Chapter 91

Silas

Sometimes I felt like waiting was the best part. While I couldn't crave the bite of Jessalyn's knife more, the anticipation had a sharp edge of its own. I felt it slicing into me as Arik settled in behind our queen. He shot me a look over her shoulder, right as his lips brushed her ear whispering something. We'd been in exactly this position before.

Growing up in the Guild, I didn't have the customary shame others felt about giving or receiving pain during sex, but I'd learned to mask it when I enlisted in the army. Most of the men there were like Roan. Simple in their pleasures and hostile in the face of any greater complexity, but Arik? Ever the commander, he'd quizzed me on my nature, asking for all the relevant details with his usual directness. I'd answered him the best I could, and then when I slipped away to visit one of my father's establishments, he'd followed.

Putting a knife in the hand of a whore was never a wise thing. It wasn't that they were any more or less trustworthy than any other Kheanian, but the temptation to plunge the blade into my guts and twist, stopping the play and killing me for the gold at my belt, could prove too much for some. Arik entered the room, the girl I'd bought for the night looking up and then smiling, thinking she'd get twice the pleasure. Instead, he'd watched and learned, observing me, observing her like he did the maps of battle formations our tutors sought to teach us. Then, when she was done and I was gasping, my head reeling, all sense of self and the world, driven from me, he'd slung my arm around his shoulders and hauled me back to the barracks.

Our bond was forged in the fires of the cadet camps, hammered in battle, but it was this that annealed the metal, making it strong and impervious. I nodded, just a small thing and he moved.

"It might be good that you ruined the tip of this blade." He plucked it from Jessalyn's grip, testing its sharpness with his thumb. "But a blunt knife can still cut a man with the requisite force."

"So I should go slowly, with little pressure?" she asked.

"No—" I said, my head jerking up off the pillow. I'd waited too long, needed this too much for her to do a half-hearted job of the thing.

"Yes. Always slowly, always with an awareness of what you're doing, how he's responding." He pressed a kiss to her neck and I watched her head lower to one side, surrendering more skin to his mouth, my own bone-dry. I wanted to kiss her, make her sigh. His hand slid under her chin and directed her focus back to me and I bathed in her sky-blue gaze. "Eyes on Silas at all times. Watch his responses. Read him the way I know you can. What is he feeling right now?"

"Arousal."

She chuckled that out, bending down like a siren might from the rocks when spying a drowning man in the water. Her hand slid up my pants, then gods… right where I needed it. The heel of her palm ground down, making my teeth clack together as my body rose up off the bed.

"More than that." Arik's tone was gently chiding. "If he was just hard, all you'd need to do was unlace his breeches and jerk him fast—"

"Yes…" I hissed, pushing my hips up, needing more contact, more friction.

"And he'd spill all over his stomach, but what else?" When Arik pulled her hand away, I swore a blue streak under my breath, cursing him, his mother, his entire line right now. "What else is he experiencing?"

Her hands landed beside my head as she loomed over me. Jessalyn smelled as sweet as a flower garden most days, but there was something darker, more sultry about her now. I found myself wanting to identify and catalogue every possible bloom it could be, right as her eyes locked with mine.

Her smile when it came was like the sun rising, staining her cheeks with its light, and my heart was glad to see it.

"Anticipation." She reached down with her hand, not a blade, but the edge of her nail felt like a knife's point as she flicked one of the remaining buttons open, then another, her eyes narrowing slightly as she scraped a nail across my chest. Her smile widened when I stiffened. "You're hovering on the edge."

"If you know how often I experience that," I ground out, "you might not be quite so self-congratulatory."

"Is that so?" My shirt was pulled open, her hips landing on mine as she smoothed the fabric over. "Have you been aching for me, Silas?"

"The gods know how much."

My hands landed on her perfectly formed arse, tugging her down as I rose up, grinding our bodies against each other. The friction was amazing and terrible all at the same time, the slip of the leather nothing compared to the satin of her.

"Well, now it's my turn to find out."

Jessalyn plucked my hands away and then pressed them up and over my head. "I think I'm going to need you to stay right there." Her focus shifted to Arik. "He should be bound, shouldn't he? One move and I…" She blinked. "I could do something I'd regret."

"I think he'd like that very much," Arik said with a chuckle. "Roan?"

"Tying up pretty girls?" the red-haired man grumbled. "That's something I can get behind. This idiot…" But he undid his belt and pulled it free, moving to loop the leather around the other man's wrists. "I don't see the appeal."

"My gratitude isn't enough?"

Sometimes we forgot what Jessalyn was. A princess of a small kingdom, but a princess in truth. She looked through her lashes at Roan, his groan a perfect expression of the one I kept back. He lashed my wrists to the headboard with a dark look my way before turning back to our woman.

"Always." His hand slid into her hair and I experienced the bittersweet pain of watching the two of them kissing when my own mouth ached for the lack of her. "Now, don't get tempted to gut the prick. It's a feeling I fight each day, but we must resist."

"No gutting." My stomach muscles jumped as she traced her fingertips across them. "No permanent damage."

Her smile faded as she stared into my eyes, instinctively communicating her boundaries in that moment and I nodded in recognition.

"I'd wear your scars gladly, lass. Any mark you choose to give me would be treasured, but… not now. Not this time."

"Not this time," Arik agreed, passing her the knife, and that's when my focus fell apart. He was talking to her, telling her what to do and what to be careful of, but I didn't care. Just those long elegant hands clasping the hilt, her perfect oval nails contrasting with the ebony handle–my eyes fought to take in every detail even as my mind started to lose the ability to do just that. His voice was just a low hum, hers a bright counterpoint, right up until this.

"Watch him!"

It felt like I heard Arik's voice coming from far, far away, because he couldn't intrude on this most-intimate space. Everything narrowed down to just her and just me. That keen look, those blue eyes sharp as her knife's blade as she watched me shift and flex, testing the belt's limits, the leather creaking as I tried to meet her what was in her hand.

"Quietly." Her hand on my stomach pushed me down, and when I followed her lead, my breathing shallow rather than in great gasps, I was rewarded. "Be perfectly still for me. You can do that?" Her voice was the perfect blend of plead and command. She was my queen. She ruled me utterly, but right now she needed my cooperation. I nodded sharply, unable to deny her anything, and my reward came quickly. "Good boy." Her praise wreathed around me, tying me far tighter to the bed than Roan had dared as her knife came down.

I had to wait for it, that became clear. She didn't hesitate, but the knifepoint seemed to descend glacially slow. Or perhaps it was just my heart rate that was fast, beating so hard in my ears that the sounds all blurred together, I couldn't tell. All I could do was watch her hand grip the knife handle so tightly her knuckles went white. I wanted her to do the same to me. Hold my dick, squeeze me to the point of pain just to feel the flush of endorphins rushing through my veins, like they did right now.

Jessalyn was doing exactly what she was told to. I could dimly feel her restraint, the blunt knife dragging across my skin, but the tiny snarls of metal on the blunted point did the trick, leaving raised welts in their wake. I wasn't a slut for pain, something that Rose had announced after one long session. I didn't need Jessalyn to hurt me to feel this. It was the exhilaration of it, the sting reminding me just how close I was to the bleeding edge, literally.

"Jess…"

I sighed her name, needing to say more, to describe exactly what she was doing to me, but she just shook her head slightly, then shot me a secret smile. One just the two of us shared, it felt, the others disappearing from my field of view. Just her, just my girl, my mate, my queen. My mouth worked, but no sound came out but a terrible groan.

"There, there."

She sounded like a nanny soothing a recalcitrant child, but there was nothing motherly about the way she pressed the knife hilt against my cock, her lips now kissing the marks she'd made. Pleasure and pain, my eyes rolled backwards, unable to bear to watch anymore. My other senses needed to engage, feeling the soft press of her lips and then… fuck, her tongue sliding along the scratch. The salt of her saliva made it throb so fucking good. My wrists jerked against my bonds, needing to cradle her head, hold her right there, but instead, I was forced to lie there as she pulled away.

"More?"

I let out a helpless little laugh, the feeling inside me swelling and swelling.

"Gods, more, more."

I was sure this would be the end of it, that she couldn't possibly want to give me what I needed, but then the knife was spun in her hand, the edge now presented to me. I saw every nick in the blade, remembered each fight that put them there, right up until she scraped it across my stomach.

The sensation, the noise was like that made when sharpening a blade of a leather strap, but rather than the pelt of some long-dead cow, it was my skin that turned to fire. Every single nerve ending came awake to scream at me the danger I was in. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, turning my muscles to iron, but Roan had tied me down far too well. They'd had to do it before, for my safety or for the girl we were messing with, but it was only now that I felt the surrender I craved.

I couldn't fight this.

I couldn't fight her, not when she bent her head, her nightdress dropping down over one shoulder, baring all of this golden skin to my eyes. I never could. It'd taken everything in me to stay quiet, still when my brothers kissed and caressed this strangely beautiful girl back in Stormare. I'd kept my distance as best as I could on the ride back to Khean, but every scrap of restraint in me burned away in this moment.

We could die tomorrow. Gods, even tonight when we returned to the palace. I could never understand why the king continued to allow us to freely walk the halls. There was a foetid cell under the castle with our names on it, and I'd run into its damp confines if that meant I had this. Had her for just this moment.

"Jess…"

I realised then I'd been chanting her name over and over, her gaze locking with mine. I stared into her soul, trying my damndest to share my own. Apologies were required, obeisances made. Fuck, after this, I'd throw myself at her feet and not rise before she gave me leave, even if that took days. Her gaze didn't waver as I told her just that, over and over until her lips pressed together.

"I think I understand now," she said, my eyes widening as I saw her draw the knife away. Her eyes were like bars of moonlight, cutting through the dark of night and straight into me as she loomed, more goddess than woman. "It has to hurt for it all to come out. The pain is the only key that fits in the lock that will open you up."

The knife was tossed to one side, but I didn't whine for more. Her gaze was far sharper as she rose above me, her hands plucking at my clothes, tugging at my shirt, refusing to allow anything between us until Arik stepped in.

"Like this," he told her, his eyes burning into the side of her face until he was forced to use the knife to slide up the seams of my sleeves, the fabric falling apart with a sigh. Jessalyn took over, her hands finding my other knives, my belt before she undid the buckle and tossed them aside. There was a moment's pause as her fingers traced the tight lacing of my breeches, her eyes sliding up my body, tracing the scratches she'd left there before she met my eyes. There was a question there, about what I wanted, what I permitted, but I needed her to know. I had no boundaries when it came to her, she'd smashed through every single one.

The feel of my pants being peeled away was almost painful, my cock so hard, so hot, it felt like the cooler air of the room caressed me in a way that had me jerking.

"Careful now." Arik was like a hound straining on the leash. There was no knife play, nothing in the world that would have him tossing that collar aside. "There's some important veins in a man's groin."

"Which is why I don't intend on cutting him."

Jessalyn's announcement had a pang of disappointment rocketing through me, right up until I felt the cool, hard press of the knife handle into my length.

"Oh gods…"

I was wound too tightly, my muscles aching in a way that would lay me low tonight and the next day, but I couldn't seem to release them for a second. Her hand, hot and firm, her fingers tightening around me, forcing the metal of the hilt to bite into my shaft while her other hand was raised. The scab on her finger had broken open again, a single scarlet droplet rolling down her hand.

"Blood?"

My vision started to darken around the edges, my heart beating too fast for the blood to be pumped properly, my mouth bone dry. I swallowed I don't know how many times, trying to moisten it, only managing to croak out this.

"Mine, not yours…" My chest heaved. "Never yours." That's when my focus snapped sideways, catching Roan's stricken expression and Arik's carefully contained one. "Release me," I snapped. "Release me!"

"I'm not letting you bleed yourself…Oh." Roan's expression grew mulish as Arik leaned forward, shooting me a warning look before undoing the belt around my wrists. "So we're doing this then. Fuck, I better get the bandages out of the saddlebags."

"No." I flicked out my wrists, encouraging the blood to return to my fingers, because I'd need it. "If we're successful, Jessalyn. If we kill the king, if Creed brings an army to fight for your honour, then there's to be more blood."

"More?"

It was only now that she paled, her eyes flicking from my hands to my face and back again, which made me smile.

"Just a little." I picked up the knife, a small, sensible voice telling me it should be cleaned thoroughly before using it to prick my skin, but it wasn't in control, I was. "A symbolic amount the wolf shifters use to signal a bond. Blood is very important to them. It represents life, the turn of the wheel, bringing forth each new generation. It symbolises a pack bond. Your blood and mine, and Arik's and Roan's, but especially Creed's. We'll mingle them all together, just like we did when we created our pack bond."

"Creed will have important words to be said while we do it."

Roan looked a lot more relieved now he was in familiar territory.

"But the meaning will be the same." Arik crouched down beside Jessalyn, staring into her eyes. "I know you must be bitter about being ripped from your homeland, but the wolf shifters believe that every step a pack of fated mates take is the will of the gods. That means you, Jessalyn, were never meant to be some veiled princess." He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You were always meant to be the mate of a shifter and the malcontents he bound himself too, just as wild, just as fierce as the beast men of Khean."

"You mean to seal this relationship in blood?" I heard the steel in Jessalyn's voice just as I felt the knife in my hand. "We do that too in my country, so…" She straightened, her nightdress as fine as a bejewelled gown, the only crown she needed was the cloud of her golden hair. "Show me how it is done here, Silas."