Page 38 of Barons of Decay (Royals of Forsyth University #10)

The dagger is small, curved, with a black handle wrapped in worn leather. I've seen it before–under his pillow, kept there just in case–the same way Ares sleeps at the foot of my bed. The edge catches the firelight. He holds it up, just for her.

Her eyes dart back to me, the two of us are already bonded by the tip of a blade. I don’t think DK wants to hurt her, but I know she’ll let him if he wants. I lift my chin. Let him.

“Be still, sister,” he tells her, and then he slices the strip of fabric covering her pussy clean through– slowly, deliberately.

My mind wanders, thinking that one jerk of his hand, one flinch, and the tip of the blade would slice into the sweet flesh of her sex.

Blood spilling where he could lap it up, tasting the very essence of her.

I exhale and shake the thought away, the throbbing in my cock painful.

Everyone else in the room stills, but no one gasps. No one reacts. But they’re watching. Everyone’s watching as he saws away that final thread, her pussy unharmed, and beneath?

Lush dark curls, wild, just like she is .

Arianette doesn’t move to cover herself, her hand lifting to his mouth to toy with the ring in his lip.

She doesn’t close her legs, the Phantom Bliss erasing any modesty.

I feel the same, running my palm over the hard line of my erection as she lets the ruined fabric fall open like petals, breath hitching.

It’s not from fear, but from knowing this is hers now–this attention, this moment, this throne.

DK drops the blade beside them on the velvet, lazy and smug. He looks out over the room, all arrogance and heat, then right at me.

He holds my gaze.

It’s not a challenge. Not a threat.

An ask for permission?

No. An invitation.

I stay where I am, letting the hard stone cut into my shoulder blades. Allowing the Bliss to settle in my blood like a quiet song. I don’t move.

I watch.

And it feels like power, just to be here.

Just to witness my brother and our Baroness, caught in a moment of pure intimacy.

No fear or threats. Nothing but the primal urgency of lust. My eyes are focused just past the way her shorts hang open, ruined, but she doesn’t flinch.

Unlike the girl we chased in the forest, this woman doesn't hide.

She spreads her legs a little wider over his thigh like she knows–this isn't just for him. It’s for all of us.

DK shifts beneath her, slow and deliberate.

One hand knots in her hair, yanks her head back–not brutally, but not gently either.

It’s a show of possession, raw and real.

Her throat arches. Her lips part. His other hand slides down her stomach, fingers splaying wide like he’s laying claim.

The crowd’s fallen quiet. All eyes on the throne. On them.

He doesn’t undress her the rest of the way.

Doesn’t bother with softness or pretense.

He keeps her straddled on one thigh and just pulls himself free, the sound of his zipper loud in the hush.

My jaw tightens at the sight of him, blistering red, the silver piercings glinting against the darkness of her thighs.

I should look away. I don’t.

Arianette gasps when Damon yanks her hips hard against his thigh–not slow, definitely not tentative. Her body jolts, grinding down on the thick muscle of him, and the sound she makes isn’t soft. It’s wrecked. Wild. High and breathless like her lungs forgot how to hold air.

And Damon–

Damon looks like a victorious god in the taking.

He can’t fuck her. That rule is non-negotiable, but the scene in front of us doesn’t feel one bit less of a claiming.

One arm crushes her to him, the other tangles in her hair, dragging her head back so the whole crypt can see her neck bared, mouth parted.

He doesn’t kiss her, instead dragging his teeth down the column of her throat.

He gives her that thing he loves to hold just out of reach, that teasing release that she begged for that night in her room.

DK reaches between them, toying with her clit.

He watches her come undone, face set like stone, like every twitch of her hips is a desperate chase.

It’s not sweet. It’s not love.

He doesn’t thrust. He commands. Drives her over and over onto the hard press of their thighs like she’s some holy instrument meant to be played until she breaks.

Her hands claw at his chest, gripping the edge of his open shirt then sliding lower–under the fabric, then lower still, until her hand finds him at the place where they meet.

He growls. Low, guttural, possessive.

Not in pain. In power.

The throne creaks with the motion of her grinding down and him growing harder beneath her touch. Her pace picks up, one of her legs twitching, her whole body flushed and shining in the firelight. He watches her fall apart while stroking himself in her hand–slow, brutal.

The sound of her panting matches the distant bass. And when she cries out, sharp and raw, the crowd doesn’t cheer–they go silent–any and all questions of Damon and Arianette being worthy of their titles vanishing into the thick, smoky air.

And me? All I can do is watch, hands balled at my side, clenched. My body is heat and tension, a scream behind my ribs I don’t let out. There’s a part of me, dark and familiar, that drinks this in. That doesn’t want to touch. Only witness.

That’s always been my place, hasn’t it?

On the edge of the fire. Never stepping in.

But always watching it burn.

DK’s got one hand on her throat now, tilting her head back so she can’t hide the expressions on her face–so we can all see them. Her eyes flutter, her mouth is slack, her body riding every brutal thrust. For the first time he lets her go all the way, allowing her to come.

And fuck if it isn’t beautiful. Grotesque. Holy. Different from the gritty anonymity of Noir Sanctum.

This was a ritual made of flesh and sound by two people bound by something bigger than all of us.

I stand there in my darkened corner, still as the stone behind me, pulse hammering, every nerve lit up as I try to control the throbbing want, wondering, for the thousandth time, if watching this closely is the same as being touched.

Taking a deep breath, I barely register as Arianette rises from DK’s lap, her breath still ragged, legs unsteady. Her shorts are nothing now, just tattered fabric clinging to her thighs, pretending to be the last remnants of modesty.

She doesn’t adjust them, doesn’t fix her hair.

There’s no need.

The crowd watches her like she’s untouchable, as she walks toward me. Straight across the crypt, bare thighs lit in the firelight, Damon’s seed glistening on them. My breath stills in my chest. I don’t move. I can’t.

She stops in front of me, looking up through dark lashes, lips still parted from the sounds she made from his hands.

“Can I touch you?” she asks.

Not breathy. Not shy. Just honest. Ritualistic.

Like she knows what this is. Like she understands what I’ve been doing from the shadows.

Watching.

Waiting.

And I should say no.

But I don’t. Not this time. Not with the Bliss running through my bloodstream, or the erection rock solid against my inner thigh.

Not with the opportunity to be part of it, instead of just passively sitting by the side.

DK won them over tonight in the ring, but we’re brothers–in this together– they need to see my power as well.

I nod and she kneels.

Obeys.

Her breath is still uneven, her lips slightly swollen from where she’d been biting down on them, and the fabric of her ruined shorts brushes her thighs as she lowers herself between mine. Her fingers are sure, reverent, as they undo me, belt, button, zipper, all while holding my gaze.

I’m already hard, a fucking hair-trigger away from blowing like a rocket. It takes everything in me not to go off at that first touch.

Jesus Christ.

She wraps her fingers around me, her touch confident, slow. The warmth of her hand is nothing compared to the heat that pours off her. She strokes me once, then again, a lazy drag from base to tip that makes my breath hitch. My thighs tense, unaccustomed to the sensation of a woman’s hands.

Then her lips part.

She lowers her head, tongue flat as she licks the underside of my cock from base to tip–slow, deliberate, not missing a thing. Like she’s mapping me with her mouth. I bite the inside of my cheek to stay still, to keep my grip tight on the edge of the stone and not her.

And then she takes me in.

It’s not her first time sucking a man’s cock.

Damon claimed that too, but this time it isn’t about leverage and betrayal.

There’s no blood on her hands, not tonight.

There’s no teasing. No fear. Just deliberate rhythm, like she instructed Damon during the fight.

Her lips stretch around the head, then down further, warm and slick and obscene.

Her mouth is wet heat, the pressure perfect.

She doesn’t stop until I hit the back of her throat, and then she pulls back, dragging her tongue along the underside with that same steady rhythm that Damon set in her earlier.

Every movement is deliberate. Ritualistic.

She uses both hands now, twisting slightly at the base while she sucks, her eyes half-lidded, watching me. My hips twitch, but I stay rooted. Watching her. Feeling everything. Letting her do this for me.

To me.

She moans low around me and I feel it, the vibration up the shaft, down to the base, into my spine. It’s too much. It’s not enough. She sinks deeper again, choking a little this time, but she doesn’t stop. She wants it messy. Wants it raw.

I wonder how often she thinks about that night in her room, when my cum was coating her pussy, thick and sticky.

How I left her drenched. Saliva drips down the sides of her mouth, catching in the hollow of her collarbone.

She moves faster now, one hand pumping, the other pressed to my thigh to anchor herself.

I don’t say a word.

My jaw is tight, legs trembling. It builds, hard and sharp, right behind my eyes. I feel it coiling, violent and inevitable. And still, she doesn’t let up. I grip the wall harder. Try not to shake. Try not to lose it too soon.

But she knows. We both do.

She pulls me deeper one last time, and when I come, it’s like a detonation, my body going rigid, everything unraveling in heat and pressure with a groan I can’t hold back. She takes it all. Doesn’t flinch. Stays right there, lips sealed, eyes locked on me as I fall apart in her mouth.

And when she pulls back, slow and filthy, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand…

I can barely breathe.

She smiles–soft, secret–and rises without a word. And all I can do is lean against the wall, chest rising and falling, cock limp and twitching. Undone.

Still the watcher.

But now, watched back.