment, as he ran his hand up my right calf, stopping at the knee joint, then lifted my leg onto his shoulder. With his other hand, he gently pressed inside my left knee to make my leg spread wider.
He rubbed his beard against the sensitive skin on my other thigh, coaxing a moan of pleasure from me. Then he bit me so hard that, as I screamed, I instinctively grabbed his hair to pull him away.
He flashed an evil smile.
I gave him a look that was both excited and nervous. “Amlach—”
He struggled against my hold and suddenly pressed his mouth to my vulva, causing me to burst out with a cry so sharp that, if this weren’t a dream, everyone would hear me all the way to the southern villages.
Shocked by such a sinful act, I tried to recoil onto the mattress, but Amlach wrapped one arm around my waist to stop me and dug the fingers of his other hand into my thigh muscle to keep my leg anchored against his shoulder.
I held onto his hair, moaning uncontrollably as he sucked so passionately that my thighs jerked with spasms.
Elf mating shouldn’t be like this. It should be slow, sweet, full of mutual reverence and light caresses and gentle kisses and smiles of love.
Instead, Amlach was devouring me.
His hungry mouth pressed forcefully against the swollen, wet lips of my sex. His beard scratched my hypersensitive skin. His tongue lapped my viscous arousal, drop by drop, and licked with such firm pressure that my eyes rolled back from the overwhelming pleasure.
I couldn’t stop screaming while watching him feast between my legs, his ravenous gaze always fixed on me.
Yes, this wasn’t how elven intercourse usually was. And I didn’t care.
Amlach was showing me a new way to possess me—dirty and brutal and upsetting and unbridled. And I chose to follow him. I didn’t care where he would take me. I let him lead me down, down, down.
Into the darkness of this relentless passion.
I let the feeling of his eager breathing over my sex poison me. I let the vibrations of his pleasure-filled grunts corrupt my thoughts, while I squirmed against his mouth as if riding it.
I completely surrendered to Amlach and made his name mine, as for the first time in my long life, I reached the peak of an ecstasy that felt like I was tearing apart.
Breathless, I watched Amlach lift his face from my groin, his eyes filled with a primal desire that demanded to be unleashed in all its fury. Seeing his lips, beard, and nose tip shiny with my fluids stirred an equally wild and uncontainable lust within me.
Before he could even try to stop me, I slid out of bed, straddled his lap, and firmly held his face with my hands to kiss him . . .
* * *
Persistent knocking on the door snapped me awake, and I quickly sat up.
“Honey, please, open up,” Mother’s gentle yet deep voice called from the hallway. “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
No, I wasn’t all right, because my breathing was shallow.
I frowned up at the ceiling: The position of the stars had shifted somewhat. It was probably about an hour since I had fallen asleep.
A sudden twinge in my neck made me flinch.
I touched the spot where, in my dream, Amlach had bitten and sucked me. I didn’t feel any signs or slight abrasion, of course. But the pain was there, just beneath the skin.
I perceived it.
Ignoring my mother, who kept knocking and talking to me, I grabbed the hem of the sheets and tossed them aside.
I turned to stone.
The skirt of my nightgown was ripped. Precisely where Amlach had torn it in my dream. I cautiously put my trembling hand between my legs, wincing as I touched the red, swollen, slimy flesh. Horrified, I watched the clear filaments of my arousal between my fingers.
It couldn’t be real, I kept telling myself.
It couldn’t.