Page 19

This is rest, I dimly realize. But I’m still on display. My want drips down my thighs, and my nipples stay budded in the chamber air, which chills me even more now that I’m sheened with sweat.

Still, I exhale, relief slowing the pulsing between my legs. Logic returns. Reason. A little dignity.

That was humiliating, I realize after the feeling comes back to my arms . But not a total mind-breaker.

I can do this—survive this.

I glance at the timer, thinking I only have to get through a few more?—

My stomach drops.

I thought I’d endured at least half the punishment already. But only the tiniest, most insultingly piddly amount of sand has fallen to the floor of the bulbed device.

I stare dumbly at the glass, trying to reconcile the magnitude of what just happened with the minuscule amount of time that has elapsed.

But then the shadows lift me into the air again, and this time when they vine off, they move down my back.

Oh moons…

My earlier wish not to look at the king is suddenly granted—because the shadows rotate me, turning me around to offer up my backside.

Another wave of humiliation crashes over me when they part my cheeks… exposing the hole I’d just allowed them to clean during my bath.

“Oh good,” Veyrion’s voice is almost gleeful. “I was hoping your kind have these as well.”

Oh moons, he wouldn’t…

He would.

He totally would.

A whimper slips into the crook of my arm as a shadow slides into the forbidden hole.

“Anything you want to say?” he asks behind me, mild as ever. “A plea for mercy, perhaps?”

Of course I want mercy.

I want to scream at him—for being a twisted kinghole who strikes contracts with innocents who have no idea what he’s truly capable of.

But I grit my teeth until my jaw aches. I will not tell him to stop. I have to get through this.

I conjure the image of the garden I’ll leave behind.

If I can just?—

“Aah! Aaah!”

A sound somewhere between a breath and a warble escapes when the shadow finds yet another hidden pleasure point inside me.

“It appears you have a special bundle of sensitive nerves back here as well.”

Sensitive isn’t even the word for it.

I knew… I mean, my parents were a legacy pairing. Two people who preferred their own sex but made an arrangement for the sake of producing a child. So I’d already put together that men could find their pleasure there.

But I didn’t know women could, too.

And that new knowledge comes at a humiliating price.

My pride crumbles to the floor as I writhe and moan under the shadows’ persistent rubbing at this other bundle of nerves.

They’re no longer touching my front, but my clit still throbs as bolts of pleasure shoot down my legs.

And just like that, I’m right back where I was before he stopped.

I’m going to… I’m going to?—

But again, the shadows recede, and I’m set on the floor.

The king chuckles darkly. “We’ll have to leave that area alone. Apparently, you’re especially sensitive there.”

I say nothing. Just stare at the time glass as more blood-red sand drops to its floor.

My body cools. My heart rate slows.

Then the shadows pull me back into the air and slide into my sex, working their original magic until I’m once again on the brink of?—

Moist!

They pull out and set me back down on the floor. Let me rest. Let me calm.

Then they return me to the air for more of their sensual torture…

…before setting me down again.

I soon realize why they’re keeping my hands bound and pressed into my chest… why the shadows return to vine around my ankles and put me in another spread-eagle when I writhe too much.

So that I can’t touch myself—can’t get enough friction going around my swollen, aching nodule to end their torture.

He was right.

I’m in pain. Not from my arms—I can’t even feel those anymore.

But from the whiplash. The cruel withdrawal of pleasure, over and over, each time right before release.

I lose track of how many cycles of this he puts me through.

The time it takes me to rev up gets shorter and shorter. And the time it takes me to calm down gets longer and longer.

Mostly, I stand there slumped over like a rag doll between rounds. Limp and ruined.

But during one bleary moment of recovery, I manage to glance at the glass again.

It’s only halfway done.

And the shadows are back.

Will your shadows do anything I can’t recover from?

Physically? No. Mentally? Well, I can never be sure how easily your kind will break.

Now I understand what he meant.

My mind shatters. The last of my pride falls to the stone like a flower’s final petal.

Did I say I wouldn’t cry?

I start babbling, tears pouring down my face.

Begging him.

Begging him to let me come.

He does not.

The shadows pull back just as I start contracting—snuffing out the orgasm like a flame.

But that doesn’t stop me from pleading.

Tears stream down as I beg him again. And again. “Please! Oh moons, please!”

The pulsing between my legs slows, but my ears are ringing, the need is so loud.

He says nothing, and the shadows haul me back into the air.

“No! No! I can’t take this anymore!”

The words tumble out. I don’t even realize I’ve said them—until the shadows freeze.

Oh no.

“I didn’t mean it,” I say quickly.

“Do not tell any more untruths, little liar.” Veyrion picks up the time glass with another weary sigh. “You said no. That you couldn’t take any more.”

“I was out of my mind. Please don’t?—”

He flips the glass.

Very deliberately.

Even though it held over half my time.

Horror threatens to collapse my mind. “No, no!”

“Yes, princess. Say all your nos now, while we wait for the glass to reset. But I wonder…”

He rises from his throne. Walks over. Stops just short of touching me.

Then his shadow cuffs lift me higher into the air until we’re eye to eye.

His are back to glowing now, brighter than ever as he strokes the back of a talon over my cheek and asks, almost gently, “Will you be able to survive another round?”

No . There is no way I can get through even another moment of his torture.

Out loud, I say, “I have to. For the garden.”

“The flowers you are growing on the terrace.” His rebrightened eyes flicker. “They are truly that important to you?”

I snivel, pitifully. “It’s all I have left. The only thing that will let people know I was here.”

He falls silent.

For a long moment, there’s no sound in the room but my ragged breaths.

Then he says quietly, “I will remember you, Sallie Rose. No matter what I have done—what I have told myself about your inferiority these last two days—I have not been able to remove you from my head. You are even there when I sleep. Tempting me, compelling me, shining brighter than the moons above.”

He shakes his head. “Even if I live a Stone Fae’s full hundred solars, I doubt I will forget you. Already, after so short a time, I fear your stain may never lift. You have gotten under my granite, made me weak .”

He spits the last word out like a curse.

Then he expels a long breath. “Repent. Speak the apology owed for your defiance, and this night shall be leveled between us. I will grant you rest. Permit you to spend your final ticks of the suns in the completion of your garden. All I require are the words: I am sorry, Sire, for defying your will.’ ”

All I need to do is apologize. Apologize. And this will all be over.

I blink at him.

My mind so, so broken as it turns over his words.

Then, without warning, I pitch forward…

And kiss him like I’ve already died.