“That’s right. I don’t care if it’s fucking pretend. I’ll still fuck you every night. Our neighbors will hear your screams from the window.”
She makes the most delicious little noises. Her nails dig into my shoulders hard enough to leave half-moon bruises. Gods, I want to fuck her into oblivion. I want to fuck her like an animal. I want to fuck her until she forgets every god’s name and only remembers me.
My balls draw tight. I hold back, wanting her to come first. And she’s so goddamn close. Her pussy is quaking, ready. She just needs to be sent over the edge. I move my hand between her legs and flick my fingernail against her clit while I thrust long and deep into her pussy, and that’s all it takes.
As soon as she cries out, I bury myself deep inside her one final time. I want to mark her. Even if I’m the only one who can smell my seed leaking out between her thighs. I come hard, shoving all the way to the hilt, wanting every drop of my cum planted deep inside her. It’s feral, this instinct to fill her up to the brim.
After I pull out, she lazily drapes herself over my chest, yawning as she mutters, “Immortal Iyre didn’t know what she was missing with her whole chastity thing.”
She falls back asleep, sated, using my chest as a pillow. The poor, exhausted thing. She’s been through so much. She needs her sleep, because I have so much more planned for her. Ever since I laid eyes on her, I’ve had to pretend I didn’t fantasize about her—about my master’s bride.
I stroke her short hair, misted with droplets from the waterfall’s spray.
We’ve fucked twice now with no precaution. I normally wouldn’t be so stupid, but I didn’t predict this would happen. And after the million times I’ve been kneed in the groin in the fight ring, I’ve been told it’s highly unlikely I’m capable of siring children. Still, I’ll try to be more mindful next time, but what if she falls pregnant from the two times I’ve already planted my seed in her? Staring at the cave ceiling, the answer comes to me like a rush of falling water.
Fuck me, I’d be the luckiest man to walk the earth. First to have Sabine’s sweet cunt wrapped around my cock, then to have her belly swollen with my child.
Thinking of her like that is going to get you hard again, Wolf . . .
But in seriousness, what if she does fall pregnant? What kind of a father would I be? The gods know I don’t have a role model for the job. Jocki, who forced me into the ring? Lord Berolt, who killed his own wife? Certainly not my real father, whoever the bastard was.
I bite the end of one thumb, scraping my teeth against the nail. Trying to figure out if I’ve just totally fucked over any future children, cursing them with me for a father. And a husband? How am I going to fuck that role up? We said we’d only pose as a married couple, but I made her promise it could happen one day. Was that cruel of me? To want her love, when I know I can never return it? Because as much as she consumes every last corner of my mind, I’m incapable of love. I’m too broken. Whatever I might have once called a heart is a burned-out shell. I can want her. I can crave her. I can protect her with my dying breath, but love is impossible for someone as damaged as me.
Fuck. Why did I think a bastard like me could give her the life she deserved? I have no money. No title. No talents except with my fists or a bow. She’s a goddess. Men have probably been vying for her since she was twelve years old. As awful as her life was in that convent—and as much as I want to wring those Sisters’ withered necks—maybe it was better for her. She could have been sold off as a young bride to some wrinkled old lord who’d stuff his shriveled cock down her throat each night. Her ass of a father might have done her a favor by waiting for Rian’s proposal.
Rian—he’s the type of husband she deserves. Yeah, he isn’t virtuous by any stretch of the definition. There’s blood on his hands, too. But he’d be able to give her the life she merits. Beautiful dresses, days of leisure, servants to wait on her. What do I have to offer? I can protect her, but beyond that? Rabbit stew and deer pelts?
My jaw clenches as I watch her chest rise and fall in her slumber. No—don’t think like this. She chose me; it’s not like I’m forcing her to accept life with me. She has every right to decide what she wants, and if that’s rabbit stew instead of Balaysian caviar, so be it. I’ll give her the best life I can. I’ll fight like hell to make her happy.
The crunch of grass reaches my ears. Myst is munching through the armfuls of grass I gathered for her from the valley. I tear my eyes off Sabine and go to the horse, leaning against the cave’s rocky wall.
“You didn’t want to go to Duren anyway, did you, crazy mare?”
She stops eating to nuzzle my pockets, until I pull out the hunk of cheese I’d been saving for breakfast. I hold it out in my palm. “Yeah, yeah. Here.”
I stroke her silky white hair as she enjoys the cheese. Before I left, Rian ordered the stableboys to clear out his prize stallion’s spacious stall to make room for Myst, and even bought the finest Spezian tack as a welcome gift for Sabine. He paid a fleet of seamstresses to make dresses in her measurements. He ordered the metalsmith to make a wedding ring out of Cratian gold, inset with an ancient diamond, the Titan’s Tear, so famed that it’s even mentioned in the Book of the Immortals. He even commissioned a painting of Immortal Iyre in tribute to Sabine’s patron goddess of virtue—of course, that might have been premature.
He’s wanted her for a long time. He spent a year planning for this. He entrapped her idiot father into a rigged card game to get him so deeply in debt that he’d do anything to clear the books.
I scratch my nails hard against my scalp, but the pain isn’t enough. Myst watches me steadily with her velvety black eyes as I fidget—resting a foot on the rocks behind me, pacing toward the falling water, then doubling back.
When I agreed to run away with Sabine, I knew the price. Backstabbing the only person who’s shown me an ounce of concern. It comes down to a simple toss-up, like Rian’s favorite game, the coin flip with his Golath dime. Sabine or Rian. Rian or Sabine. One of them was always going to feel my knife in their back.
And it sure as hell wasn’t going to be her.
I close my eyes, pinching the uneven bridge of my nose, broken so many times in the ring that I’ve lost most feeling in it.
“Wolf. Come on, you lug. Get up.” I can hear Rian’s voice now from many years ago. “The whorehouse on Second Street has two new girls. Twins. We can fuck them together, eh?”
I’d been finishing up a drill in the Golden Sentinels’ training grounds. The army camp was just north of Duren’s walls, pushing up against the edge of the Blackened Forest. It was strange for Rian to interrupt me while in a drill, and I was about to tell him to fuck off, when I spotted Lord Berolt’s carriage pull up near the archery range.