Deeper …
Pulling my fingers out, I paint slick circles around my swollen clit, bowing my spine so I can look down at myself.
Watch myself.
I thrum that tender nub of nerves, releasing short guttural groans. Sweat prickles the back of my neck, my hips rocking—chasing the warm, thrumming pleasure. Clenching nothing.
Wanting him.
I peek up, my smile sharpening at the severe outline of his swollen cock that makes me throb with a fiercer ache. At the vein popping in his temple, the tendons in his neck stretched as he watches me with feral precision.
“Why the long face?”
“Any lost opportunity to worship you is a tragedy.”
Well.
Another slick swirl. Another languid dip that stokes me full of clamping pleasure. “What would you do if I let you pass?”
“Kneel between your legs and stuff my face between your thighs,” he growls instantly, as if the words were already poised behind his pinched lips. “Eat you until your hips are jerking and you’re clenching around my tongue.”
I picture it.
Ache for it.
Another teasing swirl around that tender nub of nerves, my hips tiding toward him with each jerking thrust, my entire body heating.
I quicken the strum, legs widening.
Mind muddying.
“Then what?” I plead, every cell in my body charged, verging on the precipice …
“I’d flip you. Slip a pillow beneath your hips so your ass is in the air. Fill you with my fingers while my thumb threatens to push into you from behind.” My shoulder shifts up and down as I work myself to the illusion. “Once you’re so wound up your entire body’s shuddering, I’d spread you, marvel you, then split you like an egg.”
I snap, chin tucking close to my chest, every muscle in my center pulsing with violent waves of rapture, my harsh moans tackling him from afar. I ride my fingers with deep, desperate thrusts—every muscle tight and tenuous, then turning loose and long as the pleasure begins to ebb.
A laugh bubbles up my throat, and I shake my head, looking at him from beneath a single raised brow, hand threading up to sweep my hair back off my face. “That was good,” I say, spreading myself so he can see the residue of my release.
His eyes are black, jaw gritted, veins embossed all over his bulging muscles.
He’s never looked so big. So severe.
So heartachingly beautiful.
Too bad he’s in love with a death wish.
He swallows, eyes on my core. “You’re not done, Moonbeam. You’re ripe.”
Chuffing, I plant both feet on the ground, the hem of my shift slipping into place around my thighs. I whisper a softening word to Clode, then stand, collect my bowl of fruit, and toss a berry into my mouth.
Sweet nectar bursts across my tongue.
“There are no more white flags with me, My King.” I sway toward him, stepping into his smoldering atmosphere. “They’re all used up.”
I reach him, planting my hand on his chest, his tense muscles twitching beneath my touch as I sully him with my scent.
“Good to know,” he grinds out, every bit a shadow-bathed beast in his prime. “I’ll burn mine, shall I?”
“Please do.” I toss another berry in my mouth and flash him a smile. “Thanks for the fruit. It’s really, really good.”
I leave the room without looking back.
King Ostern waved his sons and daughter off this aurora rise. We both watched them disappear into the distance before two of his guards snapped iron cuffs around my wrists.
I was shoved into a bland room, forced into a chair. The King crouched before me, looking like he wanted to slaughter me.
He told me my behavior was unbecoming of a future queen. That he’d seen the way Kaan watched me. Acted around me.
That he knew we were “fucking.”
He told me Kaan is not fit to rule a kingdom because he can only wield two elemental songs. That he is not, and never will be, worthy of a crown.
I spat in his face. Told him I’d choose my own king or I would not bind at all.
That I would give myself to the Creators.
He sucked all the air from my lungs and made me feel like my ribs were caving, then told me that he’d noticed how friendly I am with Veya. That if I didn’t bind with Tyroth, he’d rid the world of the little bitch who took his bound. That he’d inform the twins of Kaan’s transgressions, and the three of them would hunt him down, then saw off his head. That he wouldn’t stand a chance.
I’ve never felt fear so real.
He said that if I left the next rise to prepare for the binding ceremony, he’d offer Slátra safe passage back to Arithia. Alternatively, he’d leave her hutch unguarded as I’m dragged across the plains, and I’d be forced to watch her kill herself trying to follow me home.
Then he got real close and looked at me like he could see straight through my skull. Told me he’d been informed that my bleeding is late—something I hadn’t considered until that very moment.
Hadn’t even realized.
He said this is the only way my youngling will have a chance at life. That if Tyroth believes he sired the small seed apparently growing in my belly, all will be well. Otherwise, there will be nowhere Kaan and I can hide where they won’t find us. They’ll hunt us down for this filthy dishonor we’ve bestowed upon our families.
I’ve decided this is the trade-off for finding such a great love like Mah and Pah’s. That mine, too, must end in tragedy, bearing the curse of my family name.
More fire smudges across my abdomen—an incinerating trail that seeps through my flesh, muscle, and bone, filling my lungs with the acrid smell of burning meat.
I jolt against the cold stone bench, muscles spasming.
Shackles biting.
Another scream threatens to burst past my gritted teeth, but I refuse to release it, shaking my head again and again while he paints … paints … paints me in bubbled, blistering welts.
“I know it hurts …” The orange flame tethered to the tip of the Scavenger King’s finger glints off his sooty eyes. “But pain hardens you, Fire Lark. It makes you so exhilarating to watch in the pits, and my coffers love it.” He moves about me in a flutter of frayed fabric, the outline of his bony crown jutting from his head like mangled fingers. “Just remember—you wouldn’t be so marvelous without this. Without me.”
I’ve heard the same words more times than I know the numbers to count. But what makes him so special that he gets to make me hurt, but I don’t get to do the same to him?
Fallon’s been teaching me many things—big words and big world things that are hard to grapple—and the more I learn, the less this makes sense. The more I want to get my hands around his neck and make it crack.
I think I’d like that. Then Fallon and I could escape. She could finally show me the moons—the real ones. Not the ones we draw on our ceiling.
She could also show me the colorful clouds she’s always talking about.
The Scavenger King whispers his flame into a ball he spreads down my leg, searing me all the way to the tips of my toes. My muscles spasm as I chew on a scream, gaze speared through the cleft in the ceiling to where his beast peers down from the shadows—always watching.
Always rumbling.
I picture my pain pouring into that same cleft, disappearing. Draining away before it gets a chance to take root as I hum a tune in my head. A slow, peaceful song that’s been with me since the start.
“Sometime soon, I’ll wear my bronze crown and you won’t ever have to hurt again. I’ll be on my rightful throne, and you’ll be by my side, enjoying the spoils of your battles.”
More fire is smeared down my shin, and I become deadly certain of one thing:
I don’t want to sit by his side. Not now.
Not ever.
“Look at me,” he growls, gripping my jaw and turning my head.
I stare into ebony eyes, the scorch of pain making it hard to focus, my gaze sharpening.
Smudging.
Sharpening again.