7. ROSE
Seven
ROSE
When his knot finally fucking releases, I become aware of several urgent realities.
One: I am starving. Turns out, fucking years without eating will do that to a girl.
Two: I need to pee. Fucking bad.
Three: I am bonded to a king I met less than an hour ago, and I can feel his emotions in my chest like a second heartbeat, and instead of being terrified, I find it… freaking amazing.
And four: my heat is not even close to being done with me…
“Bathroom,” I announce, attempting to sit up. But my legs do not cooperate. They’re fucking cooked noodles. Absolutely useless.
Thankfully, Kael catches me before I face-plant off the bed.
“Steady,” he rumbles through a fucking chuckle.
“I’m fine.”
He picks me up, chest still shaking with amusement. Scoops me off the bed like I weigh freaking nothing, with one arm under my knees, the other around my back, and carries me to the bathroom. I want to protest. I’m a princess. I’m independent. I don’t fucking need to be carried.
But his chest is warm and solid, his heartbeat is steady under my ear, and I feel a protectiveness so deep, so certain that arguing with it feels completely useless.
“I can walk,” I mumble.
“Sure, you can.” He grins wide. Looking hot as shit.
“This is presumptuous behavior for someone I just met.”
Kael’s shoulders are shaking now. “Baby, we’re way past presumptuous.”
Bastard has a point, and I hate that.
He sets me down in the bathroom, his big, warm hands lingering on my waist, as his eyes drop to the mark on my neck... Then he clears his throat, steps back, and closes the door.
I sit on the edge of the bathtub and press my palms to my face.
Okay, Rosalind. Think!
I was cursed at birth by my father’s bitter ex-lover.
I presented as omega at twenty-one. I’ve been asleep for fucking decades.
A king named Kael walked through cursed thorns, woke me up with his scent, and then proceeded to give me my first orgasm, take my virginity, knot me, and bond with me, all in approximately fifteen minutes.
And now I can feel his emotions. Right now he’s standing outside the bathroom door, worried about me… and getting horny again because he can feel my heat still simmering through our bond.
I look at myself in the dusty mirror. Same face, same hair, tangled and wild from years of sleep and twenty minutes of… Kael. Same brown eyes. But something’s different behind them now. Something fierce and new. And I kind of like it.
You’re losing your mind, the rational part of my brain whispers.
Maybe I reply. But at least I’m awake.
I wash my face, drag my fingers through the worst of the tangles in my curls, and take stock of my body.
Swollen lips. Sweaty skin. A bite mark on my neck that I can feel throbbing with delicious warmth.
Marks on my hips where his thick fingers gripped me.
An amazing soreness between my thighs that sends even more heat through me when I think about what caused it…
Fucking stop thinking about what caused it!
I can’t stop thinking about what caused it.
I open the bathroom door. Kael is exactly where I left him.
With his muscular arms crossed over his massive chest, leaning against the wall.
And he’s shirtless, which means I’m faced with all that’s his magnificent chest. Tanned, scarred, tattooed, obscenely muscled, and with a trail of dark hair pointing straight at the part of him that still has me throbbing between my thighs.
My heat surges so hard I sway. And of course, he catches me. His hands come to my waist, steadying me, and the contact sends electricity racing through every nerve.
“Hungry?” he rasps.
“Starving. But my heat…”
“I know, Princess. I can feel it through our bond.”
“Hmph.”
He smirks. “Yep.”
“You can feel everything I feel?”
He nods, eyes darkening. “Everything.”
“So you can feel that I…”
“That you’re turned on? Yes, Rose. I can feel it. Very much so.”
I feel heat climb up my neck. “That’s… you can’t just say…”
“Baby?” He leans closer, his scent enveloping me as his lips brush my ear. “I can’t fucking wait to get back inside yourealize.”
I grab the waistband of his trousers and pull.
Food can wait.