Page 29 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter twenty-seven

Emillia

I t’s bad form to kill a female . My father’s voice rings clear in my mind, so the emotions running through me are, thusly, contradictory. If a female of this state was out hunting, it’s likely that her mate has died, or left her. The pups will be unattended or attended by a much weaker male.

We have a second chance, and the risk is low.

But I killed a mother…

“Can you find her den?” Adrik asks.

I nod. “I’ll need to rest. Magic is low and guns need cleaning.”

“Of course,” he says. “Tomorrow, when the sun breaks for however long it dares, we’ll go.”

I think I hum, maybe nod again, or some noncommittal grunt perhaps to let him know I know he’s talking as I stare at the blackened beast. She’s quite a specimen. Under different circumstances, Father would’ve been proud.

Adrik grabs my face, turning my goggle-covered gaze to meet his. “You did not know.”

How can he read me? Strange…

“It’s fine. Better, even. ”

I shrug out of his grasp and flick my arm as if to shuck off the pain. The fracture is mended, but it still aches like a lusty cunt. One wrong move could break it again.

He follows me as I retrace our steps back to the tent.

“Why do you say that?”

“Pups will be easy, like snipping the pigtails off a toddler.”

“That’s a rather specific metaphor,” he says.

I smirk. “I have a younger cousin who loved to do her hair in pigtails. Her older brother’s favorite torture was cutting just one off, leaving her lopsided. She’d have to choose between removing the other herself or staying uneven.”

“That’s…” Adrik’s voice trails off and I look over my shoulder.

He’s stopped in our tracks, his head down. I can almost feel what he’s feeling. The memory of Sienna’s tears washing down her chubby cheeks as she begged me to fix it makes my stomach turn.

“It’s what?” I say, my voice not betraying the emotion swirling in my gut.

“Cruel.” There’s pain and disgust in the lines of his mouth. “More than cruel, it’s psychotic.”

Relief floods me, and I shrug a shoulder. “The prince was never fit for much other than cruelty.”

Understanding dawns on his features. “The Wol prince, Alyse’s former betrothed?”

“I hear he sniffed himself to death in their wedding bed,” I say, turning back toward the tent. It’s colder than the ass-end of an anchor out here, and I want to get back to the warmth of our camp.

“Eh, right,” he stammers. “Yes. Drugs are dangerous.”

I laugh. “I’m aware that you helped see to his end, Adrik.”

He sucks in a sharp breath. “He was hurting her, he would’ve hurt the kingdom—”

“I know.” I turn around and grab his shoulders.

Ouch . Fuck, my right arm.

“You did a terrible good thing,” I say. “My cousin deserved worse than the swift departure he got.”

I pat his shoulder with my good hand and turn away. I want to tell him more. I want to say that by relieving us of the eldest son of my uncle, he’s gotten me one step closer to saving my own kingdom. Just two heirs to go, but Sienna wouldn’t fight me. Only Hector remains in my way.

We trudge on in silence for a while before Adrik catches up to me.

“Your name is Alejandra,” he says, confused.

“Yes.”

“Ladron, that was the prince’s name. If your father is blood to the king, why aren’t your names…”

I chuckle. “Because my uncle married into the royal family and took the queen’s name.”

“Who was your family before?” he asks.

“Before the throne and the palace and etiquette training?” I sigh. “We were explorers, hunters, and accomplished tradespeople. We sailed from Nimpoi to Seter, selling gems, oils, furs, and more.”

“But now you are captain of your own ship instead of royal collateral. How did you manage it?”

“Collateral…” I scoff, thinking of the way princes and princesses are traded away for alliances like prized cattle.

“I was too unruly. My brother was very small when we became royalty so he didn’t remember the call of the wild, or the taste of salt on his skin.

He took to lessons easily. I was tainted by adventure. ”

Too masculine.

Untrainable.

Untradeable .

“She’ll never make a valuable consort. Send her back to the sea where she belongs.”

“My father convinced the queen to allow me to be captain of a royal merchant ship. I didn’t think it then, at the burgeoning age of thirteen, but I realized after his death that he was saving me.”

However cruelly he had to say it…

Adrik grabs my arm and I face him. He pulls me to his chest and tucks my face into the fluffy crook of his neck.

“You are perfect the way you are.”

“I’m nothing of the sort. Let me go.” I try to push him away, but he holds me tighter.

“You. Are. Perfect.”

“Adrik,” I groan. “It’s cold out.”

He pulls back only far enough for our eyes to meet behind our goggles. “Say it. Say that you know you’re enough just as you are.”

My eyes burn and I can’t breathe.

“Emillia,” he whispers and drops his forehead to mine.

I could overpower him. I could.

I don’t want to.

“I need to clean my weapons.”

Push me. Please. Keep pushing. Show me that I’m worth the effort.

“Not until you say it.”

“I am enough…the way I am.”

His lips graze my cold cheek in a soft kiss. “That’s my good girl.”

The acceptance warms me from the inside out, and I find myself melting in his hold.

“Once more, please. With more confidence this time,” he says.

I turn until our lips are nearly touching. “I am enough as I am.”

He takes me in with a shuddering breath. “I’m going to let you do whatever you want. ”

“I just want to hear you moan my name,” I murmur, sealing the wish with a kiss.

He groans, moving his tongue against mine with slow, deliberate strokes. He’s showing me what he can do, enticing me to let him do it again.

I break the kiss. “I didn’t get to hear it last night with my pussy clamped against your mouth, and that’s all I want now.”

“We need to get back to the tent.”

“Before you have two loads of cum in your underpants?” I tease.

He grunts. “You could tell, then?”

“It was deliciously obvious,” I say, kissing him again.

“Tent. Now.”

We’re not far, and it doesn’t take us long without stopping to chatter. The energy between us is palpable—the very air we exhale is charged with desire. I’m going to ride this little alchemist until his balls are empty.

Then, maybe, I’ll let him ride me.

He reaches for the tent flap when he notices the blood on his arm and curses. “I’ve forgotten to cover our scent.”

I lick my lips, loving the idea of postponing this and making the need even greater.

“You better go do that, then. I’ll set some snares for dinner.”

His brow furrows and he pouts.

Fucking. Pouts.

Gods, I want to suck his dick.

“It would be terribly inconvenient if something snuck up on us with my mouth around your cock,” I say, rubbing his groin through the many layers.

He responds, thrusting his hips into my touch with a needy groan .

“ Yebat. ” He whispers the curse. “I’ll set protection runes around camp as well.”

Is he trying to outdo me? To see who can outlast the other?

“Yes, and maybe we should consider going to sleep early, get a good start on the day tomorrow.”

He huffs out a pleasurable sound as he rocks his hips into my steady palm. “Perhaps we should even wait until…” He groans again. “Emillia.”

A zing of lust fires down my spine to the tips of my toes.

“I’m…It feels so good…Emillia.”

I twist his scarf around my other fist and bite back a wince from the pain in my wrist. No matter if I fracture it again. This is worth it. The look of absolute devotion on his face, the orgasmic pinch of his brows. Gods, he’s so close from so little.

“Are you going to come for me in your pants again?” I ask against his lips.

“Emillia.”

Heat floods my center at the sound of my name groaned from the pit of his chest. He presses his forehead to mine. Our goggles clank together, and the pings of it look like little blue sparkles in my vision. Perhaps it’s all the blood leaving my head in favor of my nethers.

His grip tightens on the back of my hood, his other hand finding the small of my back as he grunts my name again. He’s thrusting harder now, riding my hand with jerky desperation.

“I’m there,” he moans, and I cut the words short with a fiery kiss.

He comes undone in my mouth, and I relish the feeling of his weak-kneed surrender. I love what I can do to him, and that he’s so willing to let me do it.

His climax ends with a violent shiver, and he breaks from the kiss with a heavy pant.

“Why?” he says after a moment of breathing.

“Why what?” I ask, giving him gentle caresses.

He trembles at the attention. “Why are my pants your favorite place to make me come?”

I giggle.

Ugh . That’s the second one…

I get myself under control. “I love the thought of you being so unbearably enamored with me that even the touch of my hand through six layers of clothing can bring you to completion.”

His eyes blink dreamily at me behind the dark glass of the goggles. “You love the thought of me…squishing around in my trousers as I have to go about the camp drawing runes and covering our tracks.”

I laugh louder. “Yes, that too.”

He smiles like a goon and something clicks into place, though I’m not sure what it is. Like a long-forgotten concept has been dredged up from the depths of my soul, and his smile is the key sliding into the lock.

I push him away and give him a soft tap. “Enjoy that.”

He harumphs, pulling on the cloth around his groin and rotating his hips as he turns away from me.

My cheeks burn as I watch him go, wiggling and shaking like he’s got bugs in his pants, and I realize just what secret his smile is unlocking.

I am enough for him.

Just the way I am.