Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“My love, I am about two seconds away from dragging you into the bedroom and fucking you into a silent stupor.”
My spinning thoughts collided into a mess of loudly ringing silence my shock was so great. Never had he spoken to me that way. And to my utter humiliation, slick was already gathering between my thighs, my insides choking down on the plug.
And he could smell it, the flare of his nostrils leaving me to press my lips into a line.
“I will give you what you want, precious girl. But first you will eat, and while you do, you will listen.” He straightened, going back to his chopping. “Do not fault the generals for coveting what I have. They have not encountered a twelve-year-old they wanted to fuck and cannot image the price that exacted.”
My lips fell open. “That is disgusting!”
“I am aware.” He flashed me a warning glare. “It will be difficult for them when our daughters begin to mature. Nature screams that you must do one thing, your conscience telling you another. I will confess there was a night I came into your room as you slept, prepared to take you away. You had just come of age, and I felt I waited long enough. You lay on your side, that stolen pink rock in your palm. You must have been looking at it before you closed your eyes. Seeing you that way, vulnerable, I remembered that little girl who snatched it off my shelf. And I couldn’t bring myself to touch you.”
What was I to say to that? What was I to do but sit back and listen?
“To the other males, I may make it appear that denying your song was easy, but it was agonizing. I do not imagine many would be able to wait a year, let alone ten. My ability to withstand suffering—perhaps that is why Miranda would see me as her king.” Looking up from his work to stare me dead in the eyes, he said, “Eyes will be on you.”
Maeve was the born leader, not me. “I am not their queen.”
“Yet still they ask you to pave the way for them.”
From Thayer’s announcement that night, he—another general—would not wait longer than the few days to graduation. “The men… if they won’t practice patience like you did, our daughters will be in danger.”
There was no teasing, no suggestive male noises. Nothing but ruthless determination. “The academy is more necessary than you might wish. Females who have begun to mature must be put somewhere others cannot reach them. All mothers must hand over their daughters or face the consequences of what could take place.”
I could not imagine it, already feeling the loss of a child I could hardly conceive of. One I swore to myself I would never put in such an awful situation. “Humans may not see our children as people, and to them, separating a human-born hybrid from the birthmother may be nothing, but five years old is too young.”
He did not agree or disagree, only extoled the virtues of his precious academy. “There is a full curriculum on par with what the humans are taught. There is safety and food. And the library is well stocked. I’ve seen to it myself.”
He was being unreasonable, and I did not know how to make him understand. “Yes. And there are also hangings, and beatings, and armed guards watching you urinate. It might be called an academy, but its anything but.”
Peeling another food thing I didn’t recognize, he cut off a corner and offered me a taste.
Jarred by the sudden zip of sourness on my lips, I gave a shiver from head to toe yet found it delicious.
“Notice, you already eat from my hand, instinctively trusting your king. Set your fears aside and quiet your mind. It is distracting you from the fact that your gut knows your mate will take care of everything. You are safe.”
There was a hook in that bait. “If I get pregnant—”
“When you get pregnant.” Direct, he held my eyes.
“—you’re asking me to—”
Stuffing another slice of sour fruit in my mouth, he silenced me. “I know what I am asking. Eat, take your frustrations out on my cock, and then you will sleep. Tomorrow, your new responsibilities begin.”
After I was fed, I had ridden him within an inch of my life, tormenting his writhing snake with a slow, sinking onslaught and whispered demands. I had done so as if I might stretch the final night of my freedom from the academy, keeping him groaning from the sucking slit between my legs.
My tricks were allowed for only so long.
I might have been on top, but his powerful hands and thrusting hips were more than capable of taking what they wanted when it was clear I would not invite a knot until morning light.