Wicked Charming Cruel

by Emmy Chandler

Jude’s temper flared like fuel thrown on a bonfire. He pulled her up by one arm, and she flinched when his grip bruised. “I am your fucking king. Your everything. Your body aches for want of me—for what I can bring you—and Malac—”

  “He doesn’t take my ass in anger. Or out of revenge. Nor has he denied me his bite, which means that I am wet for him the second he steps into the room. I feel pleasure everywhere he touches me. Everywhere. Even if it hurts sometimes. You offer me nothing but threats.”

  His gaze narrowed on her, anger ricocheting throughout his body. “You’ll rethink those words when you see what I’ve brought for you.”

  “I don’t want anything from you.” She turned away from him again and lay with her arms folded beneath her face. “Just take what you’ve come for and get out.” The tension in her frame belied her casual acceptance. Her utter disdain for his desire. Yet even if her act was laughable, her intent… To dismiss him like a fucking servant!

  Jude stood in the middle of the princess’s room, fighting a storm raging inside him. If his temper prevailed, he’d be proving her right. Proving himself a cruel bastard. But if he came at her gently—if he took back his word and buried himself in her heavenly cunt, while she still refused to make use of his seed—he would be giving in to her obvious attempt to manipulate him. To throw her bond with Malac in his face and challenge him to best it with pampering and tenderness she had not earned.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered toward the headboard, still refusing to show him her face, while she obediently presented her ass. “I don’t expect it to feel good.”

  Jude snarled as he stormed across the room toward her, ripping his fly open in harsh, angry motions. “It damn well will feel fucking good.” He grabbed her messy bun and pulled her upright by her hair, satisfaction unfurling inside him when she whined and fought his grip with both hands, prying at his fingers.

  This was the only way. As long as she harbored hatred for him, this was the only way to compel her pleasure without going back on his word to take her roughly. To deposit his seed into her ass, until she agreed to make use of it where it belonged.

  Maari clawed at his hands, trying to free herself. Jude growled as he snatched her left hand and twisted it behind her, pinning it with his body to keep it out of the way. Then, before she could put up any more of a struggle, he licked the base of her neck, where a delicate mound of muscle rose up behind her collarbone.

  The princess whined, still grasping at the fingers tangled in her hair with her free hand. Jude struck like a snake, sinking his pointed incisors into her tender flesh and sucking at the blood that welled around them.

  Maari groaned in his grip, going completely still. The hand trapped between them went limp, and she pressed her body back against him, molding her form to his chest. To his hips and the hard length of his cock.

  Jude held her like that for nearly a minute, his teeth breaching her, his free hand squeezing her breasts and pinching her nipples while she moaned, just because he could. Because she was trapped by the threat of further pain and the tearing of flesh, should she move. Because he loved the feel of her pressed against him, her heart hammering at him through the back of her rib cage.

  Because she tasted fucking delicious.

  “Please,” she whimpered at last, and Jude couldn’t tell whether she was begging to be released or to be fucked. Or both. The scent of her arousal filled the room, and he growled, her flesh still trapped between his teeth.

  And finally, he released his hold on her neck, though he kept her pressed tight against him. “Mine.” His tongue flicked out to lap up the small drops of blood that welled from the two puncture wounds in her flesh. “Forever,” he growled. Then he let go of her hair and shoved her face-down on the bed.

  Jude kicked her feet farther apart, opening her sex for him to plunge two fingers into. Maari moaned and arched back at him, still pinned by the hand in the center of her spine and helpless against the lust coursing through her. Making her cunt drip and her lower lips swell. Drawing her clit out of its protective covering.

  The resurgence of her arousal spawned something primal from deep inside him—an endless growl of both desire and possession. She would see, shortly. She would see that Malac wasn’t the only one who could make her moan and writhe. Who could bring her screaming over the edge of oblivion, her eyes rolled back in her head, her body convulsing around whatever he chose to stick inside her. Wherever he chose to stick it.

  She was his, both her body and her pleasure. Her solace, and her rage, and her fucking free will. His. All of it.

  Hell, he would roll around in her fucking soul, laying claim to the very foundation of her spirit, if he could.

  Jude prodded her dripping opening with the head of his cock, then he drove deep inside her, pinning her thighs to the side of the mattress. Drawing a satisfied moan from his princess as her body tightened around him. Sucking at him. Inviting him to stay a while—no doubt exactly what she wanted. What she thought she was getting.

  “Better?” the king growled as he pulled most of the way out, then plunged back in. Hard. “You like it better, with my hormones swimming through your veins? With my bite marking your skin?”

  Maari’s reply was an inarticulate sound of need. A tangle of hungry syllables that made Jude’s cock harden almost painfully and his hips jut forward, trying to bury him even deeper in her warm, soft depth. But that wasn’t what he’d promised her.

  “Is this where you want me?” he teased, sliding in and out of her in several shallow thrusts. “You haven’t earned that yet.” But she was wet enough that he wouldn’t need to reach into her nightstand for lubrication.

  Jude gave her several more thrusts, thoroughly wetting his cock to the rhythm of her throaty moans, then he withdrew, heedless of her groan of protest. “I promise you’re going to like it.” He pressed himself through her tight back ring of muscle, drawing an obscene moan from deep in her throat. “That’s it. Take the whole thing,” he groaned, squeezing her ass. Rocking in and out of her in shallow little strokes as he worked his way deeper. “When you decide to be good, you are really a very good girl.”

  “Gods below…” she whispered, trying to slide her hand beneath her stomach. To touch herself. But Jude grabbed her hand and pried it from beneath her, then pinned both of her wrists to her lower back. “Not yet,” he whispered, bending over her. “I know how quickly you come like that, and I want this to last.”

  He pulled most of the way out, then pressed his way in again, over and over, drawing soft, needy little grunts from her. Holding her hands prisoner at her back while her tight little ass grasped at him. “Please. Jude, I need more.”

  He gave her a good, hard thrust, and Maari moaned beneath him. Pressing back against him. “Beg me.”

  She went still, but he continued to plunge into her, again and again. “What?”

  “Beg me for what you want. I want to hear the need in your voice, like I can feel it in the hungry way your ass is clutching at me.”

  “Let me go.” She pulled on her arms, trying to free them from his grip.

  “No.”

  “I hate you,” she growled, bucking against him. Still trying to free her hands.

  “I know. But I’m still going to give you what you need—as soon as you ask me nicely.”

  Maari snarled at him, still fighting his grip on her wrists, and in the process, she drove him deeper into her ass. Which drew a groan from them both. “I like the fight, princess.” He pulled all the way out, so he could breach her again, and Maari hissed at the fresh sting, only to groan again as he sank deep inside her. “Fight all you want. But you’re not going to come until you ask nicely, because your pleasure belongs to—”

  “Please,” she whispered, and Jude’s balls drew up so tight he almost shot his release then and there.

  “I can’t hear you, princess.”

  “Please!” Maari shouted, writhing against him. Arching her back and twisting her hands in an attempt to free them. �
�Please let me come. Please!”

  That was the thing about the Camden bite. In Jude’s experience, it made pleasure easier to grasp, but also impossible to resist. Maari needed release, and she needed it with him buried inside her.

  “Good girl,” he cooed, stroking her back with his free hand. Then he released her wrists. The princess immediately slid one hand beneath her stomach and between her thighs, where he could feel her fingertips bump the base of his cock as she strummed her clit.

  She moaned with relief, and her body immediately began to tighten around him. Brutally.

  “Gods below…” Jude began to thrust in earnest, fucking her with no regard for tender flesh that would be sore long after the pleasure and adrenaline faded. She’d asked for this. She’d begged for it. And she was damn well going to take it.

  A raw, guttural sound scraped its way up Maari’s throat and she pushed back against him, her hand working furiously as her release overtook her, making her hips twitch. Making every muscle—the entire system of intimate musculature between her legs—twitch around him.

  Jude roared as he came, shooting his release deep inside her, his hands clamped around her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh. Spent, he collapsed over her for a moment, both of them panting. “Was that better, princess?” he demanded, whispering into her ear while he lay draped over her back.

  “Hate you,” she murmured against the comforter, squirming beneath him.

  Jude chuckled, and she whined, tensing while he slowly withdrew.

  “Sore,” she moaned, hissing as his swollen head finally slipped out of her.

  “Good. I hope you think of me every time you sit down.” He squeezed her backside, then he let her up. “And you better get used to that, until you decide you’d rather have a baby than an ass full of my seed.”

  Maari turned to look at him over her shoulder as she headed for the bathroom, golden-brown eyes flashing in anger. “You know, if you keep doing that and I do get pregnant, we’re all going to know the baby isn’t yours.” Then she slammed the door and locked it, leaving Jude to ponder the truth of that, all on his own.

  “Fucking hell,” he mumbled. She was not wrong.

  The king dug the com device from his pocket and unlocked her bathroom door, then he barged right in after, ignoring her protests, to draw them both a bath.

  11

  Maari

  A surprise, Maari thought. Coming from Jude, that could mean anything. A night in the darkcell. A bottle of wine and a chair in the sun. A leisurely fuck in the shower.

  But the dress was a good sign. It was a real dress, in a deep shade of burgundy that contrasted beautifully with her dark hair, which Annah had curled and left free to tumble over her shoulders and down her back. The dress was ankle length, with a matching sheer layer over the satin lining, and a snug halter-style bodice that barely covered the sides of her breasts, leaving long stretches of skin uncovered beneath her arms and down her sides. Revealing the bites at the base of her neck, as if they were accessories.

  She twisted in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the bathroom wall, admiring herself for the first time in ages.

  Jude appeared alongside her reflection and put one hand at her back, bare except for the crisscross of two burgundy spaghetti straps. “You look beautiful,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss her bare shoulder and run one hand down her spine.

  She shrugged away from his touch, her teeth gritted against the delicious blossom of warmth—of dampness—between her thighs at his nearness, now that part of him swam in her veins again. She wanted him. Fuck the gods—and Cecily—she fucking needed him again.

  The bite felt like a step backward, despite the way it had eased the passage for his thick cock. Despite the fleeting, if triumphant, thrill of victory she’d felt at goading him into it. At being in control, just for a second, even if he’d had no idea, lost as the king had been in the brutal penetration of her flesh.

  His bite—the act of it—was an illusion of dominance. A pacifier crafted of blood and violence that Jude suckled like a spoiled toddler. At least, that was her fervent hope. That the power she’d just given him over her body would act as a diversion from the control she planned to syphon from him in a subtle undertow of influence.

  Assuming she could keep her own head above the tide.

  “You say I’m beautiful when I’m not wearing anything,” she pointed out as he leaned down to drop a kiss on her neck. Directly over his bite mark.

  “It’s true then, too. But you look taller now, in those heels.”

  In fact, thanks to those three extra inches, she reached the tip of his chin, rather than the top of his shoulder. But considering that he still towered over her—that he could bend her over anytime and anywhere he liked—the additional height added very little to her sense of security or liberty. In fact, in the new heels, it would be harder than ever for her to run, should the need arise.

  Jude turned her away from the mirror by her shoulders, then he held one fist out to her, which he uncurled to reveal a gorgeous pair of delicate diamond drop earrings. “Go ahead,” he said, when she hesitated to accept them.

  “Please tell me these aren’t Geneva’s.”

  Jude scowled. “Of course not. They’re yours. I picked them out myself this morning, from a selection my jeweler brought in. Do you not like them? Would you prefer to select for yourself? Because I can call him back and—”

  “No, they’re beautiful.” And even if they hadn’t been, Maari knew better than to turn her nose up at a gift from the king. She’d learned a lot from Malac’s mother. Such as the fact that one bite would not be enough to make him want to please her—to spare her birth kingdom—if she continued to curse him and push him away.

  So she smiled up at him and ignored the residual sting in her ass. Her bruised pride. “Where are we going?” she asked as she slid the earrings into holes in her ears which had remained empty for months. The diamonds sparkled in the bright bathroom lighting. “Why am I dressed up?” Though, to be fair, before Jude had claimed her, in exchange for an end to the war, she’d dressed like this on a daily basis. She’d had racks and racks of clothing lining several closets, all in colors and cuts that had flattered her petite build and generous curves. Her coloring. She’d had cases and cases of jewelry, shelf after shelf of shoes.

  But now, this dress felt extravagant. The gorgeous matching heels felt awkward and a little painful, after she’d been barefoot for most of three months. The earrings…

  Jude smiled, and for just a second, the expression actually took over his ice-blue eyes. “You don’t seem to understand the concept of a surprise. If I tell you, it ceases to be one.”

  Maari returned his smile and accepted his arm as she followed him out of her suite and down a series of unfamiliar hallways, keeping her eye out for any recognizable landmark. Every corner they turned heightened her anticipation until she stood on the razor’s edge between excitement and anxiety.

  Finally, Jude drew her to a stop in front of set of beautifully carved double doors, in a wing of the palace she’d never seen before. He nodded to two guards standing sentry, and he squeezed her hand and gave her one more smile. Then he threw both doors open with a dramatic flourish and stepped out of her way.

  Inside the lavishly decorated suite, where afternoon sunlight poured in from an entire wall of windows, a man stood from a white leather sofa. It took Maari a second to bring him into focus. Though she knew that face almost as well as her own, seeing him there was so disorienting that at first she thought she was dreaming. Or hallucinating.

  “Gods below,” she whispered. Then she raced across the room in her burgundy stilettos and threw herself at her brother. “Jaarod!” Her arms tightened around his neck, and she squeezed until she heard his spine creak.

  Finally, slowly, he returned her embrace. “I wasn’t sure you’d even want to see me,” he confessed, lifting her from the ground with his hug.

  And the truth was that two minutes earlier, s
he would have sworn, if asked, that she couldn’t be bothered to step over her brother if she’d come across him dying in the street, after he’d abandoned her to Jude’s cruel mercies. Yet she found nothing but joy and relief in her heart, at seeing him here.

  Jaarod set her down and took a step back so he could study her, still holding both of her hands. “You look good. Healthy.”

  Healthy?

  Maari brushed aside his odd greeting and pulled one hand free to swipe at the tears spilling down her cheeks. Surely messing up her makeup. “Thank you,” she sobbed. “Thank you.” Then she turned to Jude. “Thank you so much!”

  Jude gave her a nod and a quiet, magnanimous smile from where he leaned against the wall near the open double doors, his arms crossed over his chest. Watching her.

  Maari turned back to her brother. “I’m ready to go. I’m so glad you changed your mind. I can’t believe you really came.”

  He frowned at her, eyes narrowed as he tried to puzzle out her meaning, but Maari hardly noticed his confusion, because her gaze had snagged on the woman standing from a tall, formal armchair behind him.

  “Clare? Bless the gods.” Seeing her sister-in-law here, in Loborough, in Jude’s palace, made Maari’s head spin. She felt as if she’d been pulled from slumber too quickly and hadn’t quite found her way out of an odd dream.

  Clare didn’t belong here.

  The collision of two worlds—the one she’d come from and the one she’d been hurled into—knocked the princess off balance so badly that she actually stumbled.

  Hopefully everyone would blame the shoes.

  Maari looked up at her brother again, as alarm began to slowly sink its claws into her chest. And squeeze. “Why would you bring her with you? Why would you bring her here?” Gareth wouldn’t want his wife here, in the home of the man who’d brought their Stead to its knees. Who’d removed his head from his body. Who’d made Clare a widow and taken his children’s father from them.

  “Maari. It’s so good to see you.” Clare stepped forward with her arms out, her spine straight, her smile somehow simultaneously formal, yet warm. She was still the same, despite the sadness in her eyes. The shadows beneath them, peeking through expertly applied makeup. She was still every bit the queen, even without a king at her side. Even without the crown, which would go to Jaarod’s wife, once he’d married.