Chapter 3 #2
His hand glided up to her cheek, his fingers sliding through her silky golden strands as his calloused thumb swept across her plump bottom lip.
He remembered how soft those lips had been on his, how maddening they’d been as she’d kissed his cock.
Lost to lustful distractions, it was too late to react.
She sank her teeth into his thumb, biting down hard. Theron swore, pulling his hand away. Aurora spat at him, saliva mixed with his blood.
“Go fuck yourself.”
He scowled, returning to his seat. The viper had returned. If she wanted to play hard, then he would oblige her.
“When the camp has been readied, Stentor will be executed—slowly and painfully to send a message to the others.” And then an idea struck him.
His opportunity had arrived. “Unless you plan to bargain for his life. But if you do plan to ask for mercy, you’d best be willing to offer me something worthwhile. ”
“I’m not bargaining with you.”
She said that now…
“So you don’t need your precious general? You trust me when I tell you that I will slay Drakon—that the orders have already been sent to kill everything resembling it?” he asked. A part of him hoped she’d changed her mind, even though he taunted her.
“Everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie!”
“A slow and painful death it is.” He smiled. If his teeth clenched hard against the bitterness of disappointment, no one but him would know it.
As he ordered the attendants to enter, to get them both ready for the day ahead, Aurora held fast to her stony silence and her grave demeanour.
Within the hour they were fully dressed, fed, ornamented, and their tent packed away.
As the sun rose fully, his people brought Stentor to face his judgement.
The Viridians were unusually calm, with one man at the helm, his long, tanned face impassive, with dark, pin-straight hair plaited down to his chest. He wore the armour of a wealthy nobleman, but it was decades out of style.
It seemed the general had already been replaced by an impoverished social climber.
Seated on as close to a throne as he could have in the mud of the camp, Theron raised a brow at Stentor, now on his knees before him.
He had to give the man credit where it was due—he’d remained to take his punishment.
No doubt he thought Aurora would find a way to spare him.
Seated beside him, her Aurean clothes would put him ill at ease.
“You dared try to maim my wife, Stentor. Your punishment is death by whipping. I will grant you the mercy of a final prayer.”
As Stentor prayed and his people readied a whipping post, Theron turned to Aurora.
“Last chance to bargain,” he whispered.
Face pale and eyes wide with horror, she looked like she might be sick.
“You’re a monster.”
“I’m a king. As my wife, your safety is my responsibility.”
“I wish I’d never met you.”
“I’m sure Stentor wishes the same,” he growled.
Give in, Aurora. Plead for his life.
“Would you like to bestow the punishment, or shall I?” he asked, taking the whip from one of his soldiers.
“Why can’t you just let this go?” she asked.
Almost there. Theron studied the vicious implement, testing its weight in his grip.
“I already told you I would—for a price. And didn’t you say”—he caressed her face with the braided leather—“you would do whatever it took to destroy Drakon? That might prove difficult without a general.”
Her shoulders sank.
“What do you want?”
He tried not to smile too much.
“Since you refused to bargain with me earlier? You’ll spend every day riding at my side and every night in my tent. You’ll keep your distance from Orithyia and every other Viridian. You’ll wear my colours, and you’ll behave in my presence.”
It seemed she would give in to everything he demanded, her head bowing with defeat, until her hackles rose at his last demand. If looks could kill…
“I’ll behave as you deserve,” she hissed.
There are my kitten’s claws. No more pretending you don’t care.
“So be it. If you agree, then make your vow with a kiss,” he said, tapping his finger on the arm of his makeshift throne.
She glared at the ring on his finger—the one marking him as king.
Kissing it would be a mark of subservient obedience.
It would send a message to the flea-bitten Viridians that she was his.
She would wear his colours, ride at his side, spend every night in his bed, and kiss his ring in front of their eyes.
They might have crowned her a princess, but she would never belong to them.
And she would never rise above him if she lowered herself publicly in this way.
Yet he didn’t want her obedience as much as he wanted to taste her again—to know if the other night had simply been a passing madness. He should have let her kiss his ring, but he hungered for her lips like a man starved. And wasn’t a passionate kiss as damning as one made upon his seal ring?
“On my lips, Aurora. And you had best kiss me as a wife kisses her husband, or the deal is off.”
“Villain.”
He cupped her head and jerked her close. Her hands splayed on his chest, pushing against him to no avail. She would never escape him. Not now. Not ever.
“What will it be?”
She flicked her gaze to Stentor’s bare back as he was stripped and tied to the post. Swallowing, Aurora scanned the crowd, looking for a hero who would never show. She lived amongst the rogues and beasts now—no one here would save her from him.
“Eyes on me while I’m talking to you, Aurora.”
She obeyed. His blood heated.
“Fine.”
“Then seal your vow with a kiss.”
She pressed her lips to his with punishing force, there and gone with the barest sting of pain.
“The deal’s off.”
“No!” She gripped his tunic as he turned away.
“You knew what I asked of you, and you refused to give it. Stentor dies.”
She pulled his face back to hers, tears threatening in her eyes.
“I hate you. I hate you so much. May Fate weave an eternity of torment for you.”
And then she pressed her lips to his, soft and yielding and sweet.
Theron drank her down, her tongue tasting of wine and honey.
Intoxicated by the kiss, he forgot about the watching crowd.
His world narrowed to the silk of her hair as he crushed her to him, to the thrill of her tongue on his, to the florals of her perfume, to the warmth of her breath.
Her moans goaded him on. He swallowed them down, greedy for every whimper.
When her hands fisted the material of his tunic to pull him closer rather than push him away, he rewarded her with a deeper kiss, sucking on her tongue.
Hot need thrummed in his veins. Their passion was not a temporary madness, but an all-consuming blaze. His heart leapt with hope.
When he pulled away for a breath, he felt drugged.
Her eyes were darkened by lust, gaze locked on his lips, as if she might lean in for more.
Her breath came fast and hard, her cheeks flushed, her nails digging into him.
With her pretty lips so pink and soft and wet, if there weren’t a hundred eyes on him, he might have taken her right there in the mud.
Words failed him as he drowned in her eyes.
“Your Majesty, the whip,” His soldier held up the whip to him as they knelt in the mud at his other side.
He’d not even realized he’d dropped it.
Whatever spell had come over them, his soldier’s words broke it. Aurora pulled away, her expression haunted.
“Keep your word,” she whispered.
Theron gripped the whip in his hand and turned his gaze on Stentor as his mind emerged from a lustful stupor.
Even a lighter sentence required the bastard be whipped—a bit of violence he didn’t wish to sully his most recent kiss with.
It might make Aurora put up walls that would be harder to scale.
After all, it wasn’t every day he could force her into a bargain to save some undeserving scum’s life with a kiss.
Then again, there were more humiliating fates than death. Theron knew that well—as did Stentor. Fates that would keep the horrors ahead out of Aurora’s view. A wicked idea struck him.
“My wife has asked for leniency on your behalf, Stentor, and I’m feeling generous.
Your death sentence has been commuted. Your new punishment is to walk the rest of the way to Altanus naked and barefoot.
No one may shelter you, feed you, bathe you, or clothe you.
You’ll live as a beast from this moment until you’ve either arrived in my capital or succumb to the elements. ”
Aurora’s quiet gasp of dismay displeased Theron. Did she think he was going to be truly merciful to a man who had tried to maim her for profit?
Stentor was stripped of the last of his clothes, removing his sandals last as Aurora turned her head.
“Now get to the back of the line. You may follow at a distance—as befits a beast.”
“Thank you for your mercy, Your Majesty,” Stentor replied, bowing.
With any luck, there would be another heavy rain and the bastard would die of exposure. If not, it was no more than what he deserved for what he’d done to Theron during the wretched trek from the Colonnades to Boreas.
“You are all dismissed to your duties.” Theron waved off the crowd.
“Triad preserve the sun and star of Aureum,” his people chanted as they bowed deeply.
Theron stood from his seat and offered Aurora his arm.
She took it, fighting to keep the trepidation from her expression and failing.
Their kiss had shaken her. She might have lobbed the cruelest of curses at him, yet she’d not been able to deny the passion of their kiss.
His steps felt light as he strode to their mounts.