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"A daughter of darkness," I whisper, leaning down so my lips just barely brush his ear. “Daddy.”

He growls–a low, warning sound–but his hands stay fisted at his sides, liking the heat of my pussy against him. “You shouldn’t call me that.”

“Why not?” I pout.

“Because I’m not a good father,” he says, reaching out to flick one of the bars. Pain shoots through me, startling right down to my cunt where the muscles squeeze. His tongue darts out, but I’m only thinking of the little blond boy in the photograph on his dresser. The one that doesn’t live here anymore.

“Were you a good husband?” I ask, knowing I’m teetering on something dangerous.

He snorts. “Apparently not.”

“I don’t believe that.” I slide down his body, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his chest, his ribs, his hips. I hear the sharp hiss of his breath when my tongue flicks against the sensitive skin just above his cock, teasing, taunting, refusing to give him what he wants.

He’s hard for me.

Becauseof me.

I glance up at him through my lashes–and I see the murder in his eyes, the pure, feral need to rip control away from me and take.

“Let me be both,” I say, just before dragging my tongue along the length of him, slow and cruel, savoring the salty taste of his skin. I wrap my hand around the base, squeezing just enough to make his hips jerk. “I can be both, a wife, a daughter, anything, whatever you want. We’ll build a life together. A home. A place where you can feel safe with me, and I’ll feel safe with you.”

I almost ask him to remove the mask, to let me see his face, but he snarls something low and filthy under his breath, words I don’t quite catch. His hands snap up, burying in my hair, forcing me closer. I hollow my cheeks and take him into my mouth, inch by inch, keeping my eyes locked on his. He groans–a broken, brutal sound–and I feel the bed shudder under us, the whole world narrowing down to the desperate push and pull between my lips and his body.

I’m relentless.

Wicked.

Devoted.

And when he finally loses that last shred of control, when he curses and thrusts into my mouth, fucking my throat with bruising need, I moan around him, the vibration pulling another vicious sound from his chest. When he comes, it's violent, and I take it all, greedy and grateful, swallowing him down like the wicked little thing he wants.

I pull back, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, and I grin up at him, sweet and victorious.

"I can be good," I promise, voice hoarse and wrecked. We’ve been in this bed for hours. I’ve transformed into something he wants–something he can’t live without: daughter, Baroness, wife. I don’t care which.

As long as we walk this wicked path together.

The first thingI feel issoreness.

A deep, throbbing ache between my thighs, across my hips, in the tender, bruised places where his hands left fingerprints on my skin. He’d taken me again just after daybreak, flipping me on my stomach and settling me on all fours. He slid in and out of me like an animal, hips rutting against my backside. Panting and empty, he’d fallen against me, muscles taut, skin sweaty.

Insatiable.

The second thing I feel iscold.

The next, silence.It presses down over the cabin, thick and final. I reach blindly for him–the King,myKing–but my hand meets only rumpled sheets.

The bed is empty.

How long has he been gone? A pit opens up in my stomach. Slow and widening.

"Hello?" My voice is a scratch. Weak. Dry from using it to lick and suck. I listen carefully.

No answer.

I sit up, looking around the room. His shoes are gone, as are his clothes. Only my crumpled wedding dress where he tossed it after stripping it from me.Panic blooms sharp and bright behind my ribs.

No.