Page 44

If I thought reading a romance novel about Luc’s sire while he sat across from me might be difficult, I was only partially right.

I had dreamed about getting my hands on Volume II since I found and finished Volume I years ago. Now, with the book in my lap and the words unraveling before me, it was ridiculously easy to sink into the story. Azaras looked exactly like Luc in my mind’s eye, but I could ignore that… until things heated up.

The Beast crashed into the dirt, a few shadowed feathers spiraling down from the wide span of his wings. The villagers had fled at his screech overhead, now cowering in their homes and hollows as the monstrous side of my soulbound prowled forward. I held my ground, even as those pitch-black eyes locked onto me, more animal than man. There was little anyone could do to reason with Azaras, but the Beast was truly impossible to sway.

Except by me.

His soulbound.

I swallowed. He hadn’t been wrong. I could stop his destruction. Save thousands of lives.

And all I had to do was orgasm a dozen or so times between dusk and dawn.

A shiver trailed over my skin, a zap to my nipples and core. The Beast’s nostrils flared—

And then he was on me.

His wings closed around me, sealing me in utter darkness. His clawed hands tore through the fabric around my waist. His shadows peeled the tattered remnants clinging to me—

The book was snatched from my hands.

I jerked, ripped from Azaras’s hell realm three thousand years ago to Luc looming over me in the present. Volume II was tilted toward him, silver eyes darkening as he scanned the page.

Reading the rest of the scene.

My heart nearly exploded from sheer mortification. I lunged instinctively, reaching for the book.

Luc only raised it higher. His face stayed impassive, but I felt the bastard’s amusement.

The flush in my cheeks burned through my face. “Give that back.”

Luc didn’t even glance at me. “No.”

“Do you really want to read smut about your sire?” I almost hissed.

The King of Dusk lifted a brow at my tone. I glared at him, willing my expression to hold firm instead of crumpling into a pout. Only Jules could pull off a pout.

Luc’s smirk turned downright devious.

Oh, shit.

“ The Beast spun me around before my lips could touch his, shadowed fangs bared. ”

My jaw dropped. Was he… why was he reading the smut about his sire aloud? “What are you doing?”

Luc barely looked up from the page. “I had almost kissed the monster who killed my parents. What was wrong with me? But the thought fled from my head a moment later when that clawed hand wrapped around my throat and tugged me off the ground.”

He turned the page. His smirk sharpened at the next paragraph.

Oh, stars. He was enjoying this.

“My back slid up the feathers on his chest, so soft against my skin, but I barely noticed as his shadows tightened around my thighs and spread me wide open.” Luc’s voice dropped lower, richer. He flicked a glance at me, silver eyes dilated. “With a small jerk down, the Beast impaled me on his cock.”

“Stop it,” I said, but I couldn’t hide my shudder.

“ My vision flickered. I released a pathetic whine that only made the dark-haired, gorgeous predator that lurked behind me growl. With that hand around my neck, he had his shadows jerk me from his length and then back down again. The spines around the base of his cursed form rubbed against my sensitive walls —” Luc suddenly snapped the book shut. “What a naughty little book you’re reading, bride.”

“There’s nothing wrong with romance novels,” I muttered, trying to remember how to breathe.

“I never said there was.” Luc traced the small rune on the book’s spine. Return . With a flare of shadows, Volume II lifted from his palm and shot back to its place on the shelf. “But all this reading has me parched.”

Every part of me stiffened. My back, my nipples, my cunt.

The soulbond.

“Stand.”

I glanced at Luc through my eyelashes. “But…”

“But what?”

I brushed my hair over my ear nervously. “Jules and I…”

“You and Jules fucked this morning?” His voice was a whisper across my skin, deep and sensual. “You didn’t wash his cum off your thighs, did you?”

Our knees almost brushed. “No.”

“Do you like smelling like him?”

I swallowed. “I don’t… maybe.”

His gaze darkened. “Do you want to smell like me, Nessa? Do you want both our cum staining your beautiful thighs?”

A fresh wave of heat rolled through me. Through us . My pulse kicked hard, and I started sweating instantly. Luc arched a brow. Slowly, he crooked a finger upward, a slight curved motion that instantly made my cunt clench.

I swallowed again, but still obeyed, rising carefully. As if being quiet would somehow help me evade the predator whose gaze followed my every move.

The predator I wanted to catch me, no matter how much I hated admitting it.

Luc put his hands on my waist, a gentle touch.

With effortless strength, he spun us, switching our places, so my back was to the library and his to the sofa. He dropped onto the seat and hooked one arm over the backrest, reclining like a king on his throne. Luc turned every seat he touched into a throne.

Those darkening silver eyes pierced into me, through me. The Conqueror. The man I was eternally bound to. I tried not to tremble, but I couldn’t stop it. But now, instead of falling to my knees in fear, I wanted to drop in supplication, his heated gaze pleased with me as he murmured, “Good gi—”

I gave my head a sharp shake. Nope. I wasn’t surrendering to the soulbond that easily.

All these orgasms were messing with my brain.

“You’re wearing far too much.” He reached out and tugged a sleeve from my shoulder. His fingers barely touched me, but I felt it everywhere. “Take this off.”

I let out a slow, shuddering breath. My rational mind screamed at me to resist, to push back. But my body had never obeyed me. My heart thundered. My nipples ached. Heat pooled between my legs.

Stars, I needed to come.

Maybe after, I’d be able to think clearly. Maybe the pressure would ease, and I’d remember who I was before the bond.

Who was I trying to fool? I wasn’t going to think clearly afterward. I wasn’t going to fight this.

This was who I was. A woman too tired to keep resisting, too lonely to pretend she didn’t want to be touched.

Hands shaking, I reached around and unlaced the back of my dress. The trembling slowed me down, but Luc waited, patient and poised. He stretched out his other arm along the cushions, his posture casual, his stare anything but.

When I finally loosened the last inch of fabric, the bodice drooped on me. Luc’s eyes flicked to the peaks of my breasts, barely concealed by the brassière. I slipped my arms out of the frilly slip of silk. The moment my bare skin met the chilled air, my nipples pricked. Luc devoured every inch of my skin, memorizing each curve. Every soft expanse I had spent years knowing I wasn’t supposed to show.

Like I was as beautiful as my stepmother or sister.

I stayed still, letting him look. Not rushing or coaxing him. The king took me in leisurely.

Just like how he planned to fuck me.

I swallowed. Luc’s eyes flashed to my pulse. Slowly, he lifted his eyes to mine. He held me there, pinned in place, bound in darkening silver. Then, with a flick of his hand, he gestured to the gown still bunched around my waist.

A silent order.

I hooked my thumbs into the fabric and pushed. I had to quickly shuffle my hips to get the gown down—

Luc growled. I stiffened from cunt to nipple.

“Slower,” he murmured.

Something twisted inside of me. Not heat, not lust. Something colder. A sinking weight. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t beautiful. I wasn’t made for this. I was fat and plain and Nessa. “Luc, I—”

He flicked one of my nipples. A spark flashed through me. I yelped, hands jerking up to shield myself. Luc growled again. This time, lower. Rougher. A sound of displeasure.

I froze.

He glared at my hips, where the fabric still clung, hiding me from his sight. His lips curled. Not quite a snarl. Not quite a smirk. “ Slower .”

I closed my eyes and took a steadying breath before returning my hands to the gown. Rocking my hips gently from side to side, I obeyed.

Inch by inch, I bared myself to the King of Dusk.

Luc’s gaze turned molten. His cock strained against his trousers, thick and pressing against the fabric. The heat in my core changed, a hunger that wasn’t mine. I tried not to tremble and failed miserably. Hundreds had laid eyes on my body in the last week, but I would rather stand naked before an entire city than under his gaze.

When the gown slipped past the curve of my hips, gravity took over. It pooled at my feet.

In a blink, I stood bare before the Conqueror in the Imperial Library of Dusk.

Luc drank in the sight of me. He traced the slope of my hips, the dip of my waist, the soft curves and the dark curls between my legs. His cock somehow thickened further, pressing against the constraints of his trousers as he stared at my dripping, aching center.

Luc reached down, slow and deliberate, and freed himself. My mouth went dry. His cock was thick and heavy. The first time I saw it, I hadn’t been prepared. I still wasn’t. I never would be.

He patted the cushion on either side of his thighs. “On your knees.”

My heartbeat stuttered, then kicked up a notch. I met his eyes, but they were heated steel. There was to be no disobeying him. I moved slowly, as if hesitating might somehow make me invisible.

But this vampire had caught me long ago. There was no escaping him.

I’d spend the rest of my maybe-immortal life riding his cock.

My body spasmed at the thought.

I placed my hands on his silk-clad shoulders and straddled his knees. My skin prickled as the cool air brushed over my open, aching cunt. The thick head of his cock brushed against me. My legs stiffened, holding me just high enough to keep from sinking onto his length. A heartbeat of resistance. A last, fleeting rebellion.

Luc trailed his hands up my thighs and around to the globes of my ass. He squeezed, palming the weight of them. I flinched, startled by the touch. His brow arched, as if challenging me to ask the question on the tip of my tongue.

I had a feeling if I did, I’d quickly end up on his cock.

Something about the way his fingers slipped between my legs, traced the slick heat of me, made me think I would either way.

He rubbed his fingers through me. I arched against him. Shuddered. The moan escaped before I could catch it.

Luc’s breath tickled against my collarbone. “I’ve never doubted your desire for me. How could I, when you are this wet every time I approach?”

Before I could think, before I could brace, he plunged two fingers inside me.

I jolted, breath hitching.

He filled me.

Stretched me.

Proved his point.

“Yet I can tell by that look in your eyes that you doubt mine.”

He leaned back suddenly, taking his warmth with him, his hands, his skin. I whimpered at the loss, the sudden empty space between my thighs.

For a minute, he only watched. The heat of his thighs spread through mine, amplifying the ache, the slow build between my legs. But he didn’t speak. He watched me tremble. Watched me wait. Watched me simmer.

I couldn’t. I cracked under the pressure. “Luc—”

“Hush, bride,” he murmured. “Who said you could talk?”

I bit my lip and whimpered.

His hand brushed my inner thigh as he pulled something from his pocket. A flicker of heat kissed the air between us, faint but undeniable. I tensed, pulling back slightly—

Luc held the second of the silver plugs.

I gaped. “Were you carrying that in your pocket?”

“This one is only a quarter the width of Jules’s cock.” His fingers traced the warm, slick tip of the plug along my inner thigh, higher, higher. “He’ll be fucking your beautiful ass within the week. You want to be ready for him, don’t you?”

My stomach clenched, my thighs trembling. “I… I guess.”

His thumb suddenly pressed into my clit.

I almost screamed. My hips bucked into his hand, but he held me firm, pinned in place. “Yes, Your Majesty! I want to be ready.”

“Good girl.”

Luc dragged the metal along the crease where my thigh met my core, a brush against flushed heat. The tip pressed against my tight entrance. I clenched instinctively, my body resisting the intrusion.

But Luc was patient. He rubbed slow, soothing circles along my hip. “Relax, little curiosity. Breathe for me.”

I sucked in a breath and let it out in a trembling exhale. Luc didn’t push further. He let me adjust, let my body learn to accept the pressure. The stretch.

When I finally exhaled again, he eased the plug deeper. Deeper. Deeper. A gasp punched from my throat. My nails dug into his shoulders, silk slipping under my grip.

The plug settled fully inside me, a perfect, sinful weight. It pressed against something impossibly sensitive. I let out a shuddering breath. My eyes slipped closed as my muscles fluttered around the metal, adjusting to the fullness.

Luc traced his fingers along the dip of my spine. “That’s it. You were perfect.”

I swallowed hard. My legs almost went slack. My tight ring clenched around the plug, but I inhaled slowly.

“Now sit.”

My eyes flashed open. “Sit?”

He pulled my thighs abruptly forward. I jolted, tightening my grip on his shoulder. The movement shifted the plug inside me, a sharp burst of sensation sparking through my core.

Luc brushed his knuckles up the curve of my ass and wrapped his hands around the soft flesh of my hips. He pulled me down ever so slightly.

The hard tip of him brushed against my entrance.

Ah.

Sit.

I hesitated. Just for a second.

Luc’s hold tightened. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Heat licked up my spine. I exhaled, let my legs go soft, until his cock nudged at my entrance. I yelped. My nerves ignited, pleasure spiking sharp and dizzying.

I couldn’t do this. It’d kill me. He would split me right in two. I had taken his cock for the first time two nights ago, but my cunt clenched at the memory of the stretch.

A crack echoed through the library as Luc’s palm struck my asscheek. Magic stopped the sting, but the jolt still made me flinch. I gasped, the impact sending another pulse of sensation straight to my cunt. My body jerked in shock, lost balance. I started to slip down his cock—

Luc caught me under my arms, holding me up with ease. “I said sit, not fall.”

I licked my lips. “Well, maybe if you hadn’t spanked me—”

With a harsh yank, he jerked me halfway onto his cock.

I shrieked as the first of his piercings nudged inside me. The plug shifted, amplifying every sensation, making me shake.

Luc groaned, the sound low and satisfied. The bond pulsed in time with his pleasure. “That was a beautiful noise, wife. Now sit on my cock and do it again.”

I huffed and dropped my chin, gaze trailing down between us, to where Luc’s thick cock speared into the curls between my legs. His thumb drew soft circles on my skin, but he didn’t pull me down further. Didn’t drive me deeper onto him. He didn’t move at all.

He was waiting.

For me.

I wouldn’t feel any resistance from his hands.

But his cock wouldn’t be as easy to conquer.

My hands clenched tighter on his shoulders. My cunt fluttered around the thick intrusion, stretched but still needing, still wanting. Closing my eyes, I lowered—

A shuddering whimper broke free as Luc filled me, inch by torturous inch. His third piercing dragged along my walls, sending a jolt through my spine. But I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I’d never find the courage to take him all the way.

Another inch. Another stretch. Another brand of pleasure that seared through my nerves.

I let gravity guide me, my back arching as he filled every part of me. By the time his fourth piercing pressed inside, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The pressure within me nearly burst, but I still had a couple inches of him to go. I pulsed my knees slightly, tiny movements along his cock.

His eyes fixated on the subtle jiggle of my breasts, my stomach, my thighs, his black eyes bright as I lured him deeper and deeper into me.

And then—

I sat.

My ass pressed flush to his thighs, my body impaled completely on his cock. He spread through me, up into my belly, the crown of his length pressing against my ending. A perfect, tight fit.

Like I was made for him.

My head fell forward onto his broad, muscled shoulder, a moan tearing from my lips. The plug in my ass pressed deep, heightening the sensation. My toes curled, the heat in my core dangerously close to spilling over. It echoed through our connection. My harsh breathing rattled the still air of the library and mixed with Luc’s growl.

His fingers skimmed the peaks of my breasts, the soft swell of my stomach, tracing the curves he owned. He gripped the wings of my hips, perfect handles for his large hands. He brushed a kiss against the edge of my ear. “Now up.”

I stiffened. Pulled back slightly. Blinking at him through the haze of pleasure. “What?”

Luc flicked his finger toward the library’s vaulted ceilings. “Up.”

I stared. He couldn’t… he didn’t… I swallowed. My entire body seized at the thought of pulling off him. But I obeyed. Slowly, I tensed my legs, pushing myself off his cock. Every inch of him that left me made my breath stutter.

Shit.

Fuck.

Stars .

More and more of him slipped from my wet heat, my walls clutching at his length as if begging him not to leave—

“Stop.”

I went still instantly, obediently. Only the tip of him remained inside me, barely nestled against my entrance, just enough to tease. The thick head of his cock was slick, flushed, poised on the edge of taking me all over again.

“Good bride,” Luc murmured, a deep rumble. A slow, wicked smirk curved his lips. “Now you’re going to do it again.”

I tensed, my skin prickling in a sudden wave of cold. “Luc—”

“But faster this time.” His fingers tightened on my hips. “And then faster and faster until you’re bouncing on my cock. Am I understood?”

I swallowed, trapped in the sheer command in his gaze, but I still found myself asking, “And what if I don’t?”

Luc’s pupils devoured the remaining silver. His face didn’t change. His hold didn’t tighten. But the air around us thickened, humming with inevitability.

When he spoke, his voice was pure hunger. “Then I’ll pin you to the floor and fuck you until I’m done with you.”

A shudder tore through me. Was it really a punishment if I flushed just thinking about it? About Luc pushing me down, spreading me open, his frame enveloping me as he rutted me into the floor, each thrust a branding claim?

Luc’s arm slid up between my breasts, fingers weaving through the delicate chains of my collar. He wrapped them gently around his knuckles, the gesture deceptively soft. “Am I understood, wife?”

My mouth went dry. My thoughts tangled. How did I want the Conqueror to fuck me? He won either way, whether I rode him or he rode me. Did I lose either way? Not in terms of orgasms but…

I wanted to please him. Wanted to please both of them. A hollow ache spread through my chest. I didn’t know what I was doing, but if I could please them, then maybe I could forget they didn’t have a choice. We were bound together by a spell none of us had agreed to.

I was their Mortal Bride. More sacrifice than wife, no matter what they called me. The only reason I was still breathing was because they couldn’t kill me. I shouldn’t have wanted to please the Imperium. What was wrong with me—

Luc’s hand tightened around my throat, just enough to notice. My nipples pebbled. My clit throbbed. My cunt clenched around nothing.

“Answer now,” Luc said. “No more thinking.”

A helpless whimper slipped free. I looked down, where his thick cock glistened between my thighs. Stars, why did looking at him make him feel bigger?

I closed my eyes and dropped onto his cock. A gasp strangled in my throat as I sank onto him. Luc groaned, his fingers tightening around my throat, his grip anchoring me as I took him to the root.

“That’s it,” he murmured.

I braced myself, hand clutching at his rock-hard arms. I started to ride him, slow at first, testing, teasing, feeling each inch of him as I moved. It was nowhere close to how fast and hard Jules had bounced me on Luc’s cock.

But this slow, deliberate pace was torture of a different kind.

“Look at you.” His voice was thick with approval. “Riding my cock so well.”

I tried not to mewl, but the pathetic gasp left my lips. My body clenched at his words, at the raw pride behind them. I tried not to writhe too obviously, tried to hold onto some sliver of dignity, but the pleasure coiled in my gut, hot and unbearable.

Fuck, I was going to come. Not right away, but soon. There was no way I could survive this. I scrunched my eyes shut as I pulsed on him—

Luc fisted a hand in my hair and tugged, my back arching. My eyes flashed open, clashing with his. Lips brushing my cheekbones, he devoured every flicker of expression across my face. “Eyes on me.”

“Wha—what?” I barely managed the word without losing the rhythm of my hips.

Luc’s breath tickled my lips. “If you’re going to fuck me as a wife does her husband, you’re going to look at me. If not, then you’re my thrall and I will treat you as such.”

Stars, why did a shock of need tear through me at those words? What was wrong with me? I was already fucking the Conqueror. Why did I want him to bend me over and use me—

I moaned, the pleasure in me heightened at the thought.

Luc smirked. Like he had slipped into my mind and seen every filthy thought I’d tried to bury. The surge of his dark satisfaction rushed through my chest. His grip on my throat eased slightly, enough to let my breath hitch, enough to let the anticipation stretch between us. “Do you want me to fuck you like a thrall?”

“Yes.” I didn’t even hesitate. There was nothing left of Nessa Halloran in this wave of bliss.

“Say please. Beg your king.”

I was already drowning, already breaking.

My nails scraped against his shoulders. My lips parted, desperate, needy. “Please, Your Majesty,” I sobbed his title. “Please fuck me like a thrall.”

Luc’s smirk turned sharp. “Such a good girl.”

He pulled me off his cock. I gasped, the sudden emptiness a violent shock.

Luc’s hands caught under my knees and jerked me forward like I weighed nothing.

The world tilted. My vision spun—ceiling, bookshelves, vaulted arches. My back hit his knees. I barely had time to inhale before Luc widened his stance and dropped me.

I hit the sofa. My bent legs jerked up, spread wide.

Luc straightened them with a firm push, forcing my thighs against his chest. My calves brushed his shoulders, my heels digging into the solid wall of his body. Before I could adapt, before I could even breathe—

Luc gripped my thighs and drove into me.

A ragged scream tore from my throat.

My spine arched off the cushions. My breath caught. My thoughts burned away to nothing.

Luc fucked me. Or used me to fuck himself.

Hard, fast, relentless.

He dragged me along his length, forcing every inch of me to feel him, to take him, to be reshaped by him. I wasn’t riding him. I was a weapon in his hands, a means to his pleasure, a toy to be used.

And I loved it.

His cock slammed into me, again and again, the wet slap of our bodies echoing through the library. He thrust deep, so deep I thought I might break apart, that I might split open from the force of him.

He rubbed against a sensitive spot inside me. I groaned. His fingers shifted. The third time his cock hit that spot in a row, my eyes watered. My nails dug so deep into his knees that I pierced through his trousers. Hot blood welled to the surface.

That just made Luc bounce me on him faster.

He slammed me onto his cock at a speed no mortal could match. Again. And again. My breasts jiggled obscenely. My soft flesh trembled from the force of his thrusts. My legs spasmed at the flood of feelings. My bliss. His bliss. I wailed, gasping at each quick, deep thrust.

“Luc,” I moaned as I arched even further, my head off the side of the sofa as my hair brushed the floor. I needed to come. I released Luc’s thighs and reached for my clit—

Luc growled. A second later, my knees hit the floor. He pressed my face to the library’s rug, caging my arms beneath me.

And then he mounted me.

There was no other word for it.

Luc claimed me the way a beast mated in the wild. With his entire body. With his entire strength. My thighs trembled as he rocked forward, pinning me under him, each brutal thrust pushing me deeper into the rug. Each deep stroke vibrated through my belly, through the plug in my ass, through every part of me.

The force punched a cry from my lips, a pitched ah, ah, ah that echoed through the vaulted chamber.

Luc fisted the handle at the back of my collar. With a sharp tug, he pulled me up. Slowly. The pressure flared in my neck and sent lightning through my body. My airway constricted partway. My body gently arched. My hands clenched in the rug.

Luc held me off the floor, halfway to his chest. Our bodies collided. Flesh slapped. A choir of choked moans and deep grunts filled the air. My vision waved. The heady scent of sex mixed with old parchment and leather.

Luc fucked every single one of my senses until everything I was rode his cock into euphoria.

He plunged into me—

And stopped. His hold on my throat loosened slightly.

I sucked in a full breath, my exhale escaping as a desperate whimper. Why had he stopped? I tried to roll my hips, to take more of him, but I didn’t have the leverage. Luc stayed sheathed within my throbbing heat.

“Open your eyes, wife.”

I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them again. My eyes opened to meet a glowing, gold-rimmed black gaze.

Jules stood by the edge of the sofas, his eyes fixed on me. He drank in the sight of my flushed face, of Luc’s fist woven through my collar, of the way my body trembled beneath his soulbound’s grip. His lips twitched at my helpless mewl.

But when his gaze dropped, that smile slipped off his face.

Luc held me at just the right angle. The King of Dawn had a full view of my body. Of how I shook. Of how my thighs quivered. Of how my breasts bounced when Luc fucked me.

And Jules responded to the sight.

His arousal brushed against my senses, a sharp throb of heat. His cock strained against his trousers. When he caught my gaze lingering, he groaned and gripped himself through the fabric.

“Any…” Luc tightened his hold on my collar and I shuddered “...requests for the finale?”

My jaw dropped. Because Luc wasn’t speaking to me.

He was asking Jules.