Page 79 of Betrothed to the Emperor

We stopped in front of a pair of massive metal doors that matched the ones at the front of the emperor’s quarters. I recognized it from nearly two weeks ago, the last time I’d been in the emperor’s quarters. The curtains were shut around the massive bed.

Tallu was nowhere in sight.

I hesitated, looking at the two Dogs, and all friendliness was gone from their expressions. I couldn’t see their faces, but their eyes were hard, and I remembered the chilly way that Tallu had looked down at me when he’d rescued me from the electro mage about to send lightning directly into my heart.

Well, he had ordered me cleaned. Perhaps he wanted to have fun with me before he killed me. The thought sat wrong, but I wasn’t sure why else they would look at me like that, why else even Sagam would lose all friendliness in an instant.

I looked between them, tensing again. I had done too much fighting today, and I wasn’t eager to fight two men who had been, if not friendly, at least not horrible to me.

“We leave you here,” Sagam said. Something in his tone was a warning: the emperor would be unattended here.

The Dogs would guard the entrances and exits, but the emperor would be alone in his room. My chest loosened, and I took a deep breath, enough to fill up my lungs.

I had been so anxious about trying to find a time when I could kill him that I had forgotten exactly why Eonaî had trained for so many years, why she had put up with Lord Fuyii’s terrible mentorship.

She had trained so that she could seduce Emperor Millu. Now, it was my job to seduce his son. Once I had done that, I would have access to the emperor whenever I needed it.

I thought about Tallu, his broad shoulders, the muscles I had seen exposed when the blood mage had healed him in the forest. He had scars from years of war, but more than that, he had the strength and power of a well-trained electro mage.

He had taken that handful of electricity meant to kill me and absorbed it as though it was nothing. Something shivered up my spine at the idea of having that much power focused on me, that much power pressed against my body.

“Thank you.” I nodded, then stepped into the room.

The two Dogs shut the doors, and I explored the room. History tomes written in every language on the continent filled the bookshelf. I even found a few northern scrolls.

The paper under my fingers had the dry feel of old parchment, and when I brushed a thumb across one letter, bits of ink came off on my fingertip.

Under my bare feet, thick rugs guarded against the chill of the stone floor. The lights glowed so brightly it might as well have been noon, and it was only when I glanced out the window that I could see the dark beyond, the lights from the city glowing in the distance.

“We have very few pieces from the Northern Kingdom,” Tallu said.

I startled, spinning to see him standing next to the bed. He had pulled aside a tapestry, revealing a secret door. I pointed at it.

“Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of having a locked room if you have a way in and out? An assassin could just as easily find it.” I carefully rolled the scroll, reattaching the fastening—a piece of whalebone carved into the head of a wolf.

“It’s a private room, not an exit.” Tallu let the wall hanging fall back, covering the door. He crossed the room, and I just barely stopped myself from backing up until my spine pressed against the wall of books. “I’ve been attempting to read this one, but I can’t make sense of it.”

“Well, it’s written in an old dialect,” I said. I looked up at him through my lashes. “And the script is from when Ristorium text influenced the northern written language. I would be happy to teach you if you are interested. Although I don’t know that you would be.”

“Learning new languages is always interesting for me.” Tallu leaned forward, and I smelled that sharp scent again—electricity and the salty tang of blood. His lips brushed my ear when he said, “Northern languages especially.”

“Oh?” I turned my head, realizing that put our lips barely an inch apart.

I knew what I had to do. I needed to press our lips together, seduce him. And part of me wanted to. I barely remembered what his plush lips tasted like. When I had him on his back in bed, was he as in control as he thought, or could I get him to give in to me?

What would he look like if I wrapped my mouth around his cock?

The diamond blade bit into my arm, and I pushed forward, my lips meeting his. He twitched, as though the move was unexpected, but then he was present and with me and grabbing my hair again, holding tight until I could feel the pricks of pain in my scalp.

I moaned, and he pushed his tongue into my mouth, sweeping aside any thought of resistance as he consumed me. His hand in my hair forced my head back, and he kissed down my neck, his hand splayed nearly the whole width of my back as he used one hand to pull and the other to bring me close.

My spine was a taut arch, a crescent of pleasure and pain, and I closed my eyes, rubbing against him wantonly. Moaning, I relaxed into him, and he seemed to take it as a cue, grabbing my thighs and hefting me up, lifting me until I wrapped my legs around his hips.

We crashed through the curtains around the bed, and I pushed back so Tallu could join me. The curtains slipped closed behind him, leaving us in darkness. He crawled forward, and I tried to rise up on my elbows, meet his mouth, but he pressed a hand to my chest, pushing me back down.

Then he leaned forward, licking and kissing at my neck, nipping at the sensitive flesh as his hand worked open the fastenings of my pants. When he finally got them open, my cock strained against the fabric, and he pushed his hand in rather than drawing it out. I yelped at the overstimulation, the pressure of his tight hand and the unforgiving fabric leaving me breathless and desperate.

“Tallu,” I moaned, and the darkness around us was absolute, as though we were the only two people in the world.