Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

A Good Bargain

I had seethed all night, my body simmering with rage and lust, both warring for a foothold inside me as I replayed my time with my creature. She had rejected my compliment and insulted my hospitality. All of that I might have punished had she not flinched when I stood.

It took the anger out of me as fast as it had swallowed my eyes.

“She expected me to hurt her,” I said.

“You did hurt her,” said the mirror. “You held her down with your thorns, and you let the red caps throw stones, and last night you let the fae dance with her until her feet bled.”

I rose into a sitting position where I sprawled on my bed. “She fled,” I said about the first. “As for the second, I gave her a choice, and the third…that was a mercy. She said she would visit the selkie again.”

“Did you try talking to her about the selkie?” asked the mirror.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You try talking to her. She’s impossible!”

“She cannot be any worse than you.”

“When I told her she was beautiful, she threw wine in my face,” I said.

A garbled sound escaped the mirror.

I glared, and it turned into a choke, as if he were swallowing the laugh.

“How did you tell her?” he asked.

“What do you mean, how did I tell her? I said, ‘You are beautiful.’”

“And…?” he prompted.

“She was confused,” I admitted. “And then I told her she should be grateful for my compliment, and she was not.”

There was tension in the silence that followed, and then the mirror said, “You are an idiot.”

I slid off the bed and stalked toward him. “Careful, you glorified piece of rock.”

“Do you think the creature is beautiful?” he asked.

“Of course I think she’s beautiful,” I snapped. “As if my raging erection wasn’t evidence enough!”

“Then why don’t you tell her again,” he suggested. “And this time, mean it.”

“I did mean it!”

“There is a time for these things,” said the mirror. “Perhaps after she has softened toward you.”

“You must be forgetting the part where I need her to fall in love with me.”

“She will not fall in love with someone she does not know, and all you’ve managed to show her is how much of an ass you truly are.”

“I am not an ass!”

I glared at the mirror, and he glared back—or rather, it felt like a glare—and after a moment, I let out a breath and fell against the bed.

“Okay, fine. I’m an ass.”

I stared at my ceiling, which was covered in layers of fabric that draped around my bed like a heavy cloak in winter.

“Perhaps you could…take her on a picnic,” the mirror suggested. “You could…take her to a favorite place and…talk.”

A laugh tore from my throat. “That is a ridiculous idea. She will hardly speak to me at dinner. What makes you think she would follow me into the forest for a chat?”

“It was only one suggestion,” said the mirror. “Maybe you could—”

“I’ll ask the prince again,” I said, interrupting him.

“You would give him another chance?”

I noted the surprise in his voice.

“Not without consequence,” I said. “I have five days left. No more. I cannot afford to waste time!”

“Of course not,” said the mirror. “You must be on your way. Hurry before it is too late.”

His voice dripped with contempt, and if he had not made me so angry, perhaps I would have inquired after his tone.

Instead, I started to leave.

“Do you even know where she is?” the mirror asked.

I paused at the door and looked over my shoulder. From this distance, I could see my reflection.

“Likely in her room,” I said. “She cannot walk.”

When he said nothing, I turned fully toward him.

“Why?”

“No reason,” he said airily. “But if I wished to woo a woman, my day would start and end with her.”

I ground my teeth.

“What do you know? You are just a mirror!” I slammed the door behind me, but as I made my way to the dungeon, my steps faltered, the mirror’s words worming their way into my brain.

Where is she?

Fucking mirror.

I abandoned my task for my creature’s room. When I arrived, I knocked and gave her no time to answer before I entered, too impatient to know if she was there.

She wasn’t.

The room was empty, the bed was made, and the sheer robe she’d worn the night before lay in a puddle at the foot of her bed. I crossed the room to pick it up. The thin material was almost as light as air, and when she’d stood from her bed dressed in only this, I had lost any hold I’d had on my anger and spent the entire evening and night attempting to quell my impossible arousal.

I should have taken her then. I could have. She would have bent to my will with just as much enthusiasm, and yet I could not bring myself to close the distance between us because I knew in the aftermath, she would hate me and I would despise myself.

I pressed the robe to my face and inhaled her sweet, rosy scent.

“What are you doing?” My creature’s voice was sharp and demanding.

I turned, robe in hand, to look at her.

She was still dressed in last night’s clothing, her hair windswept and wild, and her bright eyes narrowed. But her features lacked the tightness of anger. Perhaps she was too tired to hold on to those feelings, as a darkness gathered beneath her eyes.

She may have slept last night, but it certainly wasn’t restful.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

A light ignited in her eyes, and it pulled at the corners of my mouth. There was her fury.

“I told you yesterday I would visit the selkie.”

“You returned?” I blanched. “With those feet?”

“Of course with my feet,” she snapped. “Whose would I have used?”

I dropped the robe and stalked toward her. “I warned you against returning.”

She smiled wickedly. “Did you really think a fairy ring would keep me from learning your name?”

“Is that what you are doing?” I asked, stopping within an inch of her. She shifted, straightening her shoulders, curving her back. She was preparing to fight me, and I wondered if she knew it. I leaned in a centimeter more and demanded, “Did you bargain with the selkie?”

“So what if I did?” she asked.

I reached for her, my hand bracketing her neck where her pulse raced against my palm.

“Do not toy with me, vicious creature,” I said, voice quiet. “Tell me truthfully, did you bargain with the selkie for my name?”

She must have seen something in my eyes that hinted at my anger, because I felt the fight leave her body.

“No,” she whispered.

“And will you promise never to do so?”

“No.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I can give you everything he could and more.”

“There is nothing I want from you except freedom,” she said, but as she spoke, her eyes fell to my lips.

I leaned closer, a whisper between our mouths. “Are you certain of that, creature?”

When she did not speak, I lost all control and crushed my mouth to hers. For a brief moment, she tensed, but as my tongue swept over her lips, she melted, her mouth moving just as hungrily as my own.

I could not decide where to put my hands. What would she want? I’d had no issue touching her before, but this felt precarious. The wrong move could end it too soon, and I wanted this for as long as possible. But it was she who fueled the fire when her arms wound around my neck to bring me closer. Her breasts pressed against my chest, her mouth opened for me, and her tongue caressed mine.

Fuck, she was sweet.

My hands went to her waist and then to her thighs, and I lifted her off her feet. Her legs encircled my waist, and I pressed my weight into her as her back met the door of her wardrobe. My cock was so hard and so heavy, and as it found friction between her thighs, I groaned and she gasped, her fingers tightening in my hair.

I sought purchase against the naked skin of her thighs, my palm resting against her wet heat, my fingers trailing the slickness gathered there.

“Sweet creature, say you are desperate for me.”

“Do not speak,” she begged. “I will hate you more.”

She pulled on my hair and pressed her mouth harder to mine. I froze, reaching for her hands and pinning them against the door.

We glared at one another, breathing hard.

“Vicious creature,” I said.

“Beast,” she spat.

In retaliation, I ground into her, smiling wickedly when her head fell back against the door, exposing the creamy column of her neck to my mouth. I sucked on her skin until a cry tore from her throat.

“Deny yourself my pleasure, creature,” I said, lips trailing her jaw. “It will only drive you mad.”

I met her gaze but did not kiss her again. She glared back, her skin flushed, her lips swollen.

“Let. Go.”

Her demand twisted throughout my body, frustrating every limb, but I obeyed and lowered her to the ground. I could not bring myself to give her distance, and she did not push me away. Instead, her eyes lowered to where my arousal strained against the front of my tunic before she stepped into me, her head tilted back to hold my stare.

“Give me a letter,” she said, her breath caressing my lips. “And I will relieve you of this misery.”

Her words made my body ache, and I twined my fingers into her hair, claws grazing her scalp. She barely winced. I wanted to refuse her, but I was desperate and lust-filled, and I did not think I could continue with this pounding in my head, heart, and cock.

“U,” I said.

“Me?” she asked, a line appearing between her brows.

“U,” I said again. “The letter.”

There was a breath of silence before my hand tightened in her hair.

“On your knees,” I said, and she lowered to one, then the other, gaze unwavering.

I lifted my tunic and reached into my pants to pull out my heavy cock, red in color from the amount of blood rushing to the head. I watched my creature as she looked at it. Her eyes widened, but she took it into her hands and licked me from base to tip. As her tongue and mouth closed over the crown, my hands returned to her hair, gathering it from her face so I could watch her taste me.

She kept her hand on me, a steady pressure that worked up and down my shaft, and now and then, she would look up to watch my face as if she truly cared for my pleasure. I leaned into it, begging, hoping, wishing.

“Fuck.”

The word slipped between my teeth as I lost myself in her soft, warm, and wet mouth. She was perfection at my feet, and I closed my eyes as my body tightened and a tingling feeling consumed me as I came, a raw sound escaping my mouth as she sucked me hard before letting me go. I took her face between my hands as I stared at her, flush and rosy and fucking beautiful.

“You are a sweet creature,” I said, and she rose to her feet and pulled me against her, her mouth colliding with mine. I could taste my come in her mouth as her tongue thrust against mine.

I gripped her tight, but she pushed me away.

“A letter,” she said. “For each time you wish to come by my hand.”

I narrowed my eyes, a strange mix of emotions warring inside me. The futile hope I’d had that she might like me in some small way as she’d taken me into her mouth vanished.

“You presume much, creature.”

“Tell me when your cock is in my mouth again,” she said.

We were only inches apart, and I leaned closer to her, speaking in a half whisper.

“Do not act as if you are not wet for me, vicious creature,” I said, a clawed finger trailing down her face. “I touched you. I know you.”

She shoved against me, but I did not move.

“Leave!” she commanded, breathing hard, fists clenched.

I studied her, unable to keep my mind from imagining what it would be like to take her sweet center against my mouth. My once-softened cock hardened at the thought.

“As you desire,” I said, but I paused at the door after restoring my appearance. When I looked over my shoulder at her, she was staring at the opposite wall, her profile tense and angry, and her mood only darkened as I spoke.

“Come when I call, sweet creature,” I said. “Or I will come for you.”