Page 73 of Shadow Throne King

Even in this, I knew that if I asked him to, he would stop. He would pull back, let me be at peace.

But I had not been raised for peace.

I arched my hips up, forcing his finger impossibly deeper. He gasped, pupils spreading over the russet of his eyes. Then, he pulled his finger out just far enough to wiggle a second inside, my whole body shivering as I felt split open. When I settled, he spread the two fingers, stretching me even further. Then he added a third, and I felt nothing more than the new pressure, the pleasurable yielding of my body, the ache and the focus on where he had me spread out under him.

My body was so tense, I could not believe I had come only a few minutes earlier. As he pumped his fingers in and out, pushing my body to its limits, I whimpered, trying to form coherent words, but there was only one I could think of.

“Tallu, Tallu, Tallu,” I begged, I pleaded, I ordered.

Each time I said his name, it hit him, and he panted, hissing as though it was his cock working inside me. Oh, how I wanted his cock. How I wanted him to give himself over to me as I surrendered to him.

“If you don’t get started, I will show you how I was taught to grapple, and then I will ride you harder than my horse.” I grinned at him, letting my teeth show. He could not possibly forget who was the hunter here.

Tallu shivered, and I reconsidered.

“Unless that is what you want?” I asked, pushing up onto my elbows to tilt my chin for a kiss. Hesitantly, he leaned down, and then it was as though a dam had broken. He plundered my mouth, pulling his fingers free and desperately shoving down his pants. His knuckles brushed my cock as he stroked some of the oil over his own.

I was bent in two, my thigh pressing against my chest as he bore me down, holding his cock at my entrance and pushing inside. “Airón. Tell me if it is too much.”

I didn’t even get a chance to agree before he thrust in, his hips slapping against my own. His eyes dropped closed, and he pressed his forehead to mine, but that was too much distance, and I raised my chin, kissing him. When our lips touched, he shivered, fisting one hand in the bedding, his hips trembling against mine.

“Did you forget how to move?” I asked. “Should I teach you?”

I pulled my hips back, his cock sliding a few inches out, and then I arched my hips again, finding he was somehow deeper, somehow even further inside me. I panted—the work wasn’t hard, but thesensation. I gasped, and Tallu lunged forward, his lips meeting mine, his tongue stroking against my own, lighting up every nerve in my mouth.

He pulled back and set his hips moving with great deliberation, pushing into me at an infuriatingly slow speed. His chest was slick with sweat.

“Airón, you do not know what you mean to me. I have spent these two weeks realizing that you are everything, you are more than everything, you are…” He groaned and snapped his hips forward harder, one hand reaching down and wrapping around my cock.

It was no longer soft, no longer spent. I was so hard again that my hips jerked when he touched me. The sensitivity from my earlier satisfaction and the mix of pleasure and pain wound down my spine, tightening my ass.

“You are—” But he couldn’t finish the sentence, snapping his hips forward again.

It was too much, and I came again, dribbling over his fingers, my body no longer responding to me. He grinned down at my slack face and whispered, “Shall I teachyouhow to move again?”

As he slammed into me, I could feel his climax coming, his thrusts desperate, his eyes fixed on me. When he came, his body jerked, spine straightening, and he dropped my ankle to press his hand to the bed so he wouldn’t collapse down on top of me. He sighed.

I pulled him down, feeling his pounding heart echo in my own chest. He shivered, his cock twitching again inside me. I grinned into his neck, pressing kisses along the side of it.

He curved his arm under my shoulders, threading his fingers in my long hair, drawing me closer. “There are things I haven’t told you, and I must.”

I shivered. “Like how incredible I am? I think we covered that.”

“About the curse.” Carefully, Tallu pulled free from my body, and I felt a soft loss settle in my chest. “About what will happen to me and Hallu.”

Rolling off me, he put a hand to his chest, letting the other remain under my shoulders, his fingers tightening in my hair.

“Tallu?” I asked. “We said that we were in this together. What more have you to tell me?”

“The curse has a cost, one I am afraid my brother has already paid.” He blinked open his eyes. “I told you before that the ghosts were an accident. They were not the intended affliction. The intended affliction was far worse.”

A slow feeling of dread replaced the pleasure that had run through me. “Your bloody noses. Your headaches.”

“Yes. The curse was intended to put the pain of the Blood Mountains on the heirs of House Atobe. It worked. I fear that the reason we did not see my brother is because it has already worked on him.”

“Tallu.” I tried to think of a question that made sense. “Tallu, what is the outcome of the curse?”

He turned on his side, his arm sliding free. “They cursed me and Hallu to bear the weight of the Imperium’s crimes. The outcome is our death.”