Gleam (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 3)

by Raven Kennedy

  “Oh!” My hands claw into the furs, and my knees try to snap together again, but since one is draped over Slade’s shoulder, they can’t. His tongue drags up again, tasting my wetness, and I can’t help but feel overwhelmed. This is wicked and intimate, and I don’t know if—

  “Relax,” he commands again, voice vibrating against my center.

  I’m honestly not sure if I can, but then, his mouth descends on my clit again, and I buckle. He goes at it like he knows exactly what I need to make all my thoughts disperse. With his tongue lapping, flicking, and swirling, I forget to think, forget to be unsure, and I just start to feel. And when he presses a finger into my opening and thrusts it inside of me, I let go of the insecurities and the unknown, and I finally just melt into the sensations.

  “Good girl,” he growls against me, masculine pride jutting through his voice. “Your taste is my new favorite flavor. I want you on my tongue every night.”

  His dirty words are followed immediately by his mouth fastening onto my clit again. And then...he ravages me.

  Slade licks and sucks, and my body comes alive with bliss. Squeezing my eyes shut, I let go beneath his devouring devotion. It’s like he’s worshipping my body, kneeling in supplication with earnest faith in the skill of his divinely decadent tongue. His hand stays braced on my hip to keep me in place, while the other pushes his finger in and out, dragging with my slick. Everything else blacks out as he works me up a high peak, even as his hand pins me down, demanding my pleasure.

  Two of my ribbons delve into his hair, twisting and tugging, keeping him right there, while my hands fist more and more of the furs, my spine arcing up.

  “Don’t stop, don’t stop.” I squirm against his mouth, my scattered thoughts of need bursting through my mind one after another.

  When he thrusts his finger in, he curls it this time, hitting a spot against me that makes me see stars. “Slade!”

  “Come, baby,” he purrs with dark decadence. “I want you to come with my tongue lapping at your clit and my finger in your sweet cunt.”

  “Oh goddess...” I groan, feeling like a bubble about to pop.

  His digit thrusts into me like a prelude of what’s to come, and when he drags the flat of his tongue against my clit one more time, I fall into bliss.

  I cry out, without any idea of what I say or what noises I make. I’m too lost in the gust that sweeps over me, tossing and turning, pushing me deeper into a spiral of pleasure.

  I’m still riding the waves of its invisible tempest when I feel Slade rise up, knees bracing, and then his cock pushes inside of me an inch.

  My eyes pop open, and I look down, biting my lip. “More,” I pant, needing it, needing to feel that connection with him. Needing to make him feel as good as I just did.

  His lips twitch, but his black eyes flare. “Don’t be greedy, Goldfinch. Just take what I give you.”

  Heat coils in my belly, even as I raise an indignant brow. “Then give me more,” I retort.

  With a widening smirk, he leans down and nips at my lips. “Always so impatient.”

  Hooking my legs around his ass, I try to pull him deeper, but he just chuckles and shakes his head and then moves out of me before dipping back in with the same shallow thrust. “I should make you writhe and beg for hours.”

  I blink, horrified. “No, you absolutely should not.”

  The sexy-as-sin smile he flashes me behind his dark stubble would make me melt if I weren’t growing increasingly impatient. He eases out and pushes in again, only going another inch deeper.

  “Slade.”

  “Yes, Auren?” he croons teasingly.

  That’s it.

  I bring up my ribbons from my left side and wrap them around his body, and before he can so much as tense, I use their strength to flip us over so that I’m on top. The second I’m in control and straddling his body, I sink down on him all the way, making him hiss out a breath.

  My head tosses back with a gasp. “Yes...”

  He reaches up to grip my waist, fingers digging into my skin. “Look at my wanton female riding my cock,” he says, tone trimmed with pleased arrogance. “It’s sexy to see you take what you want.”

  I barely hear his words, too caught up in lifting myself over him. One of his hands comes up to stroke over my breast, thumb dragging over my nipple, making it go hard and stiff against his touch.

  “Harder, baby. Fuck yourself on me harder,” he demands. He uses his other hand to help bring me up and down over his cock, making my body start climbing that pinnacle again.

  I let my palms graze against his muscled abs before I brace my hands against his bare chest, using it for better leverage. I do exactly what he said, fucking myself on him hard and fast, while he continues to help lift my body over his thick length.

  “Give me your eyes, Auren,” he commands.

  When I don’t listen, he sits us both up, dragging me impossibly deeper as I sit in his lap, my legs shifting to wrap around his waist. His hips jut up into me, stealing a groan from my chest.

  “That’s right. Look at me with those gorgeous golden eyes of yours. I want them on me when your perfect pussy wrings out every drop of my cum.”

  A needy noise leaves my throat, his filthy words their very own aphrodisiac that heightens my desire.

  Hands trace down my spine, his touch feathering over the base of each ribbon, right where they grow from my back. His fingers pluck them lightly like a harp, making my body sing, but only he can hear its song. Chills scatter down my skin, ribbons shuddering with ecstasy.

  Bracing my arms on his shoulders, I bend my elbows so my hands can dig into his soft hair. I’m so overwhelmed with needy fervor and the intensity of our connection that my eyes burn with it.

  Both of his hands come back to my waist, biceps bulging. This time when he thrusts his hips up, he goes so deep that it’s like he’s rooted inside of me, causing my pleasure to sprout up higher.

  And I want more, I want this.

  Using my thighs, I start bucking on top of him as fast as I can, spine undulating, hips grinding, my swollen clit being pressed against him every time I slam down.

  “Fuck…” Slade grits out, and the curse from his lips just spurs me on to go faster, and then I’m nearly there, so close...

  “Slade!”

  “Come again, just like this,” he growls. “I want your pussy to choke my cock, Auren.”

  My whimper slips out from the filth of his words, and I feel myself become impossibly wetter, my core going tight. My body purrs for him, back arching, hips in his grip, pussy clamping down around him. Our gazes fasten, gold and black anchored together like ships to the sea.

  “That’s it, Goldfinch,” he purrs.

  Utter rapture overtakes me.

  My orgasm washes over me like crashing waves until I become submerged entirely. I cry out, nails scraping down his skin as my entire body seems to clamp down around him.

  “Fucking yes…” He roars in my ear, burying himself deep, stretching me around him. He groans out my name like a rugged prayer as he comes, while the last of my rippling orgasm laps over me in lingering licks.

  I’m floating in the depths he brought me, basking in the weightlessness of it all, in awe of the force of our joining. As I shudder and pant against him, I let my forehead rest against his. We sink against each other, breaths shallow, feelings deep, wading in waters that are completely uncharted.

  So this is how it can be with the right person.

  All my life, I thought sex was just...sex. A commodity to be sold, a job to perform. With Midas, sex was the only time he’d give me the touch I so desperately craved, a way for me to make him love me. But I never felt anything like this before. No one ever gave me such pleasure or made me feel so treasured, so sexy, so wanted.

  I watch him with a sweep of sated awe, his aura languid, flowing from his shoulders to drip across mine like a cool stream. We breathe together, chests rising and falling
in tandem. My ribbons lazily stroke up his back, playing with the spikes that are once more protruding from his spine, and I hum in pure happiness.

  Once again, this is a moment I never want to end.

  But I know it has to.

  As if he can see it in my face, Slade lifts his forehead from mine, eyes searching my expression.

  “We should talk,” I tell him, my voice filled with regret, even as it still carries a husky note to it. Those three words break the spell we’re in, and then it’s not simple anymore. It’s not just him and me.

  All too soon, we’re breaking apart, bodies separating, my ribbons drooping like they’re mourning the loss of him. I don’t blame them. All I want to do is curl up beside him and fall asleep in his arms, but we don’t have that luxury. I don’t know if we ever will, and that thought hurts my heart.

  Maybe these stolen moments of a forbidden romance are all we’ll ever get. Moments where we forget about the outside, but the outside doesn’t forget about us. The world has a way of blowing past your bubble, poking and prodding until evaded reality pops its way in.

  So, as much as I want to keep on ignoring, keep on melting into him, I don’t. If I want him, if I want me, it’s time to face those harsh realities, because there is no future with Slade if I don’t fight for it.

  Which is why I clean up and get dressed in heavy silence, letting every concern and thought and worry rush back in as violently as churned rapids from the falls.

  Slade watches me from his pallet, pants on, shirt off, spikes out, an army commander waiting for a problem he can attack.

  “Tell me.”

  Not a command. He says it in a way that lets me know without a shadow of a doubt that he’s here as my ally. That he’s not just my lover, but someone I can depend on, can trust, and that’s what gives me the strength to finally unburden myself and let my tongue unravel from the secret knots that have tied up my throat.

  “Midas has him,” I say, and the weight is like a boulder dropped from my hunched shoulders. “He has Digby.”

  Chapter 37

  AUREN

  I tell Slade everything.

  About Digby, about how he went missing before the attack of the Red Raids and how I’d thought he was dead. Dead just like Sail.

  I tell him about Rissa too, our plans to escape that keep changing, from trying to find a secret passage to deciding to leave during the ball and take Digby with us.

  After I go over everything with him, he finishes getting dressed and brings me to the meeting tent where his Wrath are already waiting, and he has me relay everything to them too.

  When I’m done, Judd exchanges a look with Osrik, running a hand over his yellow hair thoughtfully before he says, “It’s possible Midas doesn’t actually have Digby.”

  “It’s definitely possible that he’s lying,” I agree. “But...I can’t take that chance. I need to find him.”

  “How much of the castle have you searched so far?” Osrik asks from across the table. We’re in the same positioning that we were back when I thought I was a prisoner in their army, only this time, Slade is sitting next to me.

  “Not much,” I admit. “The few times I’ve been able to look around, I’ve had to stick to the places that weren’t guarded. There’s an antechamber that connects a bunch of passages, one of which goes to the library, but when I searched the rest, they didn’t lead me any closer to finding Digby.”

  Everyone looks at Lu, and she shakes her head. “I’ve checked them. She’s right.”

  Osrik crosses his thick arms in front of him, tongue flicking his lip piercing as he looks at Slade. “He’s gotta be in the dungeons.”

  “That was my thought as well,” he replies.

  Judd tilts his head at Lu. “You been down there yet?”

  “No,” she says. “I’ve been keeping to the top passages of the castle, mostly familiarizing myself so that I can get a handle on everything in case Midas tries to off Prince Niven. My time has been busy with making sure he doesn’t end up dead.”

  I blink in surprise. “You’ve been guarding the prince?”

  She shrugs, her leathers crinkling along her shoulder. “The last thing we want is for the little twit to be killed off and Midas have an official hold on Fifth Kingdom.”

  That makes sense, considering I wouldn’t put it past Midas for a second. “What about Queen Kaila? Do you think she’s in danger?”

  The Wrath look contemplative, but it’s Slade who answers. “We aren’t sure. Midas always has plans, but I don’t think he intends to assassinate her. Even if he tried to make it look like an accident, there would be whispers. She is much loved in her kingdom. I doubt it could happen without repercussions.”

  I wish I could help and say that I knew what Midas’s plans for Queen Kaila are, but I have no clue.

  My gaze goes back to Lu. “Do you think you can find him? Digby, I mean?”

  “If he’s in the castle, I can find him,” she replies with certainty, her brown eyes full of promise before flicking over. “Rip?”

  Slade nods. “Yeah, go ahead and pause your watch on Prince Niven and focus on finding the dungeons to search for Digby there.”

  “What about the prince?” she asks.

  He tilts his head in thought. “So far, no move has been made against him, but I still want him watched. Judd, can you take over?”

  The man nods. “I got it. I’m no Lu, but once I’m in, I can keep an eye on him.”

  I should probably feel guilty that I’m messing up their plans and taking Lu away from watching over the prince, but I can’t bring myself to. Just the sliver of a chance that she could actually find Digby and get him out makes my chest go tight with hope, a band around my ribs that binds every breath.

  “Alright, I’ll start searching for Digby later tonight. Tired guards are easier to work my magic on,” she explains.

  “You can get started after you get Auren safely back into her rooms,” Slade tells her, and she nods in reply.

  Osrik scratches his shaggy brown beard. “How about this saddle, Rissa?” he says. “Is she trustworthy?”

  I hesitate before answering. “She’s not untrustworthy,” I say carefully. “But...”

  “But if you didn’t follow through on your end of the deal, she’d sell you out,” Slade finishes for me.

  “Yes, but she warned me she would.”

  Osrik snorts. “Well, at least she’s honest.”

  “I don’t begrudge her for it,” I tell him. “The life of a woman saddle isn’t easy. She has to do what’s best for her.”

  Judd blinks at me. “Gildy. Come on. You can’t afford to be naive here. She might be silent for now, but what happens if she does make it out of here and then runs out of money? She’s going to squawk your secret to whoever will buy it. Or maybe she won’t even get that far. Perhaps she’ll get caught before she can leave Ranhold, and she’ll spill it then,” he points out. “She’s a liability.”

  “She’s a person,” I reply, a sense of protectiveness rising up. “And she gave me her word.”

  Slade looks at me, his spiked brow furrowed. “Auren, Judd has a point.”

  My spine stiffens. “Don’t,” I say with a shake of my head. “Don’t even suggest—”

  “We should kill her,” Osrik butts in gruffly, as if he’s not at all bothered by the suggestion to kill an innocent woman.

  “Don’t touch her,” I snap, on my feet before I even realize I’ve stood up. “She’s done nothing wrong.”

  “Yet,” Osrik drawls.

  Both of my lips press together in a hard line. I look to Lu, hoping for another female advocate on my side, but even she looks dubious.

  “Look, I get that this isn’t the best situation, but Rissa doesn’t know the whole truth,” I tell them. “I let her come to her own conclusions when she saw me turn the Red Raids captain solid gold. She thinks that Midas’s power fed into me when he gold-touched me.”

 
; “Yes, but that’s dangerous enough,” Judd puts in.

  I shake my head, growing more and more nervous that they’ll take this out of my hands and do something unforgivable. “If we kill her for knowing, we’re no better than Midas. It’s what he would do if he found out Rissa knew,” I argue, my conviction bleeding through my throat to coat my words. “She’s done nothing wrong. The only thing she’s guilty of is being in the same room when I gold-touched Captain Fane. She doesn’t deserve to be killed because of that.”

  Osrik opens his mouth to argue again, but a shake of Slade’s head has him snapping it shut, a glower lowering his heavy brow.

  I turn to look at Slade. “You won’t hurt her. Promise me.”

  His hesitancy has my tension rising and my ribbons ruffling out behind me, but he tips his head. “I give you my word. In fact, I’ll even extend an offer to her and to the other saddle she wants to escape with.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When we leave, both women can come with us. It’ll be grueling travel, but they’ll be safe. It’s not completely selfless, of course,” he explains. “It would also mean that I could keep an eye on her and ensure she didn’t speak your secret.”

  My lips part in surprise at the offer, and I lower myself back down on my seat. “You’d let Rissa and Polly go with you?”

  “Go with us,” he corrects, black eyes boring into mine. “If you think I’m leaving without you, you’re out of your damned mind.”

  A soft smile tilts my lips, and I have to stop myself from reaching up to smooth away the frown puckering his brow. His shoulders have gone stiff, as if he’s anticipating me telling him I’m not leaving.

  “I’m ready to leave as soon as we find Digby.”

  Relief washes over his expression. Beneath the table, his hand comes down to rest against my thigh, warmth spreading from his comforting touch. “Good.”

  “It has to be secret,” I warn him. “Midas can’t know.”

  “Midas can go fuck himself,” he retorts hotly.

  This male.