Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
A ndrei carried me to my bedroom, laying me on the bed. He crouched, not meeting my eyes.
“You were tort?—”
I cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s done.”
“I won’t force you to talk about it. But I need to know if you’re injured.”
“Didn’t you just spank me? Asking about injuries now makes no sense.”
Stony silence.
I curled onto my side. “I’m not injured. And if that’s a euphemism for the real question, I wasn’t raped either. No one physically touched me after I was restrained.”
Another long silence. He reached out a hand, then lowered it, fingers curling into a fist.
“All right, Anah. Rest.” Andrei rose and left the room.
I stared at the door he closed with a quiet click, sorting through my emotions. I'd felt this way after a spanking as a child. Loathing my father but wanting his comfort as well. Relieved when he provided it, disappointed when he didn't.
What did the need for Andrei to stay and hold me say about my mind? Maybe part of me saw the reasoning behind the punishment. Justified it because of the lack of cruelty. No one had delighted in my pain, or Mathen’s.
I didn't know if the lack made it right, but. . .this culture’s layers would take time to peel back. Some I might accept, others I never would.
To stay with Andrei, I'd have to take the entire package.
But I couldn't sleep. I tried, but I couldn't banish my last glimpse of his face. Gaze averted, mouth too thin. Expression otherwise smooth and cold. Hidden from me. He'd held himself almost as if guarding against his own flinch, knowing he must always project the certain, unflappable and controlled demeanor of a High Lord.
Of the city's Heir, an open secret we danced around mentioning. He seemed content not to bring it up. Maybe we both frolicked in that fairy circle where the Courts didn’t matter.
I shuffled out of bed, realized I was still wearing my dress and took a minute to slip into one of my oversized t-shirts. I left the bedroom to seek out Andrei. Instinct told me the evening wasn't over for him.
Instinct rewarded me when I found him in the inner courtyard, a hint of dawn in the sky, kneeling bare chested with his hands resting on his thighs, head lowered. His shoulders. . .almost hunched.
Constin stood over him in vigil, his expression inscrutable.
I halted, uncertain whether my presence would be an intrusion. I approached slowly so either man could signal me to turn away.
He knew I was there, of course. A subtle tension rippled in the muscles of his back. If my gaze hadn't been attuned to the minute shifts in a person's body, I would have missed it. Anyone else except his guards would have.
I knelt behind him, wincing a little because he’d made it seem like the stone was cushy; it was not.
“What do you want, Anah?” he asked.
It was Andrei’s voice. Weary, nearly dejected, but his voice. Not the High Lord’s.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
A breath of bitter laughter escaped him. “I whipped my luudthen and beat my consort.”
“Spank. Not beat. There's a difference. There’s also a subset of human women who would have paid for that experience.”
He said nothing. I stared at his sloped, tense shoulders, perplexed, then glanced up at Constin.
There was no point in drawing the silvery Fae into a corner to talk about Andrei behind his back. These men didn't keep much from each other and I had suspicions regarding their hearing.
“I don't understand, Constin. What's wrong with him?”
“Do you think he enjoyed causing people he loves pain?” Constin’s sharp eyes bored into my face. “There's a cost. There's always a cost. Not just to you.”
The punishment had hurt Andrei too. I scooted forward and leaned my chest against his back, looping my arms around him. Tentatively, because I wasn’t certain my touch was welcome. Was I supposed to ask first?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I made you go there.”
I’d shunted aside my own torture with the ruthless focus I did everything else; thinking about it wouldn’t help me reach my goals. So I obliterated the memory. Collapsing into a heap would put me off my game in the morning, and I couldn’t afford a single misstep.
Muscles shifted under my cheek as Andrei lifted his head. “Next time it won't be a spanking, Anah. Not for the same infraction. I’m your bonded, but I'm also your Lord and if you disobey me, if you place the House in danger, I must respond. I can't be seen not to respond. Do you understand?”
I kissed his shoulder.
“I regret,” he continued, voice soft, “you're being forced to acclimate to ways that aren’t yours. I regret I’m not strong enough to give you a choice.”
This was the discussion Constin and I already had, and the luudthen was right. There were cons to this situation, but the pros outweighed them.
The biggest pro being the Fae kneeling in front of me.
I tightened my arms. “Do you want to cuddle?”
“Is cuddle a mortal euphemism for fucking?”
He was in a mood. He wasn't normally this crude.
“If you want.”
Andrei stilled. His chest stopped moving with the rise and fall of his breaths.
“I believe that’s my dismissal,” Constin said. He turned and walked into his wing of the house.
“Are you certain, Anah? Tonight may not be the best time. I'm feeling raw.”
I swallowed, girding myself for a leap of trust. “Then take me the way you feel.”
He rose and turned, looking down, and held out his hand. “I hope I don’t make you regret that.”
I slid my palm against his, my fingers trembling.
I couldn't read anything behind his detached but intent mask. Because of the time we’d spent together already, I allowed myself a little hope that maybe sex with him would be. . .tolerable once we got past the foreplay part. I'd never had a lover who gave more than a cursory interest in my pleasure once it was clear my body required a bit of finessing. At that point they noped out.
Also known as:
Phase Four: (Anger) He Asks What About Me?
AKA I Have Needs Too
I didn’t think Andrei would nope out in the normal course of events, but now was different. He wasn’t in a romantic head space.
So I braced myself, knowing this might be unpleasant but wanting to do something to mend whatever I’d cracked. Especially since so far. . .he wasn’t following the Phases.
He wasn’t perfect. He was sly, manipulative, obsessively controlling, violent and rather amoral.
He was also honorable, supportive, generous and giving, communicative and tried to anticipate my needs—though I might slot that under obsessively controlling. Coordinated socks and leggings? Really ?
I couldn’t recall a single insult, dismissal, neg, criticism. . .except of my eating patterns. He listened. Listening didn’t mean agreement, but he heard every word I said.
Andrei pulled me to my feet and flush against him, sliding an arm around my waist. Maybe the required finessing hadn't been my body at all, but my soul knowing I belonged to another man.
Well, not a man.
“You're trembling,” he said, surveying my face. “Fear or desire?” His thumb brushed my bottom lip. “A little of both. You don't need to be afraid. I swore when I was younger I would never be—” He shook his head.
The words he'd cut off sounded important. “You would never be what?”
He lifted a shoulder. “A reason humans are taught to fear my caste. Why my own bonded consort was taught to fear me to the point where she refuses to acknowledge my true name.”
I tensed. He saw it, of course.
“Cruel, in other words.” A flash of bitterness across his face. “My kind are known for it. It's our specialty.”
He couldn’t lie.
“It's no honor, no pleasure, Hasannah, to harm someone under my command.” He looked away from me. “When I do cause pain, it's not a decision I make lightly.”
I chose my next words carefully. “You don't think maybe there's another way to teach a lesson?”
“Humans and their time outs, their discussions of what went wrong and how future behavior might be improved.”
I didn't bridle at the mockery because most of it appeared self-directed, and again underlaid with a thread of bitter regret, close to anguish. He didn’t disagree with the nature of the punishment, or it’s necessity; our pain hurt him.
I wondered, fleetingly, if he'd been subjected to these types of punishments as a child but didn't ask. It was too invasive, and it wasn't the right time. Not when he felt so close to a brink.
“Pain,” he said in the quiet of the ending night, “is often the most effective teacher for a people who find it too easy to kill. Not always your own pain, though. You won’t abandon Mathen again, will you? Now you know what he'll endure for his failure.”
I shook my head. Of course I wouldn't. My whipping boy, like Cora had warned. No wonder Andrei had encouraged my growing affection. A threat to Mathen was more effective than a threat to myself.
Andrei shook his head. “None of that matters in this moment. My woman finally walks into my arms and I’m brooding instead of tasting her. I’m a fool.”
He gave no warning, covered my mouth with his, angling my head to deepen his thrust.
His tongue opened my mouth, slid inside as a hand cupped my bottom under my t-shirt, twisting the fabric of my panties as if they offended him.
He pulled, the friction rubbing against my clit and I gasped, spreading my legs and rising on my tiptoes for relief.
Andrei laughed softly against my mouth, pushed fabric aside and caressed up and down my slit, deepening his kiss, biting my bottom lip as he rubbed my clit.
I moaned, my body responding as it always did with him; instantly, a match he lit with a few touches.
“You’re wet,” he said, voice deep and amused. “From just a kiss? Or have you been thinking of me?”
A question I’d refuse to answer. Of course I’d been thinking of him; it was part of the reason I hadn’t been able to sleep. My fantasies featured more than innocent cuddling.
“Tell me, consort. Tell me why you followed me out here tonight.” He cupped me between the legs, a crudely possessive grip. “Was it to comfort me, or because you’ve tired of your empty bed?”
I opened my eyes, met a gaze burning with lust, craving, edged in the darkness he struggled to manage.
“I wanted to comfort you,” I managed.
“And what more? Tell me the truth.”
There was an “or else” in his voice. “I wanted you to hold me.”
Andrei lifted a quizzical brow, oozing arrogance. “ Hold you? Is that what you were imagining? Something so sweet?” He slid a finger into my pussy without warning. “When I know you’re not. Not the way humans understand the word.”
I cried out; the penetration hadn’t been gentle. The touch made clear his intent to bring me to a quick, brutal climax without any of the accompanying wooing that allowed me to pretend I was here for anything romantic or soulful.
No, I was here to be claimed.
“You aren’t sweet at all, little mortal. Your quiet forest is filled with pits disguised by blankets of pretty flowers. The unwary misstep and impale themselves on your spikes.” He chuckled, and brushed his lips on my ear. “Do you want to know a secret, Hasannah?”
A second finger joined the first, plunging deep inside me.
“No.”
“I’ll tell you anyway,” he said.
My body wasn’t quite ready. I was slick, but tight and he scissored his fingers, spiraling them inside me, then pressed his thumb against my clit.
“I’ve seen your kind before, fluttering little caged bird. I've seen what happens when the bird escapes their confines. Witnessed the blood and destruction in the wake of that flight.”
The hairs on my skin rose, and not only from desire.
“All you need is time and experience, and the taste of power, Anah. All you need—” I moaned as he continued to stroke inside me “—is a catalyst. The first time someone gets in your way. . .I am going to sit back and eat the popped corn while I watch. It’ll be entertaining.”
“ Andrei. ”
“My sister can give you pointers. She’s excellent at blood sport. And like you, Miahela sheds sparkling tears that mislead the stupid right onto. Those. Lovely. Spikes.”
“I’m not like that.”
My breathing was ragged, my attention wavering between the torment between my legs, and his words.
“I know you. You are exactly like that. But. . .stay within my protection, my Anah, and I’ll protect you even from yourself. But you must learn obedience. Recklessness is no friend to survival.”
An orgasm pealed through me. I choked, would have bit my lip if he hadn’t captured it.
When he drew away, he whispered, “A woman who only wants to be held doesn’t shatter so eagerly in her lover’s arms.”
My knees buckled.
Andrei held me up. “Come, I’m not a fool. Tell me what you want.”
“I want you.” My anger rose. “You know. It’s not as if you can’t read my mind.”
“Maybe so, but I like to hear you say it. So. . .say it. Be specific.” He almost hissed the last word.
“I want you to fuck me. To sleep,” I added. “I need to get up early in the morning.”
He stared down at me a split second, then laughed. “Sleep? Little mortal, sleep is the last thing you will be getting tonight. Well, what’s left of the night. You might as well let me fuck you until breakfast.”
?i Chúa ?i. Dear Lord.
Andrei lifted me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, rubbing my breasts against his chest in desperation for friction, for pressure.
“You’re burning up in my arms,” he murmured. “The shy, sweet girl has been abandoned like refuse.”
That would be because I wasn’t shy or sweet.
Entering the house, hearing a few muffled voices cooled some of my ardor. It felt like the reverse walk of shame on the way to his bedroom, except instead of shame I felt an increasing nervousness as I faced what we were about to do.
It had been a while for me. Not only had it been a while, but thoughts of the last—dare I mislabel him boyfriend—reared up in my mind. Accusations of being cold, frigid, overworking and not spending enough time with him—and those were the reasons he couldn't bring me to climax. The reasons why when he touched me, I felt cold.
Not the endometriosis, of course. AKA, the endohuh?
Images of that ex ran through my mind, sweating and oblivious to my lack of response as he pumped inside of me. As if a flat expression and utter silence meant a woman was enjoying herself.
Andrei turned, pushing me against the wall, a biting focus to his gaze.
“One, you'll do me the courtesy of not thinking of another man fucking you while you're in my arms. Two, we’re not going to have that problem.”
His eyes brightened to twin flames. “My fingers are coated in your come, and soon my cock will be too. So prepare, consort. You won’t leave my bed until your screaming has shredded your throat.”