Chapter
Twelve
Galantia Present day, Deepmarsh Castle, great hall
y throat tied up as I focused on a breadcrumb before me on the table, sensing a hundred cold stares slithering my way. May the pox take him, why had the field stone on that day not beenM pointier?
Cici gave my hand a quick squeeze before she mumbled, “You best not make him wait.”
Legs trembling, I rose and walked toward the high table. It took effort, placing one foot compliantly in front of the other, but I wouldn’t be so foolish and make a scene. No, I would be easy, and compliant, and agreeable. How difficult could that be?
Under the scrutiny of hostile eyes, I rounded it while black feathers bobbed on my shoulders to the mocking rhythm of my hesitant steps. I passed Sebian, who didn’t bother giving me a glance as he poured himself more wine, and approached the chair that stood between him and Malyr.
The moment I reached for the backrest, Malyr kicked the leg, sending the chair screeching across the stone before it tumbled to the ground with a heart-rending thud.
“Mmm, such is her arrogance; she truly expected a chair at the high table.” Malyr rose to the
laughs and bellows from the audience, the assembly of Ravens ever so entertained by my humiliation as their prince wove his fingers into my pinned hair. “I said where you belong, little white dove. On your knees. By my feet. So you may kiss my boots and pledge allegiance to your future king.”
Every proud fiber of my being strung tight, and my eyes snapped to his. “You will never be a king of mine.”
I hadn’t fully spoken the words when my stomach turned. I shouldn’t have said that. Why had I said that?
“What did I suggest about that mouth of yours?” Sebian asked. “I daresay you’re downright
provocative tonight, sweetheart.”
A warning.
I best heeded it.
Malyr leaned into me, close enough that the scent seeping off his hair and skin wafted around me.
He smelled like the cold air on a white winter morning and something else… Something sweeter that didn’t seem to fit at all.
“On my lap then, for I am afraid we are finding ourselves short a chair.” His dark whisper against the shell of my ear wasn’t the only threat, finger sliding down my spine before it drew one warning circle after the other around my buttocks. “Mmm, how I would enjoy having you squirm on my length tonight. Is that what you want? To rub your ass on my cock until I spill?”
My lips quivered. “No.”
“Then which will it be, Lady Galantia?” A stub of his nose against my temple. “My seed soaking your behind, or your knees digging into the ground? Choose.”
Heat flared up behind my eyes with how there was no true choice to be had. “The ground.”
“Good girl.”
My pride snapped like thin threads against the sudden weight that came down on my head as Malyr forced me to the hard, biting stone. There I kneeled, in a pool of black silk and feathers, stripped of my dignity for all but the table banner that hid some of my burning shame, though not much.
After all, my head remained high enough I could see everything.
Every.
Grinning.
Guffawing.
Face.
They all blurred behind that sting in my eyes, my frantic little breaths like a bellow, turning them hot and itchy. I’d always thought I could never disappoint Father more than I already had with my sheer existence. But if he saw me like this…? If word of it ever reached him? Gods… Malyr took his chair once more, letting chatter and the clanks of tankards return to the great hall.
“Let me have a look at those sparkling eyes.” Leaning over, he clasped my chin between his fingers, lifting my gaze to that infuriating smirk that seemed to twitch higher the more it distorted.
“Are you going to cry for me, Galantia? Are you going to cry so prettily in front of my court?”
Anger sparked at my core.
Anger and amusement.
Was that what he was trying to achieve here? To make me cry? How… entertaining.
A sudden thrill flared at my core, like a pulsing of restless energy that had me lift my chin, letting him see those eyes that had forgotten how to cry. “You have no kingdom, no crown. If you call this farce a court, then I can only assume that you’re its fool.”
Somewhere beside me, Sebian coughed. Could have been a subdued laugh; might have been
another warning. Don’t provoke him, Galantia. Don’t draw his attention, Galantia.
Well, I’d heeded it all, and look where it had gotten me. Down on my searing, aching knees for the
enemy to snicker at!
“Beautiful,” Malyr breathed.
He lifted his hand, running a fingertip along those scabs on my chest. Mapping. Breathing. Driving me out of my skin as I waited for him to retaliate. My pulse worked itself into a frenzy as I waited for him to rip off a scab, dig his nail into the weeping wound beneath or… outright whip his palm across my face. Why wasn’t he? Had he even heard what I’d said?
And then I felt it.
The slithering beneath my skirts… Cool tendrils licked across my inner thighs, stroking, caressing. Pressing into my flesh as they climbed upward. At that unexpected touch, so shockingly pleasant and void of pain, my heart quickened and rushed liquid heat into my cheeks, my chest… my lower belly.
That chin I’d held high all this time sunk as I once more fixed my eyes on the fabric of my dress, on those threads that shifted, thrummed, slithered.
Not silk.
Shadows.
“Mmm, as much as I hate to confess it, black shadowcloth suits you.” Malyr’s rasping purr vibrated against my temple as those wicked offshoots gathered at my sex with mind-numbing pressure. “And how nicely you are displaying my mark tonight, showing everyone just whom you belong to. Mine to hurt. Mine to torment.”
I tried not to squirm when his shadows probed my entrance, refusing to give him the reaction he sought. “You made this dress?”
“No. My gift is not… delicate enough to create such fine work.” His fingers clasped my chin once more. “We have weavers blessed with the gift of creation for that. I merely supplied the shadows, and they are aching to devour you.”
He sent them to caress my heaving bosom, petting and stroking beneath the black pearls. They tantalized my nipples as the thinnest ringlets lapped at them in tight circles. The most depraved of them drummed my entrance, making moisture gather where there should be none. What was wrong with me?
I clenched my thighs shut. Wouldn’t acknowledge those shivering flares of pleasure that threatened to destroy my last bit of grace and composure in front of the entire court.
It didn’t have the desired effect… If anything, Malyr’s shadows writhed harder. They slinked through my folds, winding the pleasure tighter, coiling around my clitoris until it throbbed with terrifying intensity. Gods, I couldn’t possibly
enjoy this… Could never let him know that I did.
“Her heart’s beating fast, Malyr.” Sebian’s voice, gravelly and laced with heavy breaths, did nothing to calm the heat pulsing between my legs. He brought his chair closer and leaned over, running a hand down my waist before he whispered by my ear, “Should I tell him how wet you are for this, sweetheart? How needy your little cunt is for his shadows?”
I wasn’t sure what burned hotter in my chest as I looked at him, shame or rage. Probably the latter, given how he tortured his lower lip, letting his lustful gaze take a timeless stroll over my degraded body. But gods! The tingles these shadows roused in me… “Do you like this, little dove?” Malyr asked. “Does Brisden’s whore daughter enjoy how my
shadows are playing with her tight, pink cunt?”
“No,” I ground out.
Malyr’s lips scathed across the shell of my ear. “Liar…”
Shadows dipped into me ever so slightly, turning the pressure between my legs unbearable. Oh, how they filled me. Stretched me. Played with me until my lips parted with the threat of a moan.
My breath ceased.
No. No. No.
Not again.
I would rather die than betray a single shameful reaction, so I ripped my chin from Malyr’s clasp.
Pressing my mouth against the feathers on my shoulders, I breathed the sound into their vanes.
Sebian sucked in a long breath, fingers curling into my waist with possessive strength. “Fuck, sweetheart, that was a lovely moan. Why hide it from us, hmm?”
“You should’ve heard her when I cut her peachy lip.” Malyr ripped my gaze back to his two- colored stare with such force, my balance shifted onto one aching knee until I hissed. “The strangest things lure the strangest sounds from my little dove.”
“Did that hurt, sweetheart?” Sebian’s fingers ran from waist to knee, where they bunched the fabric of my dress underneath it for a cushion. “Too much pain kills the pleasure, Malyr.”
My gaze went back and forth between them, hairs rising along my arms at this strange energy that quivered the air between them, and my nerves right along with it. I watched the quiet looks they exchanged, like an unspoken conversation I wasn’t privy to.
“She deserves no pleasure. Not from me, anyway,” Malyr said and, at last, his shadows retreated from beneath my skirts. “I simply enjoy watching her act like a common whore while she writhes as if I paid her for it.”
That tingling heat faded into nothing but a barren chill, clashing with that relentless throbbing that had settled in my cheeks. “There is no pleasure in this.”
“You haven’t eaten yet; we shall rectify that.” He gave me a pat on the head as if I was his favorite hound, blatantly ignoring what I’d said. “Of the many ways I would like to kill you, had I the leave, starving you is certainly not one of them.”
Searing contempt burned stronger in my veins than the rough stone that bit into my joints. “I am no longer hungry.”
“If you are hungry or not is of no consequence.” His hand hovered over a plate of delicious blackberries, but then shifted as if he knew how much I liked them—and he couldn’t possibly offer me something I liked. He broke off a small piece from the bread on the plate before him instead. He buttered it with the knife now sitting in his other hand and brought it to my mouth. “Open those pretty, cut-up lips, Galantia. Gratefully take the scraps given to you by your betters like the good little Brisden bitch you are.”
Righteous fury knotted my belly, causing such convulsions, as my throat bittered with bile. “I would rather starve.”
“Yes, I figured that you would say something like that. Given how quickly you ended up on your knees and by my feet, I shall provide you with another choice. Take the bread or…” Flames once more reflected on the knife as he brought it closer, pressing the greasy blade against my mouth. “Lick the knife until you bleed. Sebian likes the sound of your moan. Indulge him.”
Beneath the silver, the cut on my bottom lip throbbed, marking the seconds of silent staring that passed between us. To the five hells with him! Did he think that a cut still bothered me? My neck was bruised, my lip aching, my chest carved-up! He wanted me to lick the knife?
Well, as it so happened, I’d promised myself a future where I would touch all the damn knifes; I’d just never specified how or with what body part. Might as well fucking lick it.
I parted my lips, holding Malyr’s gaze as a flutter infused my veins and that godless throb returned to between my legs. Don’t touch the knife, Galantia.
A smile curved my lips.
But why not?
I pressed my tongue against the blade. With a determination that returned some of my pride, I slid it upward, slowly, languidly. It burned. Burned so nicely, only to gradually fade into a pleasant after chill as iron seasoned my mouth.
Malyr’s lips parted, and the tip of his tongue shifted, curled as though he wanted to lick the blood from my teeth. Air escaped his lungs in a long, stuttering exhale that seemed to send a slight tremble through his entire body, and the thinnest coils of shadows simmered along his corded neck.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Sebian groaned, shifting in his chair. “Maybe you do like his attention after all.”
My pulse quickened under Malyr’s intense stare, the way his shadows thickened. Until his gaze snapped to something behind me, and his jaws tightened.
I didn’t see it coming, the hand that clawed into my hair. It ripped me backward with such force, my hip collided with the ungiving stone. More painful was that thud to the side of my head when it hit the table edge—maybe its leg. I braced my arms behind me, catching myself from landing flat on my
back.
“What is she doing here?”
My teeth clenched at those words. That voice! It had haunted me throughout my delirium.
Righting myself where I now sat on my ass, my dress in tatters around my left arm where the impact must have ripped it, I looked up at Lorn. Watched how she draped herself over Malyr’s lap, twirling a black strand of his hair around her finger.
The sight stunned my mind for long moments, though it shouldn’t have. Of course they were lovers. Their absolutely pestilent personalities suited each other perfectly.
“What is she doing here?” Malyr fisted and stretched his hand, then lifted it to cup Lorn’s cheek.
“She is boring me.”
My teeth clenched until my molars throbbed for reasons I couldn’t quite grasp. What was his
entertainment to me? His attention?
Nothing.
“Yes, dull virgins do that to us, don’t they?” Lorn said, letting a new flare of heat climb up my neck while she cupped Malyr’s smooth-shaven cheek. “Are you happy I returned sooner? Did you miss me while I was gone?”
“You know full well that no moment passes where you’re not on my mind.” Malyr’s eyes found mine, and a smile that promised nothing good curved his thin lips. “Mmm, where are my manners?
Granted, those many months I have spent at the Tidestone dungeons did nothing to nurture my social graces, but even I remember that introductions ought to be made. Although… come to think of it… Little dove, I believe you have already met Lorn?”
That heat spread, flaring up the itch around my scabs. No, he didn’t just believe; that bastard knew what had transpired the day of my capture. How she’d killed the only person who had ever shown me love. I could see it in that bemused twitch on his lips.
Lips he pressed to Lorn’s.
He kissed her, passionately, moaning into her mouth, lapping at it, caressing it with his tongue.
What would it feel like to be kissed with such passion? Would it tingle in my belly? Turn me weak?
Those questions put an odd twinge in my chest because I’d never been kissed before, making this yet another thing I knew nothing about. More painful was how Malyr kept staring at me throughout, as if to remind me of how foolish I was. Just a girl. A child.
“Give the girl to me for the night,” Lorn murmured between kisses as she writhed her feminine, shapely body against him. “I want revenge.”
“You had revenge.” Malyr’s throaty, male groan pebbled my skin as he lifted his hips upward against her. “This girl is mine.”
Sebian suddenly appeared behind me and pulled me up, letting the fine hairs rise against his body heat. “Alright, time to go, sweetheart.”
Oh, he didn’t need to say it twice.
I retook possession of my arm and hurried off. “Don’t bother, Raven.”
