Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
Then, with one last hard thrust and a pinch of welcome pain, his knot is inside me and I’m stuffed full, so full that my pelvis aches. It’s a good sort of ache, though, one that I’ve come to crave, and I reach back towards Nemeth, my hand skimming over his face as he growls and fills me with his seed, his release ripping through him. He bites down on my thumb even as I push it into his mouth, and I’m gasping and filled as he holds me tightly in place.
When Nemeth’s hands loosen on me, he lets out a gusty sigh. His hand moves away from my throat and trails down to my heavy breasts, then to my belly. It feels tight there, stretched full of his cock and his seed, and I let out a noise of contentment. “That was lovely.”
“Was it?” He thumps my pussy with his hand again, making me squeak. “Because I’m still knotted inside you. Neither one of us is going anywhere anytime soon.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I tell him lazily. I lean back against him, loving this moment. The world outside might be a big pile of dragon shite, but here in Nemeth’s arms, I can forget about everything for a time. This is what I’ve chosen. This is what I’m abandoning my people for, and I’m pleased with my choice. I feel loved and needed and warm. I’m pregnant with my mate’s child, even though I’m not supposed to be able to carry a baby at all. I’m supposed to be barren. I still haven’t figured out why things have changed, but maybe my knife…
Shite.
“The human that left last night,” I tell Nemeth. “The one that left with the horse. He stole my knife.”
“Because it was magic?” His hand strokes my belly again, and then the curve of my hip.
“No, just because it looked expensive. I don’t think he knows it’s magic. Should we go after him? Did you see where he was headed?”
“It’s lost, Candra.” Nemeth’s tone is easy. Relaxed. Of course, the male did just come inside me, but still. “You don’t need it.”
“It’s magic,” I protest. “My sister gave it to me. It can help us—”
“If he’s fleeing the two I killed, he’s heading the opposite direction of the castle. I won’t spend precious time hunting him down for a blade. You don’t need it.”
I probably don’t, but I still feel vulnerable without it. I miss the reassurance that it provided me, not for its sharp edge but for the questions I could ask. It’s always been there. “I didn’t get a chance to ask it much about the baby.”
“Are you worried?” His fingers strum over my clit again.
I’m too sensitive, having come twice already, and I squirm in place. As I’m still locked against his knot, this only makes me pant harder, deeply aware of the press of him inside me. “Of course I’m worried. I’m not supposed to be pregnant. I’m the one with the cursed blood.”
“Maybe that’s why,” he muses, even as he ignores my attempts to wriggle away from his hand. This is part of the game, and I love it as much as it makes me absolutely crazy. He locks me onto his knot, and as we wait for it to go down, he continues to toy with my body, making me come over and over again. It always feels like too much.
It always makes me come so damned hard.
“Maybe your blood isn’t cursed,” Nemeth says lazily. “Maybe you’ve just got too much Fellian in you.”
I moan at the double entendre.
“What do you think, milettahn?” he murmurs even as he rubs the pad of one finger against the side of my clit again. “Do you have too much Fellian inside you right now?”
My body squeezes around him again and I decide that I both hate him and want to kiss him forever as he wrings yet another orgasm out of me.
I do, however, forget all about my knife.
Chapter
Sixty-Eight
The walls of Lios are legendary.
I’ve seen them more or less every day of my life. Even when we’d travel, the Vestalins inevitably return to Castle Lios. It’s where we belong, in the beating heart of our country. We belong behind its tall white walls, nestled high on the cliffs above the sea. Winding roads lead up to it, surrounded by rolling farmlands and fields of all kinds of crops on one side, the blue, endless ocean on the other. The walls of Lios are tall and impenetrable, as old and venerable as Lios itself. Legend says that Ravendor Vestalin had the walls built when she took the throne. The walls were there when I was born, and I always assumed I’d die behind the walls, sheltered like a bird in its nest.
But a day later, at sunset, I see the massive hole punched through Lios’s endless walls, and it feels like a hole punched through my chest.