by S. K Munt
‘Because I’m a seventeen year old girl!’ I cried. ‘One who didn’t think she’d ever hold either of your interests for more than a few months at a time! That’s what I’ve been trained to believe, remember? That I’m nothing, and that sooner or later, I must step aside and allow the actual love of my lover’s life to give you all of the things that I cannot! And you want to talk about sharing affections, your highness?’ I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘Are you forgetting that I know exactly how you feel right now? That I’ve been living with it since last June?’
But Kohén pounded both of his fists into the chaise beside my head, his eyes blackening again. ‘No you haven’t! You’ve been dealing with me being physically unfaithful to you, but you don’t have an inkling of what it’s like to know that the person you have built your hopes and dreams around might be…’ his voice cracked and his head bowed, and I felt one of his tears fall onto my chest. ‘Might be building their dreams around someone else...’
My heart twisted as though he’d run me through with a knife, and even though I’d thought that I’d prepared myself for how Kohén would react when he found out about Kohl and I- even though I’d warned Kohl that it would be devastating- nothing brought the severity of the damage that we’d caused to light quite the way that that solitary tear did.
‘I’m sorry…’ I whispered brokenly, and I meant it. ‘But Kohén… this isn’t going to fix anything, okay?’ I caught his tear-streaked face and lifted it so that I could regard him from my supine position. ‘If you hold me to this- I’ll hate you forever.’
‘No…’ Kohén wrapped one hand around the back of my head, pulling my face to his, and used the other to pull himself up further, so that he was hovering above me. ‘No, you won’t Larkin- I won’t allow it.’ He kissed me, catching my sob with his lips, and then he was reaching between our bodies and steering himself into my still-aching sex. ‘I meant it when I said that you matter more to me than the crown does…’ he groaned the end of that sentence as he penetrated me shallowly, and my gasp of pain was once again muffled by his mouth. ‘And that you’d never know another day of loneliness or sorrow again, and I meant it.’ He rocked, breeching me further and I sucked in a breath and twisted my face away but he only ducked his head and began caressing my breasts with his lips again- lips that were now tingling in an unnatural way that my body could not ignore.
Oh hell no! Not the Nephilim thing! Is this what Kelia was talking about when she said that he can hum? Bastard!
‘Ahh! You’re so tight!’ he gasped, and when his cock echoed the humming of his mouth, my eyes flew open in shock. It didn’t hurt any less, but the subtle vibration was distracting me from the pain. ‘Tight, wet- and mine!’ Kohén chased my mouth again, suckling on my lower lip as he arched his hips and sank more deeply into me, and my cry of surprise allowed him access. Suddenly, his tongue was caressing mine, and I was too stunned to do anything about it but thrash my mouth and hips away from his, which only served to enhance his experience from all that I could tell.
‘Stop!’ I wheedled when he began to quicken his rhythm. ‘Kohén… oh!’ I threw back my head when he withdrew from me and then gently pressed in again, sending a rush of warmth through my still-slick sex. ‘You can’t do this!’
But Kohén wrapped my hair around his fist and then jerked on it, lifting me off the velvet until we were face to face- holding me bent like that while he pulled out again tauntingly-slowly. ‘Actually, I’m the crowned prince of Arcadia, and my brother is a treasonous, duplicitous and manipulative piece of filth-’ He released my hair and looped his arm around my back, supporting my weight while keeping me bent to his will. ‘I’ll do what I want! And if you want him to live- to go free this Sunday and accept Atticus’s generous offer- you’ll not only allow me to do this- but you’ll beg me to, and convince him that you’re here because you love me, and not because you have to be!’
My eyes widened, gobsmacked that he honestly intended to hold Kohl’s life hostage with mine. And not just my life, but my truth too! I shook my head. ‘No, Kohén! Do what you will to me- I’m the one with the contract. But leave him out of this! I already told you- I ended things with him last night, and he accepted that! He loves you, okay? He never intended to touch me while I belonged to you! Neither of us did!’
Kohén’s eyebrows drew together. ‘And if his intentions alone were all that was bothering me, I’d feel a hell of a lot better, baby,’ he whispered- and then rocked his hips- impaling me with one sudden movement that first made me cry out, and then made the walls of my sex clench around him. ‘But I’ve got other issues too…’ Kohén breathed, though he was breathing much more heavily now than before. ‘He could have told me that he’d developed feelings for you, and I would have understood and been on guard, but no- he had to hide it from me, which not only put up a wall between you and I, but he and I. Then, you obviously confessed to him that you’d made that sickening deal with Karol, and instead of coming to me like he ought to have, he kept that secret from me too!’
I gaped at him, though it was getting harder to concentrate now that Kohén was sliding in and out of me with more ease and less resistance. ‘That wasn’t his secret to share!’ I panted.
‘Nor was it his secret to keep!’ Kohén snapped, driving into me harder this time, and to my complete horror- something inside me pulsed again, squeezing his shaft in reflex. ‘What Karol planned was also treason!’ he cried. ‘It was underhanded too, and morally- fuck, you’re getting so wet!’ I moaned, well aware of that fact, and suddenly we were falling back and his knees were forcing my thighs to bend up while his hands reached beneath me and cupped my shoulders, jerking me down to meet every roll of his hips.
I can’t be enjoying this! I just can’t! No, I’m not ! This isn’t me- this is that girl from the mirror again!
‘All he had to do-’ Kohén gasped, sitting taller so that he towered over me, ‘was confess it to me, and I could have intervened! And if I’d known how much you cared for Lindy and her family, I would have found a way to keep them safe too!’ He shifted his hands again, cupping my breasts and supporting them while he rhythmically began to fuck me, and heaven help me, but I was finding it harder and harder to hang onto the pain and fend off the ecstasy. Not only was he beginning to feel incredible inside me and stoking some unseen fire low in my belly, but I hadn’t been lying when I’d said that he was the most beautiful of the two, and watching his abdominals flex and roll while he rocked into me and out again was a poetic sight, if ever I’d seen one. He moved with the grace of a dancer- with the confidence of a man who knew exactly what he was doing, and the visual stimuli of his tawny skin and glowing gaze and the way that he kept dragging his perfect teeth over his lush, red lower lip was stuffing even more kindling into the coals that his cock was repeatedly striking- and sparking. ‘You would never have had to lie to me, and we would never have drifted apart as we have!’ he swallowed. ‘But he betrayed me just so that he could take advantage of the fact that you’d be ineligible for me in every way once Karol had had you, and today when I confronted him about all of this- not only did he refuse to apologise, but he drew a sword on me- my sword! One I loaned him, trying to be…’ he grunted, reached around me and jerked me up so that I was suddenly straddling his hips. ‘Fuck wasting another second talking about him! This is OUR moment Larkin- this is our destiny! He’s challenged me once regarding your virtue, and now that he’s been freed and is probably convinced that you were going to choose him, he’ll challenge me again!’ Kohén grasped my hips and lifted me off him so that he could rock up into me and everything inside me began to quicken and throb. I wanted to be tough or untouchable- to fight him off or scream him down, but like a marionette on a string, I submitted to his movements, knowing only that until we’d both found satisfaction, there would be no reasoning with one another- no hope for logic to best over passion. ‘So you either agree to dissuade him by convincing him that you’re mine and always have been- or I’ll accept the challenge
and I think we both know that his cockiness is going to get him kill- oh fuck! Fuck Larkin, you’re so beautiful! You feel exactly like I thought you would, only better!’ he caught my hair again and dragged my face down to his, mauling my mouth while he relentlessly brought me to the precipice of yet another climax. I was partly horrified by the way my body was adjusting to him, but mostly awestruck to finally understand what Kohén had wanted from me- to feel what a man and woman in love and lust were supposed to feel. I’d always been so different to other girls, and I suppose I’d assumed that when it came to sex, I’d despise that too, and yet… well, I’d heard most of the girls’ virginity stories, and not one of them had said that it had been anything like this. They’d said it was painful, messy, confusing and a little shocking, and I’d certainly experienced all of that- but none of them had said that their eyes had rolled back into their head and that their insides had liquefied, the way that mine were! ‘Say you’re mine!’ he begged, dazzling me with his strength by holding me up like that while pulling me down and still managed to move freely and perfectly inside me. ‘Say you’ll live… or know that he’ll die!’
I clutched at his jaw, but I wasn’t sure if I was fighting him off, or trying to get closer. ‘Kohén… please…’ but my words were barely audible. I wanted to say that I needed time- that I wanted to discuss this- or kill him myself- once he’d gotten what he needed from me, but something warm and wanton was unravelling inside me and I found it damn near impossible to do anything with my mouth, but caress his. ‘I-’
‘He’s watching!’ Kohén hissed, and I stiffened immediately. I tried to wrench my face to look toward the poolroom door, but Kohén’s grip was like a vice and his eyes were burning with a neon blue warning. ‘You scare him off, or I do, my love,’ he whispered, and I swallowed when I felt his grip relent. ‘I don’t want to give you a golden brand, now that I know it’ll drive you over the tidal falls even at the expense of Kohl’s life, so I swear that I won’t if you give me reason to believe here and now, that you’ll fight as hard for us from hereon out, as I will.’ He sighed. ‘But if you fail, and if I can’t trust that anything- short of a golden brand will keep you safe from him, or from running to Karol, then, well… I guess I’ll just have to kill them both, hmm?’
My sinuses were stinging, warning me that I was about to cry again, and yet it wasn’t all misery that had my eyes welling like that- but release. Resignation. Regret and, well… relief. The fight was over- the war was lost and now I had nothing to fear, because the worst had already happened. It was both gut-wrenchingly horrific, and liberating- never again would I have to worry about going to Karol, because Kohén was never going to release me. Never again would the ‘What ifs’ plague me, because my life was officially out of my hands. Never again would I have to worry about being a wicked influence on the Barachiel family, because Kohén was going to make sure that I was accessible to him and him alone.
And never again would I have to think of what could be with Kohl- because if Kohl was seriously standing there, watching this instead of decapitating my attacker the way that I KNEW, without a doubt, that Kohén would have avenged me- then it was plain that I had the right prince in my arms. Not a fairytale prince- no not by any means- but I wasn’t a princess either… I was a wicked whore, and this was exactly where I belonged- with an equally wicked master.
With my Rhett. Well… until I found a way to die and make it look like an accident, anyway.
I twisted to look at Kohl, and sure enough there he was- not breaking through the doors, but standing, (in Kohén’s now sodden clothes) at the side of the pool and staring at me, open mouthed and wide-eyed.
‘Larkin…?’ he whispered, disbelief colouring his tone to discover me not under Kohén or strapped down- but mounting him. His face was pale, his eyes were anguished- but his pants were clinging to the proof that he was as much of a deviant as his other two brothers were, and that the sight of me like this had excited him.
My lip curled, partially because I did so on purpose, but also because I couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to touch himself over my undoing the moment that he was alone. ‘Do you mind?’ I snapped, throwing my arms around Kohén’s shoulders and rocking against him intentionally for the first time. The boy beneath me grunted, and the boy before me pressed his hand to his forehead in stupefaction. ‘This is sort of a private moment, you know?’
‘Wh-what?’ Kohl had his sword in one hand, and Kohén’s crown in the other. ‘Oh my God, Larkin! What’s come over you? How much have you had to-’
‘She said leave!’ Kohén snarled, reclining back on his hands and thrusting up into me. I gasped, and the prince beneath me grinned up at me with that wicked grin of his. ‘Well, either leave or pull up a seat and shut the hell up- because Larkin here is about to come, and I won’t have your ruining one more second of our life together now that it’s finally begun!’
Oh Kohl, I’m so sorry! But he’s right- you don’t belong in this horror story, but with an angel, and I’m not her!
I leaned forward and pressed my face into the curve of Kohén’s neck to hide my grimace, but then there was a slushing sound followed by a clang. Kohén flinched, and when I jerked up again, I saw his crown rolling across the floor.
‘To the devil with you!’ Kohl snapped and turned away, but not before I saw his tears spill over. ‘Both of you!’ Then there was a splash, and I knew that Kohl was swimming out of the poolroom the way he’d come- through the northernmost courtyard, between us and the now practically abandoned harem.
And it would feel like a ghost town for me. Emmerly was gone, Lette was gone, Elfin was gone and soon enough, Kelia would be gone too, leaving me with Elijah and Karol’s whores for company. Tears welled in my eyes again but then something cold was sliding around my neck and my fingers flew to it, half-expecting to find some sort of medieval cuff being fixed into place, but discovering something colder, and far more valuable latched there instead.
Oh… no!
In Kohén’s hand, was the black velvet bag that he’d dropped earlier, and around my throat, I knew, was Pacifica’s treasure- and my new collar. ‘A gift, for my darling,’ he whispered, wrapping his arms around me and rolling me onto my back before lifting my knee once more. ‘And a reminder that I can, and will-’ he pause to kiss the inside of my knee as he caressed my rump, ‘-make all of your dreams come true.’
And then he was making love to me again, and after only a few beats, there was nothing that I could do to stop him, discourage him or keep my own visceral responses under control. He didn’t thrust into me as he had before though, but rolled his hips, first feeding me his length and then grinding his pelvis against mine, hitting a special place inside me and then at the apex of my sex over and over again, generating the kind of friction that made me float higher and higher out of my body until my muscles seized up around him, and refused to relax.
‘Oh…!’ I dug my heel into his ass, and he gripped the bed-head with his other hand and bellowed out a: ‘Yes!’ as he thrust into me hard enough to make the bed legs scrape against the floors- detonating my clit with one perfect smack of his flesh against mine.
‘Oh! Oh...OH!’ my hips began to shake as the ineffable pleasure washed over me in waves that I had to ride to the end. ‘Oh, Kohén… OH!’
‘Yes! Oh, you look so… you feel so… MINE!’ Kohén cried, dropping his weight onto me heavily and wrapping his arms around my neck and shoulders in order to lift me up to his kisses as he forced my hips down with his suddenly relentless thrusting. ‘I love you!’ he gasped. Not an inch separated my body from his: our legs were looped around one another’s and his tongue was tangled around mine as my fingers pulled at his hair and dug into the firm rise of his ass, urging him closer and closer still, and when I started convulsing again, only this time from the inside out with a quickening of muscle flexes around him, I heard him let out a bellow and suddenly, an incandescent blue light flashed, coming from every point where he was inside me and
staining the mist around us periwinkle.
‘Mine!’ he cried to the ceiling, before dropping his chin to show me how his eyes has transformed from merely blue, to glacier-blue- to jewels. ‘My girl! My love! My beautiful, angelic little temptress- give me your ecstasy!’
‘Oh, Kohén YES!’ I couldn’t have kept that exclamation in if I’d tried either, and a shudder went through him and then suddenly he was fucking me with abandon, pumping load after load of hot, thick and silken semen into my palpitating core and crying out as though he were being pummelled, not I. ‘Oh!’
My climax was so intense that it rattled my bones but he clamped his body around mine and drove on and on until we heard the thunder crack outside. I knew it was Kohl, and Kohén did too, but then my knee was over his sweaty shoulder and he was snarling like a rabid animal as he pushed into me again, deeper and deeper, barely retreating, only straining to stuff every inch of himself inside me. He kissed me ardently as he sobbed his gratitude to god for me and I cried too, and our kisses tasted as salty as they had that night in Pacifica when he’d taken me in the Caldera- when my free will truly had bent to his.
I don’t know how long we went on like that- rolling in a sweaty tangle of limbs and devouring one another with every sense that we had as we and the fog and the music became one entity, but eventually, a stampede of feet broke through our lustful haze. Kohén pushed off me, trembling all over and flushed and together, we listened to the sound of hundreds of Eden’s guests scrambling through the corridors from every entry point of the castle, as they ran inside to seek shelter from the rain that was suddenly pounding onto the roof. They ran by our door too, coming from one of the staff access entryways down near the boiler room, no doubt, and I turned away, trying to hide my overheated and humiliated face- willing the need to pass out to overwhelm my other senses. I wanted to black out, and I could feel the shadowy fingers of shock rake through my mind in an attempt to comply.