“There is no need to hold my seed in, my soul.” Settling at my back, draping my body in that wing, it snuggled me. “I can give you more any time you wish. Rest with me for a short while, then I have a surprise! The first of many.”
I couldn’t imagine what could possibly be more surprising than what had just taken place.
“I feel as if a feast is in order to celebrate! Oh, sweet wife, you have given me such a gift that I cannot even fathom how to adore you best.”
Given him?
Wife?
Was I now more the wife he believed me to be because I had let him rut me? Because I had shamelessly shut my eyes to the monster on my back and abandoned all reason.
“I won’t always be ugly to you. A pure heart like yours will learn to love me for who I am and not the shell I wear.” He kissed my neck, lightly scraping his fangs on my flesh. “I know this, because I once was beautiful, and you didn’t love me for my beauty as all other women did. It was my spirit that drew you. Even if I were to wear that form again, beauty would never earn you.”
When his bite punched through delicate tissue, a great jaw holding my throat, it wasn’t pain I felt.
Only a sip was taken.
“To drink from the throat of another immortal is only done between those who are excessively intimate. It’s practically our only taboo.” Licking at the twin wounds that were already closing, he hummed out a great contented breath. “My throat is yours.”
“I don’t want your throat.” I don’t know why I said it, or why my voice held such vindictiveness. But I felt a great need to hurt the beast. Or hurt myself.
Rolling me to my back so he might make me look at him—or perhaps he wanted to look at me, my body was planted between two massive arms. “Once upon a time, you wanted my throat. Held a knife to it on our wedding night, would have slit me ear to ear had you the talent for it. I’ve often wondered if it was your magic that made us what we became, our oath, or my will alone. But blood? It always comes back to blood.”
And if I had that knife now?
Would I take the throat he bared?
Try to kill the monster who had pulled me from my grave, cared for me, clothed me, fed me, fucked me? Twice damned was I, meeting his gaze and hazarding a question. “Why did I try to slit your throat?”
“You didn’t want to be queen, though you were born the jewel of the kingdom.” The beast looked lost in memory. “Raised in seclusion, you’d never interacted with any man beyond our father. Who spoiled you to a fault and loved you more than our sisters. And it was not just for your great beauty. It was for your tenacity and will to have your way. The greatest queens never hunger for the duty. They must be tamed. When you tried to kill me, I’d never been more in love.”
“That sounds sick.” Truly sickening.
Careful of his talons, Vladislov cupped my cheek. “There is nothing sick in love. You found joy in freedom, in my body, in my obsession, and even in your duty.”
Joy might not be the emotion I would equate with what had just happened. Unable to decide if I had tricked myself, or he had fooled me, or if I really was a whore willing to take the cock of a demon having been tempted with little more than a tickle between the legs.
What bothered me most was that if he had asked me, I would not have said yes.
“Which is precisely why I didn’t ask. You called out my name in need, and I gave you what you needed. It was an ask enough.”
How he could play at words, and actions, and move me at his whim…
Laughing, the beast contradicted my concerns. “It’s the other way around. I cannot think but for you. Watch your every minuscule movement, listen to your heartbeat, see you fed, clothed, cared for… bedded. I am your slave.”
“Then I order you to leave me forever.”
Laughter turned to so pained an expression my heart ached to see it.
He spilled a tear. “I would not go, because you are incapable of such cruelty.”
“I’m sorry.” Why I said it, or why I meant it, I could not even begin to contemplate.
Boxed in by his arms, arms that were muscular in ways no creature should be, solemn as the grave, Vladislov said, “I would make love to you again, face to face, before we bathe. I want you to see me when you feel beauty, and know that I see you.”
My ardor had cooled, yet the seed between my legs was slippery enough for seeking fingers to play in when his knee moved to separate my thighs.
With an arch, my body refused the command of my thoughts. And though I fought to keep my legs closed, it did not take long for his weight to settle between them. The first thrust stole my breath, dragging over something inside me that drew out a shameless moan.
Just as he had commanded, I witnessed his pleasure as he took my body. Eyes roving from bouncing breasts, to my parted lips. And where his eyes went, his mouth followed.
Tongue twisting with mine, fingers dancing over my breasts, I submitted as a wife submits to her husband. Locking my ankles at his back, taking all he would give me.
As Adam took Eve in the garden.
Hideous as he was, every bit of me burned. But not with shame as it should have. With passion when I
