Chapter Eleven #2
I was far from stopping him. I gripped tight to his thighs, urging him on with every squeeze and moan.
Alisdair suddenly stiffened—limbs going rigid. I relaxed as he came, his seed spilling down my throat, and me accepting all of him.
Shadowsoul collapsed on the sheets, chest heaving. The effects of the petal must’ve still lingered, because it was the first I’d ever seen him out of breath. “So what would you like your day of celebration called, my queen?”
I laughed. “Nothing too scandalous, I hope.”
He gave me his suggestion, and it was so scandalous it burned my ears. I picked up a pillow to whack him. Alisdair caught it in time and tugged, dropping me laughing across his chest.
“Although...” His eyes sharpened. “I will see every one of those petals destroyed. In front of me. Now.”
I hummed. “No, I believe I’ll hang on to them. Just in case your stubbornness gets in the way of my will again.”
“Either you destroy those petals, or you’ll wake up one night roped to the bed.”
“Oooh.” I winked. “I might like that.”
Alisdair snorted. One look at each other, and we burst out laughing—a loud, cleansing, raucous laugh that let me know... I wouldn’t need those petals again.
“I’M PARTIAL TO TOFFEE.”
I bit my lip hard, holding back a grin by the actual skin of my teeth.
“I’ve read all the early works of Garban Wordweaver.”
Picking up my rune instruction book, I crossed the length of the library, returning it to its proper place.
I didn’t spend much time in the library, and whenever I crossed its threshold, I regretted that. It was such a calm, quiet place. Cold, yes, but filled with warm, squashy armchairs and sweeping ceiling-high stacks that encouraged me to stay. Simply shut myself inside and keep out the world.
Alisdair followed, trailing me across the shining, marble floors. “I was born with a full set of teeth.”
I broke, a giggle bursting free. “I’m almost certain you’re making all of these up.”
He shrugged, leaning against the stacks. “You’d have to prove that, my queen, but in the meantime, I expect you to keep with the terms of our deal.”
“A deal you’ve taken to with vigor,” I replied, brow high.
“Is that a complaint? I could always be less... vigorous.”
I shivered. Mother Meya strike you down if you dare.
Aeris was right. There was no moving forward with Alisdair while he treated me like a toy, a duty, or a bunch of fuckable holes. He had to be vulnerable, and she was correct to put that obvious notion in my head.
But I was right too.
If he was going to fall in love with me, then I had to be me. I didn’t dance, or flirt, or hand out clumsy compliments. I gave one warning, then I acted.
Like the single warning I gave to recruiters, telling them to keep their notices off our door or receive a face full of soiled cloths.
Like the single warning I gave to the bullies chasing Riordan, telling them to back off, or I’d do to them everything they did to him.
They walked off laughing, but then came and beat him the next day—breaking his nose, wrist, giving him a concussion, and bruising him all over.
Kahir I kicked down the stairs. For Brenden I lay in wait outside his favorite war wife’s house, hit him with a brick when he rounded the corner, then stomped him until he cried and wailed for me to stop.
Conri got his hands on a coudarian crystal and taunted me with all the ways he’d tear me inside out if I tried attacking him.
I took the crystal off him while he was passed out drunk at his usual table at his usual pub, then broke the whole arm and smashed his face on the bar table for my trouble. I broke his nose and three teeth.
I may not have been so brutal if not for the reason they chased and beat up Riordan. It was because my friend intervened and chased them off when the three filthy kakkas cornered Meliora in an alley and tried to rape her.
And then there was Kirwan, and the second and last time he struck my mother. The second because I warned him after the first that if he ever hit her again, I’d kill him.
He laughed at me, naturally. A thin waif of a thirteen-year-old girl against the king’s advisor, the hero of the battlefield, and the heir to House Dawnbreaker? I wasn’t a threat.
And then, months later, he hit her again.
That evening, I walked into the deepest part of the woods where the plants not meant for the sun and light grew.
I picked something my mama warned me never to eat, snuck into his grand manor through an open servant’s window, and slipped it in his midnight cordial while he slept next to his unsuspecting wife.
He was on death’s door for weeks. It wasn’t thought he would make it. After he recovered, he returned to my mother’s house with a look in his eyes like he knew what I’d done. But he never accused me, and he never hit her again.
The truth of me was very simple. I never let anything—size, power, position, magic, or threat—get in the way of protecting the people I loved. Alisdair and his stubbornness was in the way, so I felled him like an oak tree—
—and what an amazing decision that was.
Alisdair took to blowjobs with the expected gusto, and he wanted more. All the more.
As good as the sex was before when he catered to my pleasure, it somehow became three times more incredible. I ran out of my secondhand sexual knowledge pretty quickly, but that didn’t stop us from getting creative.
There was no other word for it but that we were having fun now. Our bedchamber was filled with teasing, laughter, fevered moans, and conversation. Alisdair told me of his favorite books and music. We talked of the beautiful, kind woman who raised him and took in his brother, Bradach.
He told me the myriad of ridiculous, troublemaking scrapes Bradach got into that Alisdair always had to save him from. He told me about his first horse, and what life was like before forced bindings, hatred, and war.
Alisdair also told me how he liked his eggs, that he was nine pounds at birth, and that he once saw an eagle snatch a rabbit off the ground and carry it off.
He truly scraped the bottom of the mundane barrel for the sake of holding up his end of the deal, and getting me on my knees—wherever and whenever the mood struck us.
I once ran away from all the amorous couples partaking in their naked activities outside of their rooms. Who knew it would only take me a few short weeks until Alisdair and I were one of them.
It wasn’t an exaggeration that we couldn’t get enough of each other. And it wasn’t a lie for me to say that somewhere along the way, I thought less of tricking him into falling in love with me, and more about how I’d stop myself falling in love with him.
“I once caught a bee with my bare hand.”
I spun on him, hands on my hips. “Now why would you do a fool thing like that?”
The wicked smirk danced on his lips, heating my core though he had yet to put his hands on me. The effect Alisdair had on me—had always had on me—neared forbidden. “To impress a girl, of course.”
“It didn’t sting you?”
“It not only stung me. It made my face swell to grotesque proportions. Said girl ran away screaming.”
I snorted obscenely, shaming my etiquette instructor. I couldn’t help it. Alisdair Shadowsoul was funny. Of all things, I never expected him to be funny.
He heaved a sigh. “You think my face grotesque too.”
“I do not,” I cried, and blushed doing so.
“You do”—he spun me squealing off my feet—“that’s why you’re going to sit on it.”
Alisdair dropped us both down on an armchair, him draping my legs over the arms and disappearing under my voluminous skirts. I’d have switched to breeches long ago, but all the layers did the best job of keeping me warm. That is, of course, when Alisdair wasn’t undressing me.
His claws neatly shredded everything in his way. It was a good thing this cold, filthy place was wealthier than anyone knew or believed. I was spending a fortune from our coffers getting new clothes made.
“Cover every part of me that displeases you,” he said, ridding me of my undergarments. A swift swat on the backside made me yelp and swat him back—laughing. “I deserve no less.”
“Hmm.” I dipped low, then drew back up, dangling his prize out of reach. “You do have rather a filthy mouth. Should I smother it into obedience?”
“How else will it learn?”
I dropped down—keeping to my word and smothering those lips with my own. I was too eager for him to delay with flirting.
I rocked my wet, hungry pussy on his tongue—moans peeling from my lips. I laced our fingers together, making him the firm, steady anchor as I bounced on his face, impaling myself on that impossibly long, thick tongue.
“Agh, Alisdair,” I breathed, throwing my head back. “I take it back. I love your filthy mouth.”
Alisdair caught hold of my thighs, latched on to that small, sensitive nub, and suuuucccked harrddd.
My cries bounced up the stacks and danced among the rafters.
Alisdair may have given in to the fun of letting me be on top, but I had no illusions.
Alisdair dominated me mind, body, and soul.
My pleasure was always his to tempt, twist, and tease.
Riding him was like being thrown about on a bucking bronco.
Yes, I was on top. Yes, I was holding on.
But to think that meant I had control over the raging, deadly beast was a fool’s dream.
Alisdair was handsome, smart, fierce, strong, and deadly. Since the day I met him, he kept me under a spell of pretty words, praise, and cold indifference—addicting me to him. Making me crave the barest drop of kindness or attention, just for how rare it was.
It was a game of seduction that had no doubt crushed many a heart beneath his boot.
A game he surely believed I’d fail too, but they didn’t call me Volka for nothing.
I would addict him to me. I’d make him fall in love with the girl who loved to read, learn, sing, and get grubby on my hands and knees—growing precious gifts from the earth.