26
HARLOW
’m relieved to be away from the heat and burning eyes of the ballroom. II can almost pretend I’m not about to get fucked by the new husband I hate in front of a room of people who hate me and my family.
I’m grateful to have a few moments of relative privacy in this little room tucked behind the ceremony space. It’s no more than a windowless space with gray stone walls, a vanity, a couple of chairs, and the soft glow of sunstones in the fireplace.
We already agreed on positions and what I’m comfortable with in the library, but I’m still tense. What if he ignores my wishes and does whatever he wants? He’s been waiting ten years to fuck my family. What better time than when he’s literally fucking me?
But Henry doesn’t seem the type. He will want to do everything exactly as I’ve given him permission to and still make me come. He wants to prove he can because he knows that would be more humiliating than anything else
he could do.
Too bad for him it’s not going to work.
I slip off the silver dress, careful to keep my front facing the servant as I hand her the dress. The last thing I need is for anyone other than Henry to know about my scars—well, I suppose other than Henry and his parents. I have to operate under the assumption that he’s shared everything we spoke about with them.
The servant woman hangs the dress carefully and hands me the red slip I
had made for this ceremony. The fine silk and delicate lace slide smoothly over my skin as I pull it into place.
I walk across the room to the looking glass next to the fireplace.
The servant steps up beside me. She’s a pretty young woman with honey- blonde hair and full pink lips and a hazy purple aura. She’s blessed by Elvodeen, Divine of Strength. I wonder if she has healing like Henry or some
other type of strength magic.
“Take your hair down, miss?” she asks.
I meet her eye in the mirror’s reflection. “Do you think Henry would have a preference?”
She smiles warmly, pleased by my interest in her opinion. “I think most men of the fort like to see their wives with their hair down. We’re normally all pinned up.”
I nod, and she goes to work, plucking the flowers from the elaborate loose braid that took more than an hour to weave earlier. She unravels the plait a section at a time until my hair is free, the loose waves hanging down my back.
“What’s your name?” I ask as she grabs a roll of linen from the dresser beside us.
“Cora,” she says, holding up the roll and blushing. “This is for after—for the bleeding.”
“Oh, I won’t bleed. It’s not my first time. I was married once before —”
“No.” Cora’s cheeks turn bright red. “I thought they’d told you. There’s a blood bind in the ceremony where you’ll cut your palm. I’m sure Henry will heal it, but you don’t want to get anything on your slip. This silk is very fine.”
“The book I read wasn’t very explicit about what a blood bind means,” I say tentatively. I don’t know if the omission of detail was intentional or not.
Cora’s eyes flit to the door and back to me. “It’s all for Divine Kennymyra, for pleasure and vitality. Most ceremonies involve pleasure of the flesh, which is measured in how much vitality is in the blood after. You’ll press your palm to Kennymyra’s sigil in the headboard—there’s a sharp point at the center of it, and you just hold your bloody palm there. If she’s pleased by your offering, it will glow golden.”
“I see.” I don’t really see at all. Things here are much more ritualistic than I’m used to, but what’s a little blood between two enemies?
“Do you know Henry well?” I ask.
Cora flushes again and looks away. She seems a bit too shy to be his type, but someone like Henry must have lovers here. He’s attractive in the wild mountain-man way that seems to be popular, and I’ve certainly noticed the way he turns women’s heads.
“Just in passing. He’s respectful but quiet,” she says.
“Am I in competition for his affections?”
Cora smiles faintly. “I wouldn’t worry about Miriam, miss.”
I smile tightly, like I know who she’s talking about.
“His eyes follow you wherever you go.”
Yes, because he doesn’t trust me.
“Obviously we all know it’s a political marriage, but you really seem to have won him over. A lot of the women here are wondering how you did it,”
Cora says. It’s as if one question uncorked all of the words inside her. “How did you do it?”
“I tried to kill him,” I say. “Sadly, it didn’t take.”
Cora freezes for a moment and then bursts into laughter.
I smile and pretend to laugh along with her as if this is a joke and not the most honest thing I’ve said since arriving at Mountain Haven.
“You have a quick wit,” Cora says. “No wonder he looks so smitten.”
A knock sounds on the door.
Cora stands a little straighter. “That means they’re ready for you.”
I nod and stand as she hands me a red silk robe that matches my slip.
Cora sweeps my hair over my shoulders and smiles brightly. “May Divine Kennymyra bless your union.”
I nod and cross the room. Gaven is waiting for me when I push open the door to the small antechamber that connects to the ceremony room. He immediately averts his gaze, placing a hand over the silver mask on his face for emphasis.
“I know you wanted me elsewhere, but I was apprehensive about being away so long,” Gaven says. He hesitates, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him look so uncomfortable. “It’s not as if I want to be in the room, but I think I should. What if they lock me out?”
“Gaven, they’ve already had easier chances to kill me. If you’re in the room for this, I’ll actually want them to succeed in offing me.”
He lets out a surprised gasp that sounds like half a laugh.
I pat his shoulder. “I’ll be fine. Just stay out of earshot. Consider that a command. There will be no better time to snoop around this place.”
He sighs and nods curtly, then shoves the heavy wood door to the ceremony room open for me. I step inside without hesitation.
Roughly forty masked faces turn toward me as I enter the space. The murmuring group quiets and shifts to take their places in an arch around the bed. Several men stand toward the front of the crowd, their colorful auras pressed out wide.
Though tonight’s ritual is to honor Divine Kennymyra, I know the heads of the fort’s most powerful families are the ones we really have to impress with our performance.
The room is bathed in golden candlelight from the red candles in the wall sconces. Shadows flicker over the ceiling, making the knots in the intricate wooden beam look like ghoulish faces. Servants flit about the room, refilling wine glasses. There’s a door on the far end of the room that leads back to the feast. Music from the party filters in under the gap in the door.
Finally, I turn to face the bed and my new husband standing beside it.
Henry’s changed from his wedding clothes into a red silk robe that matches mine. The top gaps open, revealing his broad, scarred chest as he holds out a hand in invitation. When I take it, he yanks me closer and pushes my back against one of the bedposts. He kisses me hard. I’m so shocked, I let him.
My heartbeat kicks up and I’m suddenly nervous—not about the public sex so much as the fact that I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep my composure. Whatever that blessing did—or maybe some reckless desire for oblivion—makes me want him.
Henry breaks away from my lips and kisses along my jaw, pausing at my ear. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
I don’t like feeling at his mercy. I need something—anything—to balance this dynamic between us. Henry is so tall, he looms over me. His eyes on me are heavier than the weight of the collective gazes of everyone else in the room.
“Is Miriam the woman you were trying to fuck on hunt night? Is she here tonight?” I ask.
Henry’s aura flares in surprise. “I didn’t take you for the jealous type. I know better than to bring her around my murderous wife.”
I glare at him, but I’m relieved that the comment had the desired effect.
There’s a hint of annoyance in his eyes.
He moves so quickly, I can barely track him as he hooks an arm under my legs, sweeps me up, and then tosses me on the bed. I bounce once, and before
I can right myself, he’s prowling over me. He unties my robe and sits back to drink me in.
Bea used to say I have a body built for fucking. My breasts are full but perky. My waist is slim but my hips are wide, and my ass is high and round from all the running.
This isn’t the first time Henry has seen me naked, but under his assessing gaze, I wonder if he prefers someone with a fuller figure, like Miriam.
“Is this red?” he whispers, drawing a finger along the lace edge of the neckline.
I nod, and he hums low, closing his eyes. I wonder if he’s trying to remember red. I try to imagine what it would be like to have a sense and then lose it.
He puts his hand on my chest, but he doesn’t cup my breast or tweak my nipple. He just presses his huge, callused hand to the soft skin, his fingers resting against the pulse point in my neck.
My heart is pounding so hard.
“I’ll keep you covered,” he whispers.
When he was kissing me, it was easy to ignore the eyes in the room, but now that he’s reminded me, I feel suffocated by their attention. In my periphery, I only see black masks. I’m relieved Gaven listened to me, and the anonymity of the masks makes this a little bit less uncomfortable, but not much.
I want to choke Henry for making me so aware of them. I look up at him with as much defiance as I can manage. “I’m not ashamed of my body.”
A muscle in Henry’s jaw twitches. He runs a finger down the center of my chest, then grips the top of my slip and rips it down the center, baring me to the room. The violence is so sudden and shocking, we both freeze. His hungry gaze scrapes over my skin and he licks his lips.
He cups my right breast, gently brushing his thumb over my nipple. He pinches it lightly. When I don’t react, he pinches it harder, and I arch off the bed, pressing into his hand. He hums, the slight twitch of a smirk on his lips as he caresses my skin.
He kisses me again, and I’m torn between shoving him south so we can get this over with. We discussed what I was comfortable with ahead of time, but I wasn’t expecting him to kiss me so much, and every time he does it, I feel so disoriented by how much I like the closeness. Pain is grounding—but the tenderness unnerves me.
As if sensing my distraction, he pinches my nipple even harder, and I groan into his mouth and shudder. Damp heat rushes between my thighs. I told him I liked it rough because I thought that would be easier to sell than some slow, sensual lovemaking, but now I’m worried what this kind of recklessness will bring out of me.
He nips down my jaw, buries his hand in my hair, and yanks my head back to give him better access. His other hand slides down my side, passing over warm skin, shredded silk, and then more skin. He rakes his fingers up and down my thigh, progressively moving from outer to inner thigh.
He bites my neck hard, and I gasp. The hand on my inner thigh pushes the remains of my slip higher. The cool air hits my pussy and I feel just how wet I already am.
The first brush of his fingers over me is so gentle, but I shudder like I’ve been struck by an electrical charge. He chuckles into my neck.
He’s enjoying this, and I hate it. Maybe that’s exactly why he’s enjoying it. I want to slap him, but instead I press my hand against the wooden headboard. The cool metal of the sigil to Kennymyra set into the wood grounds me.
As he kisses down my chest and sucks one of my nipples into his mouth, he slides a thick finger inside me. I’m wet enough that it glides in easily. He curls the finger and bites down hard on my nipple, and I lose all composure.
I moan. My hand comes to the back of his head reflexively, but not to push him away. I urge him on. He sucks hard to ease the ache, and my pussy clamps down on his finger as he starts to slide it in and out.
I’m mindless with pain-tinged pleasure. I want to blame the blessing and the ceremony and how tense I am, but some part of me is wondering if he’s actually going to be able to get me over the edge.
His mouth drifts to the other breast, nipping at my skin all the way. I’m going to be covered in bruises, but as he bites the other nipple and shoves a second finger inside me, I’m too dizzy with lust to care. He moves his fingers faster, pressing the heel of his hand against my clit for friction.
He traces rough kisses down my stomach, withdraws his fingers, and shoves my thighs wide, baring me to him and the rest of the room.
I’m suddenly aware of just how many people are around us—the closest no more than eight feet away. They can see everything. I’m not modest, but it’s so strange to be watched like this.
I really don’t care—as long as they don’t see my back, and so long as
Gaven isn’t in here.
Henry gives me no time to think about it. He holds my gaze as he lowers his mouth and gives me a slow lick, then plunges his tongue inside me. I reflexively try to squeeze my thighs closed, but his hands press them back into the bed as he starts to fuck me with his tongue.
The benefit of having tried to kill him twice is that I’m certain nothing is going to hurt him. For the first time in my life, I can relax and enjoy what’s happening without worrying he’s going to forget himself and die.
I try to ignore the rapt gazes of the crowd. Their masked faces make them more anonymous, but I recognize Bryce and Carter, and that’s unnerving.
Henry slides two fingers inside me, drawing my full attention back to him. I want more. This isn’t enough. I need him to stop messing around and fuck me. I agreed to this because he said it was necessary to prove his commitment to service, but I just want this over with.
His mouth has perfect suction on my clit as he pumps his fingers faster.
He flattens his tongue against me, alternating between that, suction, and light grazes of his teeth. It’s maddeningly effective. He slides his other hand up to alternate pinching my nipples.
Bleeding woods. He knows what he’s doing. My body is tingling, my limbs full of liquid warmth.
He bites my clit, and the pain is so stunning, it leaves me clenched and frozen. He shoves a third finger inside me and sucks hard on the aching flesh.
It hurts so perfectly. I’m so full of him; he’s overtaken every sense in my body.
I slap my hand against the sigil, barely aware of the point biting into my palm as the pleasure bursts all at once. I’m suspended in some liminal place as wave after wave rolls over me. It goes on and on like that, the ecstasy so warm and bubbling that I can barely breathe around it. The sound he wrenches out of me is something animal—the guttural half-scream, half- moan of a woman rent from who she was and remade into something new.
He moves his fingers frantically, his other hand pinning my hips to the bed so I can’t escape his fingers or the rhythm of teeth, tongue, suction on my clit.
I’ve brought myself satisfaction before—but I’ve never felt anything like this. I’m suddenly terrified this is the best I’ll ever feel. My body has only ever been a prison where I’m trapped with pain or a bait to lure a violent man to his death. It has never been a place of pleasure for more than a fleeting
moment.
But this is an eternity of ecstasy laced with sharp pain to bring me up and down until I’m breathless and aching and ready to give him anything he asks for. My thighs clamp around his head as the last shudders rip through me.
When I finally open my eyes, they’re blurry with tears. The release is so intense that every emotion I’d been holding back rushes out post-climax. I bite back a shocked laugh.
Henry looks as wrecked as I feel as he prowls over me and leans close.
“I want to hear you moan like that every night,” he murmurs into my ear.
Henry kneels and licks his lips. He doesn’t let me recover. He tosses off his robe and uses his soaked hand to stroke his cock twice before notching himself at my entrance and thrusting inside to the hilt.
I groan loudly, body arching into him like I was meant for this. I’m so turned on that it barely hurts at all, but he is by far the biggest man I’ve been with. The stretch steals my breath.
He thrusts again and groans a curse into the space behind my ear. “You were made to take me just like this.”
My muscles instantly start clenching again and I’m so relieved for the familiarity of something rough and purely physical. He cups my breast and tweaks my nipple hard, and I gasp as he pulls out and thrusts again.
“You like it fast and rough?” His voice is a gravelly whisper as he continues to move.
If it didn’t feel so good, I’d be more angry that I can’t compose myself, but I’m half-mindless with the need to feel what I just felt again.
He slows down and pushes the fingers that were just inside me into my mouth. “Taste how hard you just came for me.” He’s so cocky.
I bite down, but he shoves his fingers back into my throat. When I gag
and open, he chuckles into my ear.
“I can’t wait to do that with my cock.”
His voice is low enough that only I can hear, and I shiver at the thought. I don’t actually want that. My brain is slow from the aftereffects of the orgasm.
Surely he’s not planning on this now. It wasn’t one of the activities we discussed.
“Oh no, not tonight, lovely,” he taunts, his voice low and full of certainty.
“You’re going to ask for this again, and when we’re away from this crowd, I’m going to love watching you choke on my cock as much as you’re going to like me making you.”
I shove my hand into his hair and hold him in place as I bite his ear.
“Only in your wettest dreams will you see me on my knees for you.”
He thrusts into me harder and chuckles. “That would be more believable if you weren’t soaking for me. If you get this slick for someone you can’t stand, I’d love to see how you respond when you actually like someone.”
“Shut up and move,” I grunt into his ear.
The man is bent on doing exactly what I tell him not to. He pulls back, looks me in the eye, and pauses his movement so the pressure that had been mounting dissipates. His smug smile is maddening.
I briefly consider slapping him, but I’m afraid he’d like it.
He shifts, hooking his arms under my knees to push them higher toward my shoulders. The new, deeper angle has me arching off the bed.
I curse, hands fisting in the sheets. He’s so deep, and I should hate it, but it feels so good I can hardly breathe as he finds a slower pace.
He watches his cock slide in and out of me with hooded eyes, and I can’t look away. It feels so good.
“You look so beautiful taking me like this. I hate that anyone else is seeing it. I want your pleasure to myself.”
I shouldn’t like those words, but the possessive edge to them that would normally be a massive turnoff is unbelievably hot when I’m this close to a release.
The only thing holding me back is the relentless reminder of everyone in the room watching. They haven’t moved, but all conversations have ceased, and their hungry gazes are all on us.
Henry groans, his dark blue eyes narrowed in intense concentration. I swear to the Divine it feels like he’s getting bigger, but it must be the mounting pleasure. I’m clenching tighter with every slow thrust.
When he meets my gaze again, his eyes are full of heat and unnerving softness. “I knew this is what you needed. As much as I’d love to choke you until you come all over my cock, I know what you need is a nice, sweet fuck.
A soft fuck for a secretly soft woman.”
He thrusts in deeper, and my eyes roll back, fingernails scratching up his back. “That’s right, lovely—” He breaks off into some sort of incomprehensible praise as my pussy clamps down on him harder and he
presses my legs back further.
“Fuck, you’re flexible,” he groans.
He momentarily loses control, fucking me hard and fast. I’m gasping for
air, nails scoring his shoulders, as the tension in my body becomes so extreme that spots form in my vision. I’m so close it hurts.
But then he stops all at once. I let out a mortifying whine. His aura is shooting off bright flares in all directions. He’s close too, but he’s stopped to
stare into my eyes.
His hands come to cup my face.
Then, he kisses me hard and starts to move again. He releases his arms from under my legs and cups my ass in his hands. I wrap my thighs around his hips, arching up to meet his every thrust.
Immediately, I’m lost in blinding rapture again.
It’s the kissing. I’m terrified at the way this tenderness has me so undone, so quickly. I’m holding off the climax by sheer force of will. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of it being this easy.
He kisses down my jaw and chuckles into my ear. The pleasant timbre of it sends a shiver through me that almost pushes me over the edge.
“I love watching you fight it. I love that you’re about to have the best orgasm of your life and I’m the one giving it to you. But mostly I love how much you hate it.” His voice is a hoarse groan in my ear, but the certainty makes me shudder. “That’s right. Be a good little wife and give me what I want.”
It’s tempting to defy him, but he kisses me again, and the tension in my body is so intense. Every nerve ending in my skin is electrified with pleasure.
The climax is close but somehow elusive. What if I can’t? What if we fail the ritual?
My skin is covered in goosebumps and my nipples are so hard they hurt.
I feel like a dying star, just trying to suck everything in and in and in. I’m gasping for breath, clawing Henry’s back, clenching around his cock. I want more of everything. I’m so, so close, it hurts.
His hands flex on my ass, his aura so wide and expansive it’s taking up the entire bed. He’s just as close.
Henry was clear he needed to finish inside me as part of the ritual, but if I don’t finish first, it might not work. We might offend Kennymyra.
I’m hit with the fear of failure, with the horror of a room full of people who loathe me watching as I consummate my marriage with the best sex of my life.
Henry meets my eyes, and he looks suddenly so serious. “You’re safe, Harlow,” he whispers.
I know it’s not really true, but the words are like a match struck in my body. The climax blows through me like a storm.
“Oh, fuck, fuck—” His curses break off as he pumps into me harder and faster.
It’s only the faint warning in my mind that reminds me I need to touch the sigil because I’m about to die of pleasure. I slap my still-bloody palm to the sigil.
I’ve never felt anything like this. It’s like I’m being broken apart and reassembled, all at once made and unmade by pleasure alone.
I scream, loud and throat-shredding. My entire body spasms with the lightning strike of pleasure. I’m blind and breathless—gasping in shallow gulps of air as my body buzzes with ecstasy, the rushing warmth of it filling me up in shivery swells. It goes on and on and I’m bearing down on Henry’s cock so hard. My thighs shake violently. My feet curl until they cramp.
I’m only aware that Henry is still there because of the way he murmurs soft praise between cursing and groaning.
It goes on even longer than the first one, until I’m certain my body and mind will both break. Until I’m practically sobbing with pleasure. Finally, the waves slow and I’m relieved to draw in a deep breath.
But then, Henry bites the soft place where my neck meets my shoulder.
The pain sends another wave of pleasure rolling over me, wet heat rushing between my thighs. He grips my hips with bruising strength and shoves his cock as deep as he can get as he spills inside me. We both groan in unison.
He holds himself deep inside me, his hips jerking as the aftershocks hit him.
Henry presses his hand over mine on the golden sigil.
I must look shocked because he smirks and nods at the headboard. “I told you I would get it out of you.”
Sure enough, when I look up, the sigil is glowing golden. It gets brighter and brighter, until I have to squint. There’s a loud metallic crack and a piece of the metal falls away.
The glow fades and the room goes deathly quiet.
Stunned murmurs break out in the crowd, and then they applaud. I’m startled by the reminder of their presence, but the horror is more distant in the drugging afterglow of pleasure.
Henry releases his hold on me and presses up to kneel. He withdraws, and I feel him leaking out of me. His gaze is riveted between my legs, and I let
my thighs fall open so he can look his fill.
I tell myself it’s to get the upper hand back, but the truth is I’m so mindless and exhausted right now, I’d let him have anything he wants.
“Get out.” Henry’s voice is like a blade drawn across a whetstone.
The crowd instantly moves toward the chamber door.
He doesn’t look away from my pussy until the door closes behind the last person. The music in the ballroom gets louder, and finally, Henry breaks out of his daze.
I lift the broken piece of sigil from where it landed on the pillow above my head.
“Was this supposed to happen? Did it work?”
Henry scrubs a hand over his face. “I’d say we’re in the clear. No one has ever given so much pleasure they broke the sigil, Harlow.”
I glower up at the self-satisfied look on his face. He can feel victorious this round, especially if it means he’ll let his guard down. I’ll let him look at tonight as a triumph, instead of a reminder that this sigil is the first of many things I’ll break to get what I want.
