Feral King (The Dominant Bastard Duology 1)

His mouth moved gently on hers as he whispered his approval, holding her carefully, as though she might break into a million pieces.

She was fucked.

He was so broken, but she was already his.

*

Minnow woke in bed alone the next morning, not remembering how she’d gotten there. When she realized Severin must have dressed her in his own shirt and put her to bed, her stomach fluttered. He hadn’t brought her to bed with him, but the T-shirt meant something. Affection? An instinct to take care of her?

She stretched, realizing only then how sore she was. It would have been better if Severin had been the one to make her sore, but this was okay too, even if they’d ruined her orgasm on purpose. Submitting to Severin meant doing things his way, even if that meant letting his best friend screw her while he watched. If she’d come into this house vanilla or a virgin, none of this would have worked the same way. As it was, she was used to demanding dominants and was difficult to shock.

When she padded down the hall past his room, Severin wasn’t in bed. He wasn’t in the house at all, or at the forge, where she’d assumed he was, when she went to bring him lunch. The house was clean, so she took a long bath and read an entire eBook. Reading a romance had been a bad idea, though, because it had turned her on and Severin wasn’t around to help her out. For a moment she wondered if she could get away with masturbating, but the gorgeous bastard would probably show up just in time to catch her.

It was difficult to believe Sutton would be home the next day. She’d been gone three weeks, and so much had changed between her and Severin since then. It almost felt like Sutton had been a figment of her imagination. Minnow felt herself blush at the thought of the older woman finding out how things now were between her and Severin.

Nervous, she gave the kitchen one last cleaning, hoping she hadn’t left anything out of place. She also went through the house to make sure there weren’t any stray undergarments or sex toys or bottles of lube lying around the common areas.

At about four the phone rang. She ran to the landline in the study

, trying not to look at the coffee table she’d been tied to the night before.

“Hello?”

“Minnow? Hey – it’s Church.”

“Hi! Before you ask, no, he’s not here. Not in the forge, not in the garage...I’m not sure where he is. He was gone when I woke up.”

There was a pause at the other end. “No offense, but are you good with messages?”

She sat in Severin’s big leather chair at his desk. It was ridiculous, but she felt like a rebel sitting there. In a momentary flash of brattiness, she propped her feet on his desk, then put them back down again because she’d gone far.

“Yes, I’m good with messages. I told him you called and I’ve been badgering him to call you back. I get the ‘your king is displeased, peasant’ face when I nag too much though.”

Church’s laugh was just how she remembered it, rumbling, warm. Too bad he’d moved away so soon after she’d joined the staff. He must have lightened the mood around here. She could hear the kids shrieking in the background, like usual.

“It’s so hard to be here when I should be at the house knocking him on his ass.” He sighed, blowing a gust of air into the phone. “You know he’s written me off at this point.”

“No, I’m sure that’s not it,” she reassured him. “Maybe he’s just not big on using the phone.”

“He’s a simple man, Min. Either you’re with him or against him. It doesn’t take much for him to believe you’re against him.”

Poor Church. “You’re just trying to get established so you can make a secure life for your family. He’s got to understand that.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t. As far as he’s concerned, we could have lived at the house, and off of him, forever. He doesn’t get that I needed to do something with my life other than living there, waiting for him to need me. He keeps trying to give me half of everything, but my relationship with him has never been about the money.”

“Is anyone’s?”

“No. Between me, you, Sutton, and Rodrigo, no one gives a shit about the money. Even he doesn’t give a shit about the money. If anything, I think having it has made it too easy to hide from the world. He doesn’t trust people because he doesn’t know many.” He told one of his daughters to give a toy back to her sister then had to tell them to stop shrieking.

“Between his first family abandoning him, and our mom dying, he just can’t get over this idea that he was meant to be alone. It’s turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even when we were little kids he never trusted I wouldn’t leave him. He’d be such a dick trying to push me away and prove he was right. It’s exactly what he’s doing now.” She heard a loud bang and Church grumbled something under his breath. “Do you have any idea how fucking frustrating loving someone like that is? I wasn’t the one who betrayed him, but I get to reap what they sowed. Fucking asshats.”

“Does anyone know why his parents abandoned him?”

“His first parents,” Church corrected. “My mom was his real mom, and then Sutton. I don’t know what we would have done without her. That woman – I mean, I know she’s paid for her trouble, but who would agree to take over parenting two teenage boys when they’re in the middle of grieving? No amount of money could have made her love us like she does. At that age we needed someone who gave a damn even more than we needed someone to take care of us.” His voice was thick with emotion, and she felt her heart breaking for them all over again.

“It just makes me so mad that he’s writing me off. I’ve been with him for twenty-four years. Why doesn’t he trust me?” He snorted. “I know why, but it doesn’t make it any easier. But how can I fix that? I wanted to go look for the Leducs. Rodrigo and I were going to go, but Severin threw a fit and we backed off. I think he’s afraid to find out the truth.”

“Yeah. That’s what Rodrigo said to him the other day.” She thought about the forms Rodrigo had brought over for Severin to sign. Hopefully it would give him some closure, if it didn’t give him peace.