Iona
On the ninth night in the black country, I close the map-room door with a hard click.
Torgan looks at the latch. Then at me.
I have been working here for an hour. He came in ten minutes ago and has not read a single line of the border survey in front of him.
Neither have I.
“Did you lock it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I put down my pen. “Because every servant in this hold has developed an urgent interest in maps.”
“They are afraid to leave us alone.”
“They are afraid of you.”
“They are learning to be afraid of you.”
That pleases me more than it should.
He stands across the table with his coat off and his sleeves rolled to the elbow. The cuts on his forearm have closed. I can still see the dark lines where his claws went in.
My gaze lingers.
He breathes in once, deep enough that his chest expands.
“I did not wash my wrist,” I say.
His attention snaps to my face.
“Since the hall.” I hold up the hand he scented. “I wanted to know whether you would notice.”
“I noticed when you entered the stairwell.”
Heat moves through me.
“How much can you smell?”
“Your skin. Fear. Blood. Arousal.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “Not decisions. Not permission.”
“That seems inconveniently ethical.”
“It is worse from this side.”
He turns back to the map. One claw slides out beneath his forefinger and pins the paper to the table.
I walk around the end.
He does not move away. That is new.
“What does the law forbid besides the bite?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
The claw cuts a narrow line through the southern pass.
“And what do you forbid?”
“Your throat near my fangs.”
“Anything else?”
His jaw works.
“Say stop, and I stop. Push me away, and I go. If you go still and cannot speak, I stop.”
“That was not what I meant.”
“I know.”
I come close enough to feel his heat. “What else?”
“No penetration tonight.”
The answer surprises me. “Why?”
“Because I can smell that you came here ready to prove you are not afraid.”
“I am afraid.”
“Yes.” His eyes travel slowly down my body. “You are also wet. Neither fact decides for the other.”
My breath shortens.
He looks back at the map as if it has offended him. “Tonight you learn what it is to touch me. I learn what I can do without losing the line. We stop before either of us has to guess.”
It is so reasonable that I want to hit him with a rolled survey.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Those are my terms.”
He turns his head. “You are angry.”
“I have spent nine days being stalked across rooms by a man who refuses to come within arm’s reach. Allow me one unreasonable feeling.”
“I have not stalked you.”
“No?”
His pupils spread.
I put my palm on his forearm.
The muscles jump beneath my hand. A second claw slides out. Then a third.
“Tell me to move.”
He catches my waist.
The speed steals my breath. One moment I am standing. The next my back is against the map rack and his body blocks out the room.
“I will not tell you again,” he says. His voice is lower now. Rougher. “Do not ask me to send you away when you want me to keep you.”
“I want you to keep me.”
His mouth takes mine.
The first kiss is hard enough to bruise.
His fingers knot in my hair at the base of my skull, claws curved safely away. His other arm locks around my waist and lifts until my toes leave the floor.
I grab his shoulders.
He angles his head sharply before his tongue enters my mouth. His fangs are always there. I feel one hard point outside the corner of my lips when I turn too quickly.
He stops.
Not slowly. At once.
His breathing is rough against my cheek.
“I moved,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You did not hurt me.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn’t.” I slide my hand behind his neck. “Again. I’ll follow your angle.”
He goes utterly still.
Then he kisses me again.
This time I understand the care hidden inside the force. He turns farther than a human man would, keeping the fang points outside my mouth. When he changes sides, he slows only enough for me to follow.
I moan into his mouth.
The sound breaks what remains of his patience.
He turns and puts me on the map table. Papers slide to the floor. My skirts drag over the inkstone and send it rolling.
“Torgan—”
“Stop?”
“No.”
His growl shakes through me.
He kisses down my jaw. His nose moves over my skin first, breathing me in. Then his mouth follows. He stays clear of the pulse in my throat, and I feel the effort in every tight movement of his body.
“Here.” I touch the thick muscle at the top of my shoulder, well away from my neck. “Safe.”
He looks at the place.
“Mark me.”
“With my mouth?”
“Yes. Use your back teeth. Keep the fangs outside.”
His lip lifts. The two long points gleam against his lower lip. Nothing about them becomes safe because I asked.
“Ask again.”
“Bite my shoulder.”
He pulls the neck of my dress aside. One hand cups the back of my shoulder and turns me exactly where he wants me. Then he sets his mouth to the muscle.
The fangs bracket the place without touching.
His back teeth close.
Hard.
Pain flashes through me. My hips jerk toward him. His hand catches my thigh and holds it open.
He keeps the pressure until I am shaking, then releases and drags his tongue over the mark.
My skin throbs.
The fangs remain visible beside the bruise. One slip would have broken skin.
He did not slip.
“I want another.”
He catches the answer in my scent. “Where?”
I gather my skirts and show him the bare skin above my stocking. “Here.”
He drops to his knees.
The sight of the Black King kneeling between my legs empties every sensible thought from my head.
He pushes my skirts to my waist. His hands close around my thighs. The claws are out now, all ten black curves against my pale skin.
He does not scratch me.
He drives the points into the wood beside my legs instead. The table creaks.
“Open.”
My body obeys before pride can interfere.
The gray nearly disappears behind his pupils.
“Wider.”
I spread my legs farther.
The scent he drags into his lungs comes back out as a growl.
He rubs his cheek over the inside of one thigh. Then the other. Rough skin. Hot breath. The side of one horn brushes my knee.
“Mine,” he says, too low to be entirely human.
The word sends a pulse through me.
“Not yet.”
His gaze lifts.
“Your choice,” he says.
Then he bites my inner thigh.
His fangs remain outside the muscle. His back teeth clamp down, deep and possessive.
I cry out and fist both hands in his hair.
He holds the mark, breath hot against me. When he lets go, his mouth moves higher.
He pauses before touching me.
I can see exactly why.
He angles his jaw so the fangs curve outside the vulnerable flesh between my thighs. One forearm pins my hips so I cannot thrust unexpectedly into the points.
“Torgan.”
His tongue passes through my wetness in one broad stroke.
I nearly come off the table.
His forearm locks me down.
He does it again, slower. His lower lip presses against me. His tongue opens me while the fangs remain clear, gleaming on either side.
The room disappears.
He does not tease for long.
His tongue finds the place that makes my legs shake and stays there. Two thick fingers press inside me.
I tense around the stretch.
He stops at once, mouth resting against me, breath burning over wet skin.
“Too much?”
“No. Give me a moment.”
He waits.
I move my hips against his fingers.
They go deeper.
“Oh.”
That is the last clear word I have for some time.
He curls his fingers and seals his mouth around me. The fangs stay outside. The sight of them near my skin should frighten me out of wanting this.
Instead I grip the bases of his horns.
His whole body jolts.
The growl against me is almost violent. His claws punch through the maps on either side of my hips.
“Again,” I gasp.
I drag my thumbs where horn meets skin.
His fingers drive deeper. His tongue works harder.
The pressure builds fast. One slow stroke of his tongue catches exactly where his curled fingers press from inside, and the two sensations meet.
My hands lock around his horns. My thighs close hard enough to trap his shoulders, but he holds me open and keeps both fang points clear.
The first contraction tears a sound out of me.
The next empties my lungs. I come against his mouth in tight, helpless pulses while he keeps the same pressure and growls through every one.
The vibration makes the aftershocks sharper. My hips jerk beneath his forearm. He follows rather than restraining them, mouth sealed to me until pleasure turns almost painful.
I pull at his horns.
He stops at once.
My legs slide down his shoulders. I am wet, shaking, and half dressed on top of a map of my own country.
Torgan rises.
His mouth shines.
The fangs are wet too, though they never touched me.
The sight makes me clench around nothing.
He smells that.
“Enough,” he says.
“No.”
“Iona.”
“You set the boundary at penetration.” I reach for his belt. “I have not agreed that you are finished.”
His hand closes over mine.
“You do not owe me balance.”
“I know.”
I pull the buckle free.
His grip tightens. Not stopping me. Holding on.
The leather opens. I push his trousers down far enough to free him.
For a moment I only stare.
He is not shaped like a human man made larger.
The crown is broad and flared, dark with arousal. A raised ring circles the shaft just beneath it. Two firm ridges run along the underside, disappearing toward the root where the flesh is already beginning to thicken.
Clear, heavy moisture gathers at the tip and slides over the first ridge.
I swallow.
He watches me take in every difference.
“Still curious?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Not frightened?”
“Also yes.”
His claws rake down the table edge.
I wrap my hand around him. My fingers do not meet.
The first stroke catches on the raised ring. His hips move before he can stop them.
I do it again deliberately.
His head drops beside mine.
“That.”
“The ring?”
“Yes.”
I drag my thumb over it, then down the underside. The twin ridges are harder than the rest of him, close together beneath my palm.
His breath breaks.
“These?”
His answer is a rough sound.
I stroke them again.