“I know,” he said, sounding as annoyed as I felt. “But that’s the hand we were dealt. And now it’s your turn to play it.”
The noise of clinking glasses and dishes filled the hallway that led to the banquet hall. As I approached, I got the sense that this wasn’t some small gathering of high nobility. The place was fucking packed and the din of conversation was damn-near deafening.
“Christ almighty,” I muttered to myself as I passed rows and rows of valets in full livery, waiting dutifully for their masters and mistresses outside the banquet hall. Near the entrance to the hall, but well away from the threshold, I paused and took a second to collect myself, stepping to the side of the doorway so I was out of view. An hour ago, I’d been inside Iris. Now I had to deal with this. Power was a bitch. No doubt about it.
One of my father’s heralds eyed me from beside the door and blinked.
“Sir?” He asked. “Shall I announce you?”
Fucking fuck.
I hated this. I knew that the second I set foot across that threshold, my life would change forever. And yet, now that I was so close to the power of the crown, I also saw that things with Iris might not be as difficult as I’d thought. True enough, I couldn’t fucking marry her. But also true was the fact that I wasn’t particularly interested in being her husband, living out that ordinary existence, with ordinary things and ordinary sex.
Fuck no.
I didn’t want her to be simply my goddamned wife, either. I wanted to keep her as my secret, my treasure, my possession. I didn’t just want her in jewels; I wanted her in jewels, and barefoot, and pregnant. And I wanted her to be able to do whatever the hell she wanted as well, whatever that looked like. I wanted everything with her, way the fuck more than a marriage could guarantee. Especially a royal one with all its pomp and expectations and protocol.
And when I was King, I could do exactly as I fucking liked. Even if it meant locking myself away with Iris for weeks at a time.
I took strength from that, from the idea of finally having the freedom to do what I wanted, how I wanted. Just knowing that she was in my quarters, waiting for me, made this whole shitshow of an ordeal more bearable as well. I closed my eyes and thought back to her—to that line between her nipple and her breast, to the mole on her inner thigh, to the way she closed her eyes when she came. She was my Dutch courage; she was my shot of whiskey before a fight.
Once I’d had a solid drink of her, I told the herald, “Yeah. Go ahead.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and pivoted on his left foot, rapping the stone floor hard with his staff.
“My liege lords and ladies, your attention please!” The herald bellowed. “All rise, for Prince Randal, son of the King!”
Chapter 13
Iris
I waited and waited for Randal to return.
I finished my wine and apricots, and then I wandered around the dungeon. I walked carefully over the meticulously polished stone floor, stepping gingerly because my hips and body were so sore from being ravaged again and again. I ran my fingers over all the things he’d used on me, all the places he’d had sex with me…and looked with nervous anticipation at the many things we hadn’t yet done.
There were feathers and gags, waxed cord, and leather—so much gorgeous, new leather. Thinking back to what we had done brought a blush into my cheeks and a rush between my legs. I had never felt so loved, so cared for, so cherished.
He is mine and I am his, forever.
A long looking glass hung on the wall across from me and I looked at myself carefully. I ran my fingers over the bruises on my body and turned to see the best one of all—a mark on my right hip of Randal’s right hand, all five fingertips and his thumb, a deep plummy purple bruise on my bottom. What a man.
All my thoughts of him did nothing except make me more impatient for him to return. Useless to think of anything else, there in that room, where we had done so much already.
Standing in front of a ceramic basin in the corner of the bedroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. On my throat, in what the old ladies called the vampire spot, was a love bite that Randal had given me the night before. The memory rushed back as if it was happening all over again, the way he’d devoured my skin like a starving man.
The thought of it made me groan with pleasure as I splashed my face with the cool water. But as I dried myself, a noise jolted me out of the luscious memories. I paused to listen. At first, my heart leapt at the thought of Randal returning. But it didn’t sound to me like his heavy, cocky footfalls. Not it all. Instead, it sounded like a scuffle. A fight. I froze with the soft towel pressed to my cheek. A yell, a clank of a sword, a clatter of armor, and a guttural cry.