Chapter 8 It’s Getting Hard
EIGHT
IT’S GETTING HARD
It’s odd to be alone in the night. The three of them never came to bed. And I never slept.
So, I wait. My legs are curled tightly beneath the gown that I came here in.
It’s been washed yet it’s far from new again.
It’s thin and tattered, but it gives me a weird little sense of comfort that I didn’t know I needed until now.
It doesn’t relax me enough to ease how hard my hands are clinging to my arms as I hold myself on the small black velvet settee.
The pretty cloth no longer smells like mother.
The scent of cold ash stains its threads.
It stains me.
What in the fucking Goddess Moon’s name am I doing here? An adventure? I thought this shit was going to be an adventure? A fucking purpose?
Purpose doesn’t exist in hell. I was wrong.
I was so damn wrong it’s insulting how easily I walked away from a good family. A kind man. And a safe pack who never truly accepted me.
The sound of hinges whining doesn’t catch my attention.
The heavy fall of footsteps clumping over dark hardwood floors doesn’t so much as scratch at the back of my messy thoughts.
His warm hand gently pressing to my collarbone, along the fine flesh there, that’s what draws me to the serious eyes that hold… concern?
Could Zilo dare to be concerned when he has so much cruelty to attend to?
“Why are you awake?” That gravelly tone of his is warm instead of gruff. It’s a rasping delicious melody that washes over my body and floods out the anxiety in my mind.
Almost…
“Did you do it?” My gaze narrows up at him as I hold myself harder.
“Do what?”
I swallow stiffly and try to make it simple for this fucker to understand. “Did. You. Punish. Him?” My eyebrow arches so high it’s painful.
I wait patiently, but passive-aggressively, for his reply.
He doesn’t even blink. “Yes.”
Of course, he fucking did!
I’m on my feet and right in his personal space, storming even closer so fast he barely backsteps every step I take.
Until there are no more. And he’s pinned right up against the wall.
And I don’t hesitate to keep going. On the tips of my toes and with my chin held high, I meet his gaze with just a breadth of space separating my lips from his.
“How can you call yourself a pack and harm him day in and day out? How the fuck can you live with yourself? How has no one plotted your death along with the Prince’s?
” My jaw hurts from how tightly I snap it closed, and somewhere between us, my index finger found a bit of hard muscle, and I suppose I’ve been poking his stone wall chest with every word I’ve said.
I honestly have no idea other than the fact that my finger kind of hurts now.
And that alone should tell me to back down from this deadly hellhound of a man.
It’s just too bad that that logic hasn’t caught up with my rage yet. It never does really.
“Cersia,” he whispers calmly, “do not finger fuck my chest again.” His jaw, like my own, twitches with a hidden hinting aggression. It’s a warning sign, like wolves’ hair lifting from the back of their neck just before they strike.
Fuck his aggression.
My arm rears back, and all the shaking emotional anger I’ve held onto for the past several hours storms forward with the tiniest little poke that holds so much meaning.
And that’s all it takes.
All that composure Zilo holds on to when I’m around comes crashing down as his arms grip around me, his body collides with mine, and he spins me so fast the entire room is a blur of darkness.
Until my cheek cracks against the smooth wall, and his chest presses down against my back.
My hands are held tightly from behind in one of his big paws.
A knee comes up high, and he separates my stance with a quick shove of his thigh between my legs.
Steady fingers slide through my hair, and he tilts my head just the way he wants so his gaze is in my peripheral.
“You’re entirely too reckless for someone who can’t even manage her own beast within herself. Are you going to calm your little ass down now?” His voice is so mellow and at ease it just pisses me off how much harder I’m breathing.
He’s composed and prowling and I’m just over here sounding like Gran climbing a few church stairs too quickly.
“Fuck you and your obsession with my ass.” I literally spit at him. Of course, my retaliation spittle just falls against my own shoulder, but it feels good to do it anyway.
His grip against my hair as well as my wrists tightens, and he pulls my head back against him while crushing my hips into the wall. Pain meets my bones there. My mouth falls open from how hard he’s angling my throat. The rough brush of his beard skims along my jawline.
“If your attitude threatens our plans, I won’t ask the others for advice. I’ll kill you to save ourselves. I won’t hesitate.”
I barely move against his hold, but ever so slightly I twist my wrists, adjusting just subtly and just enough to rock the curve of my ass against the most sensitive part of this insensitive man.
And then I’m speechless for another reason.
The hardness that grinds up against me as he pushes me down once more must be a surprise for him as much as it is for me.
Because he shuts right the fuck up.
And yet, he’s too arrogant to release me.
He clears his throat harshly, but he keeps his hard length snuggled nicely against my ass. And I bite back the laugh lodged in my throat at how much he can curse and stomp around and fight anyone who might threaten his poor fragile ego.
But one nice ass is all it takes for him to lose his composure.
I mean, it is an ass blessed by the Goddess, afterall.
My spine arches from how hard I lift up and then ever so slowly lower back down.
“Stop,” he grinds out.
And I too grind.
All. Over. Again.
With force, he pulls my hair and yanks me harder. I gasp, and I think that just makes it—yeah, it makes it harder for him…
“I said stop it!”
“Then stop fucking tormenting your friends!” I growl right back at him.
“That’s not what we’re talking about, and you know it!” he whisper-screams in my ear, all hot and bothered and so, so sexy.
“Really? Then what are we talking about, Zilo? Tell me.” Behind my back, my fingers spread wide, and I’m shocked at how slow he is to pull away as my nails lightly drag over the hard outline in his pants.
But he does pull away. He puts so much space between us I bet he’d solicit the Goddess herself to take pity on his hellish soul and pull him away from a girl like me entirely if he could.
A tic in his jaw pulses with rage or lust, or maybe that’s his disturbing orgasm face for all I know. But he’s definitely fuming at me, for good or bad reasons is anyone’s guess.
“I-I,” he stutters, not even able to get two words out before he’s pacing the room on booming steps. “I’ll deter Prince Ravar’s commands for punishment as much as I can.”
“And I’ll deter my attitude as much as I can,” I say with poised rationality.
A pressing memory of how good he felt against me lingers in my mind with a taunting shiver I can’t contain.
Those heavy, prying eyes of his skim my features, searching me out while I simply gaze back at his barbaric disbelief.
“Fine.” He nods once.
I nod.
He does it again.
I do it once more.
And by his third time of him rattling his little puppy dog brain, it occurs to me that he’s still thinking about it.
And now I am too.
He’s just so big. Every part of him is weaponized strength. It should be scary. But instead, it’s sexy.
I’m seducing the Prince of Hell.
It’s my job.
At the moment though, I’m mentally undressing the Highest High Hell of the Prince’s guard. Even worse, he’s eye fucking me right back.
It’s a flame of heat to feel his attention warm against my skin. The memory of his body pressing down on mine feels like the weight is still there. The spot where his knee parted my thighs is fresh in my mind, and that pressure too is still present against my core.
Too, too present.
“You should leave,” I blurt suddenly.
His eyes widen as if I just threatened him.
“It’s my fuckin’ room,” he argues.
Why is he like this? Why?
“Do you want us to fuck and die of treason, or would you rather we continue our fun plot to kill the Prince?” My hands lift at my sides as if I hold the two offers there in my palms, and it’s like he actually sees them now that I’ve mentioned it.
“Yeah. It’s uh…” he coughs gruffly and shoves a hand harshly through his thick hair. “It’s getting late. I should go,” he says, striding to the glossy black door before the words are fully out of his mouth.
The door slams behind without him so much as tossing a second glance my way. It doesn’t hurt to watch him go.
It hurts to watch myself continue to shove away all of the good men in my life.
And for what?
A sense of purpose.
It’s what my father would be proud of. Bringing down the leader of this realm is indeed what my father would have wanted for my future.
I just have to keep reminding myself of that every single time one of these men gets close to me.
It’s an impossible future I’ve set out for.
Killing the Prince is only the half of it.