Sounds of relief, pain, fear, and excitement burst from me as he takes me from full to almost empty, and then full again. Each time he hits the end of me, hard, a spark of fire bursts through my abdomen, moments before warmth rolls the length of my inner walls as he draws out, thoroughly massaging every tender spot inside that secret place. Then he is inside me again.
I gasp for air.
His warm, rough hand on my hip bruises, his fingers holding my pubis, as though he can feel the area expanding with each pump of his hips. “I can’t stop. Tell me to stop, little creature. I don’t want to hurt you, but… fuck.” He pants and groans as he continues to use my body. “Use your claws on the table. I am watching. I will stop.”
My fear disappears.
Instantly, I lift my hands to either side of my head, but… I don’t dig my nails into the wood. I don’t need to. It’s painful in the most unnatural, pleasurable way and… He gives me the power to stop him, and so I don’t fear the pain.
I feel it.
Feel all the intensity of each thrust. Feel his heaving weight. The bite of his hand at my hip. The power in his thighs as he tenses.
I feel high—euphoric and crazed.
I feel free from my thoughts.
And when he starts to shudder and growl, the beast in him rears up with three punishing thrusts that buck yelps through my lips, knock reality from my vision, and show me three seconds of how powerful he can be.
He stays deep, his cock filling and pumping, filling and pumping, the pulses so precise, so powerful that pleasure bursts into my ears and seizes my thighs. And I tremble with my own release at the same time.
I mewl, lost, my body sore and heavy.
He holds my backside up with one hand.
“I'll make it easy then.” His voice is deep, strained, and deliciously satiated. “I'll erase the decades of conditioning. I will own you, body, mind, spirit. You will stay with me. Let me make myself very clear to you, little creature. You are mine. And this”—his hand presses over my womb— “child, is mine. Not The Trade's. Not The Cradle's. Mine!”
If a word could bite, the way he expels ‘mine’ would draw scarlet ribbons from flesh.
Panting, I lay lax on the table, my backside elevated by his hand.
Earlier, when I saw him again, my heart was hot and frantic for him, and I wanted to nurture that warmth. His words feed and nest in just the right place, and I realise, I want to stay with him, but… We cannot.
Can we?
“Everything we do is for The Cradle,” I say, utterly confused, completely spent.
As he slides his cock out, a choked cry burst from me. Being empty of his thick, pulsing pressure throws me into another wave of pleasure, where I’m left spinning and dizzy.
“Oh, my king…”
He lowers my backside, and muscles I didn’t know I had ache with exhaustion.
“That’s a good girl.” He brushes his palm down my spine, and I practically vibration with delight. “I will serve The Cradle. You serve me. Only me. Rest assured that you’re safe. That the men in power, the men you fear, fear me. You will never leave my side. You will never be sent away. You belong to me until the last beat of your heart.”
A trembling breath squeezes from my lungs.
“Say it, Aster. Who do you belong to?”
A happy tear slides to the table. “You, my king.”
“Forever, little creature.”
“Forever, my king.”
Chapter Three
Rome
Cairo’s message from the Half-tower burns a hole in my mind: ‘The Silk Girl is known. Protect the heir.’
It is an entire lecture.
My Silk Girl is pregnant and known. This has not happened in hundreds of years, but we move forward and take hard measures. Aster won’t always like what that means, no more privacy, eyes glued to her, eyes watching the babe grow in her womb… I don’t like it.
Up ahead, the Redwind enters through a gap in The Estate fort, a strategic vent to deter Common.
She walks a step before me along the stone path, her hood pulled up, a mask covering her fragile face, even though she is hidden by my larger body from the aggressive wind and the sly gaze of Trade personnel.
We head toward my wing.
I have a wing where I used to fuck the House Girls—though it has been inactive since the night of the carnival when a little five-foot-two Silk Girl climbed into my lap.
I have a wing for business.
And this wing.
As we approach the five-storey stone structure untouched by modern reformations, she slows her step, and I practically stop to accommodate her sweet hesitation.
Her violet eyes sweep upward, gaping at the sheer walls as she enters the dark shadow it casts with thick stone and sturdy piers. I have always liked the Romanesque architecture that characterises the majority of The Estate’s older buildings —fortress-like, domineering, defensive, a style for survival.
She removes her mask and sets it on the hallway table. From her shoulders, she slinks her hood, exposing her personalised Silk Girl dress with straight elegant lines down her lithe body. Across her upper chest, I can make out the faint rows of tiny bones beneath her skin while at her breast, the shadow of each nipple teases me. She is delicate and fine. I crack my neck from side to side, releasing some tension.
As we walk through the wing, she observes the space, the servers setting the table for three—her, Tuscany, and myself—the absurd amount of flowers, a floor-to-ceiling synthetic fire that spans the length of a soaring stone wall.
She stares at my personal space, and I…
I stare at her.
She has clawed her way into my mind, completely consuming it.
Aster… flower. A little flower that I plucked from the dirt and refuse to replant.
Nothing can be done now the heir is known, so the Silk Girl must stay by my side for her safety. That is all. Under this condition, she is most secure.
I do not trust her with any man or woman; I do not trust her with her Collective. And I will execute every being that interferes with… this. This thing between us which has no title nor law attached.
I will kill the creatures that have hurt her in the past and those who plot to do so in the future, those that glance her way with lust, bother her, force her to move, change her smile—
I growl. The rampage of thoughts thunder within me, but then she catches my eye again…
“Wow.” She reaches her tiny hands out to feel the flame hearth, humming when it radiates but doesn’t burn.
I sigh, her sweet cadence giving me breath. Her awe forces me to smile, a rarity, and one I’ll only allow to exist for her, with her.
I realise that while I relish the crimson slashes of death on my calloused hands, the Redwind carving through the skin of Common—war—sharing quiet moments with her might be equally as pleasurable.
“Your wing, my king.” She spins to face me, and I try not to let her see the effect she has, flattening my smile. “It looks just like you. If you were a building.”
“What an odd thing to say.”
A coy smile bunches her cheeks. “I know.”
“I want to hear more.”
She blinks. “More of what?”
“Of your mind.”
I stride to her and cup her face, holding her tiny Common head in my hands, lifting her chin so her eyes peer through fluttering, black lashes to meet my gaze.