She chuckles and I see her turning down my bed from the corner of my eye. Laying out the two satin and velvet eye masks I tie on every night in hopes the illusion of darkness will allow me to rest.
It rarely does.
“They are bringing a new shipment of food and supplies tomorrow. I made sure to request fresh cut peonies, as they are blooming all around the main castle and in every garden in the kingdom. I know they are your favorite.”
I nod, remembering wandering the gardens with the many servants who raised me, being chastised for flicking off the ants that were on the buds before they bloomed. I finally learned that without the ants, there would be no flowers.
Sometimes, what looks like something harmful, is really the thing that can release the good.
But, it’s hard to tell when that’s true and when evil is just plain evil.
CHAPTER 2
Rian
“Good night, my love,” I grunt, the words sticking in my throat as I swallow, closing my mouth, my upper incisors clicking against my lower fangs as they press into my lips.
This is the worst time of night. When they pull her inside and away. When I lose my view of the one thing in this darkness of my life that gives my heart the courage to beat on, believing someday I will touch her again and feel the light on my skin.
The day we met, her eyes the color of the sky clutched to my very soul, whispering things that could never be undone. She was wearing a dress the color of her eyes, adorned with real gold, the wealth of her people, and trimmed with lace. She was the snowflake to my rock but never had I felt more at home than when her hand met mine.
She gave me the customary curtsy, and in an instant my senses roared to life. Her scent barreled through me like the rage of the north river, sweeping me away in its current toward a lust that can never be satisfied.
I swallowed back the burning need to raise her over my shoulder and sweep my sword in the air toward anyone attempting to keep her from me. The man in me tried to stay civil while my orc side thought of ways to destroy everyone that stood between us.
Never before her, had I felt any such desire. As her chest rose and fell, the pulse of my blood rushed low, engorging me for the first time in my life.
Many of my kind have lost the instinct to find a primal, fated mate, but mine devoured me in an instant.
No one else would ever take the place of this beauty with hair the color of the fall leaves, who stood with shoulders back, head high, eyes locked with mine as if to say, I feel it too. I don’t understand, help me…
Oh, I’d thought. I’m going to help you.
I’m going to help myself to that little honey pot between your legs. Wake you with licking and fucking until you produce my children one after the other. It was as if I was in a daze every second after that. My cock wept for her. Soaking my leather and making me sew in patches, allowing my thick branch of a dick room to breathe.
I loved her from that moment. I climbed onto the balcony at the golden castle that night after the festival to watch her sleep. I felt the urge to spend myself, but I knew it would be impossible. My seed would only find home inside her. There was no relief but with her.
The next morning I stalked her from the forest as her servants and chariots gathered to take her back to the main castle. I had other plans. I rode my stallion through the woods and roads, arriving before her, scaling the walls until I found her chamber and waited.
I was afraid she would be frightened to find me there, but instead she smiled. She sent away her maids and asked me what took me so long. The next week was like being lost in a fever. I could feel my orc instincts clawing to the surface more and more.
We met every day after that, in the woods, along the stream, and in her chamber. I kissed her lips, wanting more but knowing we would have forever. My primal lust just barely overruled by civilized protocol. I knew I must find a way to marry her, to make her mine in every way, to give her everything she’d ever dreamed of.
I couldn’t wait for the usual courtship period, the agreements between her father-like steward and my advisors, the formalities, the appropriate pause before my coronation, when I would be seen as a suitable match.
My need was too strong for months or years. I needed her in days, in hours, in moments.