As he paused on front of her, Asrian asked, “Are you hungry or tired?”
“A little of both, but mostly the latter of the two,” she admitted.
“Our room is ready if you are, Lilith.”
She blushed as the room grew silent. Lilith peered at the others before letting Asrian direct her in the opposite direction, towards a staircase that led to a different section of the Guild. A few more stairways and several minutes later, they entered what appeared to be a sitting area, one that had several hallways which all led in different directions.
“We’re down here,” he said, slipping his much larger hand around her tiny one. His hand dwarfed hers, engulfing it and yet it was gentle. The touch sent shocks of awareness awakening through her until her heartbeat increased, and her legs waited to stop in place as she reacted to him, to his touch. “Today was a lot to take in.”
“I didn’t handle it well,” she admitted. She’d been horrified, and her entire world had been ripped out from beneath her feet, and she’d panicked, rejecting everything. “I’ve spent my entire life believing she was dead, and this entire time, she’s been living in luxury while our people suffered. And Lara, she needed her the most. You have no idea what being Horde means in our world. It’s a stigma most people hate; people fear them and react based on that alone.”
“But not you?” he asked slyly.
“I loathe the Horde, yes, but not her, not the unwanted castaways they abuse. They’re blameless victims, born of violence on most occasions. I can admit that not all are as bad as we’ve been told, or violent.”
Asrian hadn’t been; in fact, he’d been gentle with her. He’d done what no one else in her life had ever done. He’d asked her what she wanted, and he’d meant it. Asrian hadn’t needed to care what she’d wanted, but he had. He’d sensed her need.
“So I’m not that bad, huh?” he chuckled, and she pulled on his hand, forcing him to stop and look at her.
“Today when you asked me what I wanted, it was the first time anyone has ever asked me that question. It was the first time anyone cared to. Lara has always loved me, that I do not doubt, but I am the one who took care of her. Thank you,” she uttered awkwardly. “And no, I don’t think you’re so bad. But you’re Horde, heathen king. Actually, since I am no longer queen, you’re just a heathen prince now.”
“Titles don’t make my dick hard, Lilith. You do, though.”
“That’s…sweet, almost. I think. You do know you’re rather crude, right?” When he just smiled, she rolled her eyes skyward and let him continue moving them down the hall.
“I’m not good with words or beating around the bush. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. You were supposed to be an easy thing to hit and quit, but I have this feeling you won’t be. People suck, I won’t argue that. But the Horde isn’t all monsters and mayhem. We have good ones too, and we have some baddies. But we’re trying to fix it. We’ve been trying for a long time, even before we killed our father. You want to know how he saved her. We got there before he did that day when it went down. Ryder told her everything that was coming, and what to do. He explained it to her, and she knew her own court would pay for what they’d done against the Horde. She helped us get people out, but before we could get Lara out—which by the way, we had no fucking clue she was related to us—without suspicion arising, my father struck the Court of Night. She raced to it to protect you. You and your sister were her entire world, but we couldn’t stop him from attacking it, and she offered herself up to pay the tithe, but he wasn’t exactly lenient enough to take her and be done.
“He beat her; Alazander beat her so fucking badly that we weren’t sure she’d survive it. So Ryder took her to where her people had been hidden and left her. We ruined a corpse, making sure our father would never know the difference between it and what he’d done to your mother, and we hung it from the wall. See, the thing is, we didn’t put it together, or why she’d run to the Night Court until now; we didn’t know you were hers, or we could have righted the wrong. You think it was easy for her to decide to stay with her people instead of you? It wasn’t. She argued it over and over again, but if she’d returned, she’d have been hunted by the hounds and dragged back to him, my father. By the time Ryder killed our father, so many years had passed, and there had been no sight or word of Lara surviving the attacks—and you, she knew you were alive and well. So put yourself in her shoes, see it through a queen’s eyes. Her people needed her, and you didn’t. She sent people out of that realm, I’m guessing to check on you. I’m also guessing they returned and told her you were a fucking warrior who was surviving.”
“I understand her choices. I know why she did it, but once he was dead, once the threat had passed, she should have brought the people back.”
“Go back to what? A pile of ruins, debt to the other courts who want the Court of Shadows destroyed? She had always planned to come back, but on top of everything happening, and everything that has happened, Faery itself is now in peril.”
“If I feed you, will you shut up?” she asked, glancing at him sideways.
“So to get you into bed, all I have to do is talk? Why didn’t you just start with that?” he chuckled as he picked her up without warning, rushing down the hallway.
“Put me down, giant oaf! You’ll break me if you drop me from here,” she shrieked as she held onto him tightly, her arms going around his throat tightly as she held onto him for dear life.
“You’re afraid of heights?” he laughed.
“No, I’m not afraid of anything,” she lied, her eyes dropping from where his mouth was entirely too close to hers. His breath fanned her flesh, and before she could stop it, her tongue came out to lick her own in anticipation.
“You’re so fucked,” he muttered as his eyes followed her tongue with heat banking in their emerald depths.
Chapter 14
The bedroom was lavish, done in soft green and cream colors. Lilith swallowed hard as she took in the large bed, but a glance at Asrian’s hulking frame confirmed the need. The covers had been pulled back, and pillows were scattered aside already, as if someone had anticipated them needing rest.
“I had food brought up for you,” he said as he scratched the back of his neck, staring at the bed. “After you’re fed, you can either feed me or not. I won’t ask it of you tonight. I’m an asshole, but not that big of one. The choice is yours,” he grumbled as he placed a tray of fruit, meat, and cheese onto a small table that sat in the corner. “I didn’t know what you wanted or liked, so I just grabbed a little of everything.”
“It’s great, really,” she said as she moved closer, taking in the spread of food. She picked up a red thing, staring at it before plopping it between her lips as he watched her with wide eyes.
“I forgot you have not been outside of Faery, but that was a strawberry,” he chuckled as she plucked the leaves from between her now red lips. “You don’t eat that part, you take it off,” he explained before removing the leaves from the next. “Like this,” he continued before holding it to her lips, watching as she opened them to accept his offering. Her lips clamped around his finger as she took it, sucking the juice from his digit. “Gods, woman,” he uttered as he watched her licking the juice from her lips.
“Did I do it wrong?” she frowned, and he smirked, his eyes alight with laughter. “I have never tasted anything like it. It’s…different.” She picked up a cherry and plucked the stem from it, biting into it. “Ouch,” she said around a mouthful of fruit. She pulled the pit out and eyed it before looking around for a trash bin. “These are not right.”
“You’re supposed to suck the fruit from the pit,” he said, covering his mouth as she watched him. He observed her as she picked up a banana. “Here, like so,” he grabbed for it, taking it before she could bite into it with the peel still on. He handed it back to her and watched as those sweet red lips wrapped around it. “I think you should eat the meat, it might be safer for my sanity.”
She smirked, w
atching his eyes as she took more of the banana between her lips. She chewed it as his eyes burned with heat. “It’s good. I like my mouth full,” she shrugged, and his lips opened and closed before he shook his head.
“That’s naughty,” he muttered as he stepped closer, pulling her body against his. She was tiny compared to him, almost childlike in structure and full hot-blooded woman, with sass to her that he rather enjoyed. He wrapped his hands around her thin waist. “I’d like your mouth full too.”
“I’m not sure that would be safe,” she said lifting her face to stare up at him. “I see food but no wine?”
“I didn’t think after today you’d want to stay up long enough to indulge in it,” he shrugged as he nodded towards a cupboard. “To get it, I’d have to let you go, and I really don’t fucking want to yet,” he admitted as he lowered his mouth to hers, gently nudging her lips apart as he captured her tongue in a dance of chaotic need. His hand slowly snaked up her back, pulling her hair back hard as he claimed her mouth. The moan that escaped them both filled the room as he lifted her, allowing her legs to wrap around his waist as he released her hair, moving them towards the cupboard. Small hands splayed on his neck, holding him to her as her body pressed against his hard muscles.
He set her on the counter, lifting the skirt of her dress to expose her thighs, which he squeezed as he pulled his mouth away from hers begrudgingly. He reached above her head and brought down two glasses, setting them beside her before he kicked open the cooler, bending to grab the wine. She bent down with him, grabbing the hem of his shirt, pulling it up as he rose to stand. Hesitantly, she tried to lift it up over his head but failed. He set the bottle down and pulled the shirt off, tossing it to the floor.
Lilith’s shaking fingers touched the hard, sinewy muscles that begged to be touched, kissed. She bent her head, trailing her fingers over his abs before her tongue followed the same path. His fingers brushed her hair, pushing it from her face as he watched her. His body straightened, and then he brought her mouth up to his, forgetting the wine as he kissed her drunk with just his mouth.
His hands moved between them, lifting her as he reached for the thin wisp of material that barred him from what was his. He pulled his mouth away, resting his forehead against hers as she gasped for air, pulling it deep into her lungs.
“I won’t be able to stop in a moment, so decide,” he demanded huskily as she pulled back, placing her hand against his cheek, cupping it as she wiggled her pussy against his knuckles, which were grazing her flesh. “If we do this, you’re mine. I won’t give you up. Not now, not in a fucking year. Do you understand me, Lilith? I don’t crave women, nor have I ever slept with one more than once. Ever. You, I fucking crave you, and it drives me insane. Your flesh, your taste, the shadows that escape when you find your release,” he growled thickly.
“Fine, just make this ache stop, Asrian. Now,” she snarled as she reached for his hair, pulling his mouth flush against hers with urgency. “Make me feel you.”
Her clothes vanished with his, and before she could register what he’d done, he lifted her up and pushed into the sheath of her body, filling her until she cried out with the fullness of him. His hands used her hips, lifting and settling her until she was coming unraveled, murmuring his name as passion took precedence, and desire consumed her.
She was so fucking tight, her body clenching against his again and again until he growled from the constant feeling of her. He walked with her to the bed, lifting her and tossing her down to bounce on the mattress as the orgasm continued to rock through her. Asrian knelt in front of her, lifting her up to position her on her arms and knees as he nudged her legs apart.
The moment he pushed inside, she bucked against him. He felt every fucking inch of her as he filled her body, marking her as his as his brands began to swirl. Her own pulsed, subtle as the shadows that clung to her enveloped parts of her in a sort of mist of darkness that seeped from within her. She murmured his name over and over, begging him for more as his body slammed into her tight pussy. She was delicate and yet she was wild with need. He didn’t care that she’d be marked come sunrise, because neither did she as she slammed backwards, taking all he had to give until her body trembled and her head lifted, screams of pleasure filling the room.
“Gods,” he snapped as she sent him over the edge taking her with him as her body clenched and milked his, leaving him trembling from the force of his own release. “You’re so mine,” he uttered as he turned on his side, not removing his cock from her body before he lifted her leg, slowly working her clit as he prepared for round two. “I’m going to make you sore, so fucking sore that every time you flinch tomorrow, I’ll know you are thinking of me and remembering tonight.”
“You can try, heathen, but I find I enjoy this part of being married to you.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Did it work to goad you into more?” she asked huskily.
“Fuck yes,” he chuckled.
“Then yes, it was.”
Chapter 15
It was three days before they emerged from the bedroom, and no one dared interrupt them either. Time passed and yet held no meaning as they learned one another, discovering things the other had never told anyone else. On the third day, her mother knocked, and she knew her time of avoiding her while learning how to pleasure and understand this man she’d found herself tied to for an entire year could only work for so long.
“She isn’t going to keep going away for much longer,” Asrian muttered as he absently stroked her hip. He leaned over, trailing his lips over the curve of it and down thigh before he lifted his hand and brought it down hard on her ass.
“Ouch!” she growled before she rolled them until she straddled him, staring down with a wide grin. “She will hear us.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone in this place who didn’t hear us, Lilith. In fact, they may be singing my praise back in Faery with the portals open; they probably have heard you screaming about how fantastic my cock was there too.”
“I wasn’t that loud.”
“Um, okay. If that’s what you want to go with. Remember, I tried to leave the bed twice, and you kept begging me for more.”
“Is that how we’re playing this?” she laughed as she pushed her flesh against his cock. “You are the one who keeps getting hard.”
“That’s never been an issue,” he laughed as he watched her, her pain slowly escaping as she tried to ignore it, but failed. He’d fed from it gluttonously as she’d hidden in the room with him. She’d known he fed from her, and she hadn’t cared. Instead, she’d let him take the pain from her. Not many cared for demons or even half demons taking from them, and she’d watched him feed with a mixture of wonder. Lilith had openly watched him, curious to see and feel what happened when he did it. Then the little minx did the last thing he’d expected: she’d pushed more of her emotions into the bond, giving it to him. “We’re being summoned,” he grumbled as he rolled them and pushed into her body. Her scream was captured by his mouth, and his throaty laughter was addicting. “The king wishes us to get the fuck out of bed and get downstairs so your mother stops pacing and calling me a fucking heathen.”
“She really is my mother,” she laughed. “Tell the king we will be down when we’re done fucking. Unless he wants us down there, like this,” she purred.
“I’d rather not see you like this,” Ryder grumbled from the far corner of the room, where he faced the wall. Asrian chuckled and pulled the covers over them, staring down at her. “Your mother is very…impatient to assure Asrian didn’t kill you, or worse,” he muttered gruffly.
“Tell her I’m coming,” she said.
“Apparently, we’re all very aware of that fact,” he said with a straight face. “There’s also the fact that we’ve been made aware of an assassination attempt on the King of the Night Court. He’s been gravely wounded and has called his heir home. We travel to the Night Court within the hour, be ready.”
“Wait, we? As i
n you’re coming with us?”
“The Horde has managed and protected the lower caste since the pact went into effect. An attempt on his life in his own court is against the laws, and I will have no choice but to reinforce them. The tithe is due because of the pact, and I will uphold my end of it. Especially considering who you lay beneath, and the fact that something cannot be undone,” he pointed out with a sad look. “I will not have them denying your claim on the throne now that you are as you say, soiled. They may have signed the pact, but they forgot my end of the arrangement.”
“Which was?” she asked carefully.
“Horde children were to be brought to us, to live freely without being harmed or mistreated. If what you say is true, and I assume it is with your willingness to hand your birthright over to Lara, then they need to be reminded of the deal. If they choose to ignore it afterwards, they can grace my dungeons and become my vellum. I find I’m short of it since abolishing the law and freeing those creatures my father kept to harvest flesh to create it from.”
“That was true? Your father signed his laws with the vellum created from the flesh of his enemies?” She swallowed hard.
“Whatever you heard of him, he did worse. A lot worse, which I cannot even begin to atone for, nor will I try. What I will and can do is be better than he was. I can be just and lead the Horde through strength. That is the only promise I can make you, Lilith. It is the same one I have made to your mother. I do not accept you rescinding your court. Later, when your mother is tired of ruling, we will revisit it. I assure you, as my sister and yours, she will be more than fucking protected. She will be loved by all of us and accepted, and those who don’t can leave Faery as a whole or die there. That choice will be given to them by me and her brethren.”
“You’d do that for her?” she queried.
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