Page 24 of His Dark Delights
Until the doors swung open, and the servants followed a woman with a poised, commanding aura.
She was tall and rail-thin with a bedazzled crown of lavender hair piled on her head like a beehive.
Her face was powdered and wrinkled with decades of life but held a striking nobility to it.
A painted mole near her lips stressed the vibrant red staining her thinned, stressed mouth.
“Grand Duchess Cecily, wonderful to see you again.” Rhydan rose from his seat. He slid a hand over his heart while bowing his head respectfully.
“Knight,” the Grand Duchess briefly acknowledged him. Her marble cane thunked noisily on the floor and her voluptuous lavender skirts swished as she walked.
Her sharp, shrewd eyes drifted to the head of the table. She got an eyeful of me in Soren’s lap, quickly appraising me as if she could tear me open and dig around, assessing everything she needed to know about me within seconds.
My muscles tensed, preparing to stand and offer her respect as Rhydan had. But Soren’s arm tightened around my waist, caging me in place on his lap. I choked on a yelp, and my face burned with red-hot embarrassment.
Grand Duchess Cecily sneered, peeling her lip back as if she smelled something unsavory. “Is this the trollop who saved you, Soren?” she scoffed. “No better than your father. Bedding every available hole in the capital. At least he had the decency not to bring them into the palace.”
I didn’t mind her insults in all honesty. Worse would be if they learned of my heritage. In that case, everyone in the room might have a few choice insults waiting up their sleeves that they’d be delighted to hurl at me.
Better to be called a trollop than to be butchered.
A storm of fury tensed the frame holding me. From my position on the king’s lap, I saw the side of his face. An agitated muscle flexed in his jaw before he replied coolly, “I remind you again to hold your tongue.”
The Grand Duchess settled into the offered seat on Soren’s right, and the servant scampered away after pushing it in.
She curled her silk-gloved hands over the carved deer’s head of her cane, nose scrunched up as she huffed, “There’s probably another Carnifex bastard hiding somewhere out there.
You die and the council would simply go scrounge up another one. ”
“Careful. Those words verge on treason.” Soren’s hand fell on my thigh, curling into a white-knuckled fist.
“Good. Put me out of my damned misery. Then I wouldn’t have to watch this kingdom go to shit as you wage war on those magical savages,” she said spitefully.
I’d gathered that the Grand Duchess was Soren’s aunt, and from the way he initially spoke of her, I knew they didn’t get along. Now I saw why that was. The woman was entirely unpleasant.
It was strangely refreshing.
Rhydan cleared his throat as he lowered into his seat. “We were just speaking of the war, Your Grace. Substantial progress is being made.”
They delved into conversation around me, using war jargon that I failed to understand. Servants cascaded into the room, bearing silver trays piled high with food. Plates were filled as talk of politics and battles buzzed around the table.
Soren reached around me with his free arm to grab a fork. One I noted was wrong for the first course, by what Mrs. Gibson advised. Odd that a king wouldn’t use the correct utensil, but with the growing hardness under my bottom, barely hidden through our clothes, I chalked it up to distraction.
The king speared a chunk of red meat on his fork, then lifted it to my lips. Ignoring the words passed between his friend and aunt, he spoke hotly against my neck. “Here, Lilly, eat.”
I nodded and parted my lips. The hot, seasoned meat slid over my tongue, bursting with flavor and melting like butter. An unwanted moan rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down with my first bite of food.
“Good girl,” he praised, voice gruff and low so the others wouldn’t hear. The sound of it sparked a low, smoldering fire in my belly.
He continued feeding me from his plate with one hand, all the while the other traveled beneath the table, searching, pulling, dragging up the layers of my dress until my stomach was full and he’d exposed my thighs.
If not for the height of the table and the pristine tablecloth the others would have seen when his hand brushed my knee, tracing the line of the ribbon holding up my stocking.
They would have seen when his palm skimmed up my thigh and his central finger swiped over my soaked underthings.
My breathing became increasingly slow and ragged with each calculated glide of his finger.
Even when the king hooked a digit in my underwear, probing the glistening treasure he discovered, I maintained a plastered, obedient smile.
Despite my trembling legs, pounding heart, and burning blood, I held still as the Butcher continued his quest.
A peek over my shoulder revealed Soren’s gaze diligently fixed on Rhydan, sharing news of the recently dispatched soldiers. He noticed my glance, and the corner of his wicked mouth kicked into a smirk.
Then his finger wiggled over my clit. Not enough to send me reeling from his lap, but enough to ignite a hot thrill through my core. My thighs tensed, forcing me to shift slightly and inadvertently grind against his rock-hard erection.
A stifled groan vibrated through Ren’s chest. I leaned into the sensation and subtly rolled my hips again and again. The action also rocked my clit into his finger, harder, faster, repeatedly. He met the motion, circling over my buzzing nerves until my arousal coated his finger.
A repeated word in the conversation reeled me back in, like a reluctant fish. I blinked through the pleasure contained between my legs, gritting my teeth to hold tight to my focus.
“We knew the war wouldn’t end when the Fae king died. King Oberyn was much beloved by his people,” the Grand Duchess said.
“The new fairy leading them into battle wears armor as red as blood,” Rhydan whispered, as if he were telling scary stories over a campfire.
“Ghastly,” Duchess Cecily claimed.
“Red as blood,” Ren scoffed. “The armor looks like oversized sewn together rose petals.” He shoved two fingers into my clenching pussy, and my eyes nearly rolled back in my head.
“Some type of flower fae, then?” Rhydan mused, scratching his chin.
“A nymph,” Ren snarled out, voice dripping with blatant disgust. His finger curled against a spot sensitive to pleasure within my walls and palmed my clit. He moved relentlessly, like he was finger-fucking me as a distraction from his mood and the conversation.
Rhydan bolted upright in his seat. He snapped his fingers, and the sound cracked through my skull like thunder. “Could it be the Fae Queen leading their front lines now? Wasn’t she reported to be a flower nymph of some sort?”
The Grand Duchess gagged on her next breath, shaken by the suggestion. Her mouth gaped open as she exclaimed, “Queens do not fight. It’s not ladylike.”
Fae. They were talking about the fae. I needed to pay attention, but gods-fuck, Ren’s fingers felt too good.
“Their queen and a prince are all the fae have after I defeated Oberyn in the highlands. It’s possible.
I’m sure she’d be enraged enough to pick up a blade after learning I burned Oberyn’s wings in the town square for the entire capital to behold.
” Ren’s hand continued moving with concentrated force, no matter how firmly I squeezed my thighs together.
My attention slipped from the conversation.
Words jumbled together in my ears as I struggled to keep my composure.
The heat and strength of Ren’s hand were distracting as he worked to extract pleasure from my body.
I didn’t know what they were saying, and I couldn’t focus as two thick, thrusting fingers curled inside of me.
A jolt of bliss pulsed through my core, and a second later, pleasure ripped through my clenching pussy. My blood hummed from the sudden burning, quaking climax ripping through my lower abdomen.
My hand clasped Ren’s thigh, nails digging into his pants and sinking them deep enough to leave welts on his flesh beneath the fabric.
I dug in and held fast in a vicious effort to remain motionless through my orgasm.
The king merely flexed his thigh muscles, letting me claw at him from the monumental task of going unnoticed.
“Even nobles from the provinces and smaller cities came to witness them burn. Who knew fairy wings would burn for days as they did?” Rhydan stated breezily.
My focus snapped back into place at the same time Ren removed his hand from under the table.
I glanced over my shoulder at him, watching as he sucked a glistening finger into his mouth.
A confusing storm of rich satisfaction and sickly disgust surged through me.
Heavy and deep, those feelings threatened to capsize me in an endless chasm of bittersweet shame.
“They called me the Fairy Butcher after that burning. No matter who leads the fae, I’ll cut them down. I’ll cut them all down.” Soren licked his lips from the evidence of my cum. Eyes dark and menacing, he vowed to the party in attendance, “If it’s a butcher they want, it’s a butcher they’ll get.”
A detrimental ringing persisted in my ears through the rest of dinner. I became a silhouette of glass, brittle, fragile and ready to shatter in the slightest breeze. It was a miracle that I sat there like a silent pet, stewing in my resentment and anger.
I wanted to rage and scream and shout… The flower arrangements along the tables wilted as the hour passed.
Ever so slowly, to the point none of the others noticed.
Rhydan tipped back his wine, drinking heavily.
The Grand Duchess picked at her roasted vegetables, complaining about the cook.
Ren—oh gods—he didn’t st op touching me anywhere he could get away with.