Chapter 10

ChapterTen

He’d known this would shock her. In fact, Lust would admit he’d been counting on it.

His people enjoyed the way he ruled them. No matter what the sorceresses said, there were plenty of people in this kingdom who were grateful for his rule. Even enjoyed it. The nobles certainly did, and he knew for a fact that no one in the room was complaining right now.

Lust gave them a time and a place to indulge in their senses. They didn’t have to feel guilty about their desires for each other or in a single night of indulgence. They could do what they wanted and he wouldn’t judge them for it.

But Selene?

She walked into the room with her nose held high, disgust on her features as she walked past people who had been performing these acts since before she was born. Past high born nobility who had come here in safety, knowing they could do whatever they wanted.

And she’d judged them. Harshly.

He found that infuriating. His people were here because they knew they were safe and cared for. She’d taken that thought and dashed it onto the ground.

Rage already bubbling in his chest, he’d watched her look down her nose at him and then dismiss him. In his own house. In his own court! She’d made it very clear to all the nobility in the room that she didn’t want to be his bride, that he’d taken her by force, and that he’d gone against his own rules. No one was here without wanting to be. No one was forced to partake in any action without desiring to participate.

She’d made a liar out of him in all but a few moments before she walked out with her head held high. Like the hero she clearly thought herself to be.

He wasn’t proud of the anger that coursed through his veins. It made him sick to think he’d thought about hurting her for even a moment. He had, though. The thought ran through his mind of turning her over his knees and spanking her until tears ran down her cheeks.

But then the woman at his feet rubbed her hand over his thigh. “It’s all right, my lord. She’s new. She’ll... learn.”

The hesitancy in her voice made him pause. Lara had been with him for years now. A faithful servant, a lively bed partner, a kind woman who had a child somewhere, maybe working in his kitchens. Not his, but well cared for now that she was in his employment.

Who was Selene to cast her doubts upon a woman like this?

Gently threading his fingers through her hair, a dastardly plan bloomed in his mind. One he’d never have entertained if he wasn’t so embarrassed and angry.

“Will you help me with something?” he asked, his voice gentle. “You do not need to if you have other plans.”

“My nights are yours.”

As they always had been.

He patted the top of her head, then stood and helped her up. “My new bride has proven... difficult.”

“I saw.” Lara furrowed her brow and glanced toward the door. “Almost as if she was unaffected.”

“That is what she would like me to believe. But I have to admit, I wonder if it is because she’s not interested in men.” He scraped a hand down his jaw. “There was a time when you—”

She lifted a hand to interrupt him and gave him a soft smile. “It would be my honor to bring pleasure to the woman who will be our queen. You needn’t ask twice, Lust.”

Oh, but he should. He had a feeling his bride to be, as they were calling her, would fight against them with every step. But he had to be certain. He had to know this one last detail to see if she had been sent to him as a test. He would waste no more time trying to seduce her if she was only interested in women.

Perhaps it would be easier that way. At least then his pride might not sting so badly, and that was his brother’s domain.

“Come,” he ordered.

Together, they walked through the tangles of people who tried to salvage the night. Ruined. All of it was ruined because of the careless nature of a prude.

Shaking his head, he pulled his shirt off as they went. Something had to tempt her. She’d claimed to be able to feel lust, but that she didn’t feel it for him. Time to put that to the test.

Selene gasped as he shouldered her door open without knocking. She stood in front of her vanity, staring down at the knots he’d tied around her torso as though they were an enemy she had to battle. Two of the skirts he’d wrapped around her waist were already on the floor in a ruined tangle.

His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth at the sight of her long, pale legs. Strong legs. Legs that would wrap around his waist in a vise grip, and thick thigh muscles that he’d kill to feel clenched around his skull.

Blowing out through his nose, he gestured for Lara to help. “Your mistress has never worn clothes like this. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind assisting her.”

Selene’s eyes widened. “I don’t need help.”

Not to be deterred, Lara laughed. “Even I need help to get out of those. Lust ties knots like he wants them to stay on for weeks. Let me help.”

Jaw clenched, Lust reclined in one of the chairs beside her fireplace. He avoided the bed, knowing just where his mind would go if he watched his mistress undress this wicked sorceress before him. Those thoughts needed to stay dormant. He wanted to watch. He wanted to see the emotions in her eyes, to know if she reacted to the touch of a practiced woman.

She didn’t. Selene stood frigid as a pillar of ice as Lara ran her hands over her. His servant was quick, but he noticed the lingering touches she placed all along Selene’s body. Light touches, meant to tease and tantalize as only women knew in the seduction of each other. Hidden areas that could only be teased with a feather light graze.

Nothing.

Not a single reaction. Just a stoic discomfort as Lara tried her best to rouse his bride from the dead.

And when she stood in her underclothes and knotted rope, he saw the first bit of emotion flicker in her eyes. Fear. Not the emotion he thought he’d see in her eyes with the touch of another woman running over her.

Anger burned through him. Suddenly he wanted to take Lara’s hands off for ever making Selene uncomfortable. He wanted to hand them as a gift to the sorceress, proof that he’d never do this to her again. But then he remembered that he wasn’t her savior. He was the demon king who had kidnapped her from her home.

Just what did she think would happen here? He would not make her fuck his servant, she was just supposed to enjoy it.

For fuck’s sake, could she enjoy nothing? Maybe the woman really was dead.

“Get out,” he muttered.

Both women looked at him, and he could see the confusion on both of their faces.

“My lord,” Lara murmured, ducking her head. “Would you like me to finish untying her for you?”

The poor thing thought he was displeased with her. This whole night had royally fucked everything up.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as though that might hold back the horrible migraine that pulsed between his eyes. “No. I have no need for you to finish. I can take care of the knots myself.”

“But I thought you wished for me to—”

“Enough, Lara.” His voice boomed a little too loud, a little too frustrated.

Her eyes widened again before she ducked her head and stepped away from Selene. It didn’t escape his notice that the sorceress’s shoulders curved in on herself, as though he’d forced her to endure something horrific.

He waited until Lara closed the door behind herself before he spoke. “Go on, then.”

She looked up at him, silent as ever.

“You want to yell at me, I can tell.” He waved an imperious hand, giving her permission to start. But she didn’t. She only stood there in her underthings and that damned rope, her hands flexing at her sides. “You’ll never get me to believe for a second that’s all you had to say in the throne room. Clearly you wish to argue with me, so spit it out.”

Selene took a deep breath until her ribs showed through her skin in deep hollows. “I would appreciate not being touched by another stranger. At least for a few more days.”

The pang of answering guilt in his chest had him hissing out a breath. He had no right to do what he’d done. Every day with her in his castle made him step further and further toward the monster she thought him to be. And he hated it.

Standing, he approached her with his hands up in peace. “If I had thought you wouldn’t enjoy it, then I never would have invited her.”

Lust expected a flash of anger. For that glare he was becoming rather fond of to slash at his face. Instead, she stood silent. Selene stared off into the distance as if she wasn’t even in the room with him.

He gave her that time to think. She’d earned it. Instead, he moved around behind her and started working on the knots. But that silence quickly turned into a tension that he couldn’t stand as he let the rope slide from her body and hit the floor.

One last time to provoke her, that was what he told himself. Then he’d leave her alone.

Lust whispered in her ear, guttural and deep, “I didn’t think it would be so easy to break you, sorceress.”

There it was. The stiffening of her spine and the hatred that swallowed her up. She glared at him as though he was the scum of the earth and damned if it didn’t harden his cock.

“I am not broken,” she hissed. “You took my body, fair and square. My mother gave me to you and I am loyal to my family. I will do what I must. None of that requires me to give you my mind or my loyalty.”

“Ah, but you will be loyal to me. You have no one else.” He stroked the backs of his fingers against her velvet soft cheek, surprised to see she didn’t lean away from him. “You are alone here, little moon. Soon you will come to me for comfort.”

“Like I said in the throne room, I have no use for you.” She turned her face from him and then he saw her retreat again.

He’d never seen someone do that before. Oh, he’d helped people after awful things had occurred. He’d brought them back into a realm of sexuality that was safe and comforting. But he’d never seen someone just... disappear.

There was always a hint of the human beneath the mortal flesh. A flavor of them always existed.

But she withdrew. No hint of who or what she was. No mortal in front of him at all, just a darkness and a blank cold that wriggled underneath his skin.

Oh, this wouldn’t do. If this wasn’t breaking his little sorceress, then it was something much more terrifying and he refused to watch her fall apart. Not because of him. Not when it made his stomach twist and his heart thunder in his chest. Like he’d lost someone important.

Dragging his knuckles underneath her chin, he forced her to look back at him. “What would it take?”

“For what?”

“For you to feel something, little moon. I don’t want to see this husk of a woman in front of me. It hurts.” He tilted his head to the side, eyes tracing over her lovely lips and those cold, dead eyes. “You are a vibrant woman. The warrior I met in the tavern had more emotion in her than she could keep still. It overflowed from you, did you know that? I was made to feel only lust from humans, but I could feel everything from you. Your anger at me for being in the tavern. Your pride at having bested me. The amusement you felt when you flicked the gold dust off my horns. All of it.”

Her eyes had opened a little wider with each word he said, and he knew he had captured her attention. Even now, he could feel that fleeting flicker of interest.

But it wasn’t quite enough to get her to look at him with that anger he so adored.

Leaning so close he could feel her breath on his lips, so close the barest movement would have shifted them into a kiss, he whispered, “Now where is that sorceress? She was far more tempting than this one.”

“I don’t want to tempt you,” she replied.

“But you do all the same.”

Those dark eyes saw too much. They sliced through his very soul as she peered into his gaze. Searching for something? She’d find no pity or remorse in his eyes, not when he knew he was doing the right thing.

Finally, he felt a long sigh brush against his mouth. “Trust.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“If you want me to feel something, you must give me a reason to trust you.”

“There are many who trust me, and I have never had to win their affections.”

At the word, she arched a brow. “Clearly you are wrong. Lust has no need for deeper levels of trust. They have to know you won’t hurt them, but so few people want to hurt others. A friendship, a relationship, that all grows from much deeper trust. Trust that grows like the ancient roots of a tree. Everything but lust requires a certain level of it, and you do not know how to make people trust you. Only to desire you for a few moments and then leave.”

The words struck harder than he’d expected them to. He even took a few steps away from her, wincing as he rubbed his chest. They struck him like a knife between his ribs. And he didn’t know why.

“Then I ask again,” he growled. “What does it take?”

“To make me trust you?”

“Yes.” Why did this matter? It didn’t, but oh it did.

She shrugged, her limp arms dangling by her sides. “Well, this isn’t going to help.”

“Being comfortable with each other?”

“Being bare in front of a man I have no interest in. A man who has taken me from my home and forced me to see sights I am nowhere near comfortable with.”

He waved a hand in the air. “Yes, I know. That was a mistake. The past cannot help me win you in the future.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do?” Her words hung between them, shocked and surprised.

He realized that was exactly what he was trying to do. He wanted to win her. And win her trust. “Yes,” he replied after a few moments of hesitation. “I believe it is.”

She looked at him, brows furrowed and teeth chewing at the inside of her lips. “Then... Then I suppose you have to understand that trust takes time. It takes effort.”

“That does not explain how.”

“Time. With me. Spend time with me, get to know me and who I am. Where I came from, know what my story is, or what my favorite color is and my favorite food.” She shrugged. “Care that I exist rather than only look at my body for what it can give you.”

All of that was confusing. Why would he waste that much time on a single person when so many of them needed him? He could go back to his room right now and dive straight into Lara’s comforting body without having to worry about any of this work.

But his stomach twisted, and he found himself asking, “What is your favorite color?”

She stared at him, dumbstruck before stuttering, “B-blue. Ice blue.”

Of course it was.

Snorting, he turned and walked out of her room. Leaving her and her confusing theories about trust behind.