Chapter 92

I watched Silas raise the knife with a kind of rapt fascination I never expected to feel, yet here I was. Perhaps it was his splendid, almost naked form that had me so excited.

Or perhaps it was this.

He held one long finger out, the knife in his other hand, ready for me to take.

"Just a drop is all that's needed," he told me.

"From me or you?'

"Me, always me. I can't abide even that scratch on your finger. We'll be talking long and hard about the safe handling of weapons after this, but first…"

His cool facade seemed to shatter when I took the knife from him, and I'd come to love that. I wanted to see that look in his eyes always, as if he was haunted by need. A need for me I confirmed as I took his hand. Wherever he went mentally as I was playing with him before, now he sank back down into it.

So what to do?

I glanced at Arik who nodded slowly, the intensity of his gaze making it clear. Not too much, not too far. Some of the more serious treaties my father signed were required to do so with blood, so I had some awareness of the process. Father hadn't run the tip of the knife up his finger though, nor let out a pleased little grunt, right before it was pressed into his fingertip. The skin dimpled like a grape when you first bit into it, but with both things, the surface tension broke and that had the juice, the blood, welling up.

I dropped the knife onto the bed, watching a perfect droplet of blood form. More, I decided, there needed to be more. I gripped his finger tightly, squeezing him like one might an orange, until the droplet became large and bloated, right before he turned his hand over. A little gasp escaped my lips as his hand slid down, ringing his cock and holding it out proudly from his body as the blood fell, kissing the crown on impact, then sliding down.

His blood was hot, slick, just as he was as I wrapped my hand around him. He winced, then hissed, making me fear I was hurting him, but his hand covered mine, the fingertips sticky, when I went to pull away.

"Just like that…" he hissed again. "Gods, Jess, yes."

His stricken expression, the way his whole body flexed in time with my strokes, I found myself drawn into his orbit, my mouth hovering over his. I wanted to breathe him in, suck in his cries, digesting each and every one of them.

And provoke more.

I pulled my hand away to the sound of his pained gasp, but only long enough to grab the knife. They all watched with fascination as I wielded it now, Silas with need, Arik with concern, and Roan in horror.

"Lass—" the big warrior rumbled, moving to intercept me, but Arik shook his head.

"No." The prince's focus shifted to me. "We need to see how this will go. Carefully, yes?"

But I didn't feel careful and neither did Silas, and when our eyes locked, I saw a twin to the madness raging within him. The others had things to say about that, so much, but their voices were just a low hum inside my head. My thumb caressed the hilt of the knife, feeling the imprint of Silas still in my palm, and the green-eyed man watched my every move closely, his breath coming in faster and faster, right before I brought the tip of the knife down.

There's a peculiar kind of pleasure that comes from being reckless. They'd taught me that, all four of them. I'd torn off my veil and had been lucky enough to stumble into each one of their arms and keep on stumbling until I found myself here. Make it hurt, but not too much. Cut him, but not too deeply. Make the blood well, because scratches did not seem to be enough. So I dragged the point of the knife down one side of his groin, the hair shaved away there as if to make the job easier. I saw the silvery shapes of scars left by others, following their tried and true paths and watching his cock lurch, then twitch in response. He was so red, so hard, and all this was so urgent, I knew he was riding the edge of a pleasure so sharp it cut just as effectively as the blade.

The way his skin broke, blood beading, made sense. All this pain, this pleasure had to go somewhere, didn't it? I felt a vicious envy that he had a way to express it so simply, if dangerously. Didn't I feel a similar red tide swelling inside me? Roseblood hadn't created it, I was relieved to find, but merely awoken it. A need that ached as much as it was formless, unable to be acted on, expressed, until I dragged that blade against his flesh.

Silas' fingers linked with mine on my free hand, his grip on me tightening as we watched the beads form. Was he terrified I'd pull away? He needn't have been as I looked up, staring into his eyes. I wasn't going anywhere, that's what I told him mutely, right before my head dropped down.

"Blood for blood?" I asked.

Silas couldn't answer me in words, his pants, his cries were all I would get as my tongue slid along the cut, the coppery taste of him filling my mouth, just like the roseblood had the night I first met him. With all the same carelessness, my lips closed over the cut, sucking on his skin, pulling it into my mouth, his hands slapping down on my head and holding me right where I was as his hips bucked up. Helplessly it seemed, some red, hazy instinct to thrust and thrust into something ruling him.

A similar one was riding me.

"You've given me your blood," I said, smiling even though it hurt to do so. "And I'll give you mine."

"What? No, Jess—" Roan's eyes went wide and he started to move forward, but he couldn't hold my attention, only Silas. I hiked up my nightgown, quickly frustrated by the voluminous folds before tugging it up and over my head.

"She's not cutting herself." Arik's eyes burned into mine, taking in everything I revealed before meeting my gaze again.

"No." My focus shifted to Silas. "I think I'm beginning to understand you, Master Silas." My fingers traced the line of his cut, the blood dampening my fingers before I grasped his cock at the root and then moved forward. "Women have to bleed first, then they can feel pleasure." I fell forward, propped up on one hand. "You can give me that, can't you?"

"You want…?" Silas blinked like a swimmer just emerging from under the water's surface. "You want me to…?"

"If the plans go awry and I'm brought to the king's bed, I won't go untouched." I snapped that out like a dog might. "I won't. He doesn't have the required skills, the reverence." My head tilted to one side. "But you do, don't you?"

"Jess." His hands went to my face, thumbs stroking my cheeks. "We can't come back from this."

"Good."

"I'll do my best, but it'll still hurt."

"You know something about that, don't you?" My eyebrow rose as I stared into his eyes. "How to make it hurt so good?"

"We do."

We both turned aside to see Arik crouched beside us but not for long. He moved to slot his body back against mine, directing my attention back to Silas as his hands began to roam. Those calluses on his palm reminded me I had a body as he traced the shape of my stomach, my waist, and then the swell of my ribcage before his hand fitted itself to my neck and then tilted my head back. Blue eyes met blue eyes, a challenge clear in his, right as he snorted and shook his head.

"I know what you want, to snatch something for yourself. I've done it myself more times than I can count, so I won't try to stop you, but… Jessalyn, there's no coming back from this. If we fail… If you're inspected…"

"Then I'll go to the scaffold happily," I said, grinning then. "Better that than to the king's bed. He can lop my head off himself and I'll look him in the eye and smile as he does so."

"Reckless girl…"

I wasn't sure if that was an insult or a compliment and I didn't get to decide. Arik kissed me then, hard and searing in the only way he seemed to know how, but this time I met him kiss for kiss, matching his energy. My lips throbbed and my chest heaved when he finally let me go, allowing Roan to take his place.

"Got any of that for me?" he asked, the cocky way he smiled forcing me to laugh, but both our smiles faded as I leaned in. A gentle kiss at first, then a much deeper one, parting me, opening me up for him.

For them.

"So, are you ready to commit treason with me?" I asked, looking at each one of them in turn.

As if there was ever any doubt.

"It's a very specific pleasure only a few get to experience," Arik purred as his hand covered my breast. I had nothing smart to say about that, sharp pleasure spiking through me as his fingers closed around the nipple, tugging it slowly so I felt every nerve ending begin to prickle. "But it can be quite diverting. What say you, gentleman? Our queen has made us an offer."

"Yes." I smiled as each one of them said the one word I needed to hear most. "Yes."