Chapter 90

Jessalyn

"You should turn your blade on me."

Silas' words hit me hard, drawing a gasp from me as if the blow was a physical thing, but why? I remembered exactly how he'd responded when he was showing me how to use a knife in the first place. I'd even tested the nature of that interest, pressing my fingers into the cut on his leg back at the inn, so it made sense that we were here.

That didn't make it any easier to stare into his eyes now.

Each one of them wore masks around me, some like Arik sporting more than one. Even Creed was both wolf and man, but Silas… What was Silas? Only one way to find out. I jerked the knife from my thigh sheath, his eyes following the movement like it was the sinuous shift of a whore's body undulating against his. His breath came in faster, the green of his eyes almost swallowed by the black of his pupils, but as I came closer, a hand shot out to stop me.

"This isn't something you need to engage in." Roan stared at me earnestly. "Silas likes… some dark things, but you needn't get your hands dirty with them."

I smiled then, hearing all the concern my father, the men at court, used to espouse, thinking they were keeping me safe. Trouble was, the moment I pulled off that veil, I made clear I'd happily trade safety for… well, anything else.

"Don't I?" My thumb slid up the hilt of the knife, and I heard the hiss of Silas' breath. "And what would you propose, Master Roan? That I tie myself to the four of you and he… what? Slips from my chambers, down through the streets to some corner to find some girl who can give him what he really needs." My jaw locked tight, able to see it clearly. It took the sensation of my teeth grinding together to finally stop me, my head shaking from side to side. "No, no, that won't do." My head whipped around, my eyes finding Silas'. "Tell me you're mine."

"Gods, lass, I am, body, mind, and soul," he told me. "Wholly and solely. I can't abide the thought of another woman touching me—"

"Good," I replied primly, "because that will not happen."

"But this…" His eyes fell to the knife, caressing its form almost as tenderly as he did my body, but rather than be jealous of a weapon, I realised what it was. The weapon wasn't his erotic focus, something I confirmed when I lunged forward, pulling another blade from his belt. His eyes shifted to my hand, not the knife itself. It was me wielding it that he needed. The son of the Raven of Khean doesn't live as long as Silas had without control though, so he shook his head and looked down at me. "It's not something I need—"

"Liar." I shifted restlessly in front of him, unable to bear another politely phrased falsehood. "Liar." I lifted one blade, holding it before him and watched his eyes widen. "You want to see me wield this more than you want your next breath." But how? Wives spoke of their husbands' predilections quietly in court, discussing which maids they chased, the… supports they brought to bed, but none spoke of a knife as an erotic tool. "You want me to…" I moved slowly, not wanting to startle anyone while I was wielding a knife in close quarters, my entire focus narrowing down. "To cut you free of this very expensive tailored shirt."

I slid the knife between the nearest button, watching Silas' stomach muscles begin to bunch and tighten, right up until I cut the button free.

"Gods…" he hissed. "This shirt cost me several gold pieces at my tailor's—"

"You don't care," I stated, staring into his eyes.

"Not really, but…" Silas' hands went over mine, shifting the alignment of the knife sideways. "Keep the point away from anything you don't want to cut." His thumb brushed across the tops of my knuckles. "Only shift the angle when you intend to cut something."

Is that what he wanted? I asked him that mutely with my eyes, but that wouldn't be the way it worked. The only way I'd learn was to ask.

Or for Arik to step in.

"If this is what we're doing, ground rules need to be established." He shook his head. "That should've been done a long time ago, when heads were clearer, but…" His hand slid down my back, the caress curiously comforting. "There'll be no deep cuts, but certainly some blood. Do you get squeamish?"

"Too bad if I did," I replied sharply. "Who has to deal more with blood than a woman?"

"But this isn't the same as your moon times," Roan said. "Lass, he wants you to hurt him."

"Not hurt," Silas corrected from between gritted teeth. "It's not the pain that matters, it's…" Now it was he that mutely communicated, his eyes pleading for me to understand, and I think I did.

There was an impulse, hot and reckless and wild, that ruled us all if we let it. The same urge to shove the ruins of my wedding dress aside and step free, I was willing to bet burned in Silas. What did he have to be cut free of? His father's regard? His role as heir? I didn't know, but I dropped the knife to hang from my hands, forced to move towards him with my torso only.

We were like the long trailing branches of the weeping willows, the same breeze that moved me shifting him as well. It was like some kind of strange armless dance, our mouths getting closer with each pass.

"The freedom that comes with that pain."

It was just a guess on my part, but when I met his gaze, he nodded.

"Everything I have is yours," he told me, "but… If you can give me that, I'll find a way to bring you the world and deposit it at your feet."

"The world?" I made a show of nodding, then sheathed one knife before using my free hand to push him backwards, not stopping until he sprawled across my mattress. For a moment, I just stared–at the splendour of him, of having the Raven's heir brought so low. I liked it a lot I decided, climbing onto the bed. "I'll hold you to that."

"But Jessalyn—" Roan said.

"There's no catamounts here," I told him, glancing back over my shoulder. "No monster to save me from, though I do like that this is now your first impulse." I caught the concern in Roan's eyes and smiled slightly in response. "Protect me, Roan, from every other danger, but not you." I stared back at Silas, running my thumb along the hilt of my knife. "Not us. The girl you met in the stews of Stormare would've fainted clear away at the thought of touching a man…." I smiled as I considered what I had been about to say. "Touching a man at all, let alone with a knife, but now…"

I glanced at Arik.

"I can assume that Silas' word in this is not to be trusted, that he'll ask for things in the heat of passion that he shouldn't?"

"You assume correctly," Arik said, nodding slowly.

"Roan seems horrified by the thought of this—"

"Not horrified," the man protested, stripping off his armour and then flopping down on the bed. "I'm obviously a man of simpler tastes. I like blood fine on the battlefield, but not in my bed." He glanced over at Silas. "Why the hell do you want women hurting you anyway? Don't we get enough of that shit in our day-to-day life?"

"You're right." Silas' jaw muscle flexed as he stared at the other man. "You are a simple man. I know you saw a thing or two, running around with Weasel when you were lads, but… I'd be willing to bet you've never experienced the terrible intimacy that comes from torturing someone."

Roan didn't answer, but the flick of his eyes, the way his muscles tensed, made clear this was a topic he wasn't comfortable with.

"I've played my part—"

"Not the same." Silas' chin jerked up as he smiled, eyes shining as he stared at the other man. "Not the same as being brought into your first interrogation as a child and then forced to watch your father's men butcher a man oh so slowly before the knife is handed over to you. Dissociation, that's what they call it, when you get out of your head and go somewhere else." Those green eyes flicked back to meet mine. "Somewhere quiet and still." He let out a long breath, his whole body sinking into the mattress. "Somewhere blissful."

He shook his head sharply.

"When I became a man, plenty of my father's underlings made it clear that getting hard during a torture session was a normal response." Silas' snort was meant to be of amusement, but it felt far more pained than that to me. "Not me. Other people's blood, other people's pain, it claws at me." His hand raked across his chest, leaving a red trail on the white skin he bared. "I've never developed the requisite taste for it to satisfy my father, but my own?"

If I thought I was the one running the show, forcing Silas to submit, I learned then how wrong that assumption was. His eyes seared into mine, commanding, demanding a response from me.

"It's all pain, from birth to death, so I like to feel mine at the hands of a beautiful woman." He blinked. "My woman. In her hands, with her in control, it settles something in my head, allows something to fly free, makes the whole fucking world stop for just a second and lets me just be."

My grip on the knife loosened then. Not due to reticence, though. If anything, Silas' speech strengthened my resolve to do this and do it right. I knew some of what he spoke of, but even admitting that in the safe space within my head seemed ridiculous and trite. All the deaths I'd seen were from a distance, each one carefully choreographed, up until the moment I met them. But the quiet he spoke of? If I could give him that, I would, over and over.

"Only pain?" I asked in a thin voice. I was afraid of his answer, a sadness rising at the prospect of that. My hand smoothed up his leather-clad thigh, feeling the taut muscle beneath his clothing. "No pleasure?"

Had he enjoyed anything we'd done before this? My mind raced frantically, making connections and assumptions until he smiled up at me, grabbing the knife from my grip and tossing it aside, then dragging me onto his lap.

"Have I treasured every kiss and touch? Your fingers burn a trail into my skin every time you touch me." His hand went to the back of my neck, drawing me down for a slow, sensual kiss. "Forgive me for wanting that sensation to last long after you've slipped from my bed. Leave your mark on me, Princess Jessalyn Pearl Yasmina Tennesley. Make clear to the world what I already know. That I belong to you utterly."

As I kissed Silas, my hand slid across the bed coverings to find the knife. I gripped the hilt with intent now, drawing it closer so that when I reared back above him, it was back in my hand. I noted the flare of heat in his eyes, then turned to Arik.

"Something tells me you're going to interfere no matter what I do."

He snorted at that, but his smile told me everything I needed to know.

"You're all very accepting of Silas' nature, but not mine?" I bristled at the challenge in his gaze, then forced my spine to soften. "But you'd be right. If we'd planned this out, you'd complete an apprenticeship with Rose first, learn how to bind your partner, apply pain with considerably less dangerous tools."

I thought I knew how this was going to go, that the commander would muscle in and separate all of us, but Arik had made a name for himself by doing things other's dared not. So I shouldn't have been surprised when he moved, sliding in behind me, his hands going to my waist.

"But you've never been one to shy away from an experience, have you, Princess?"

Sometimes Arik used my title as an insult, other times as a lash for my back, but occasionally it was like this. His mouth against my ear, that same feeling of air against my skin as the last time, but this time it wasn't the fear of the executioner's axe that had me shivering, but anticipation.

"You've obviously done this before, Your Highness," I replied. "Maybe you could provide me with some guidance."

His hand slid along my arm to wrap around my wrist.

"I couldn't think of anything I'd want more."