No simpering female here. She'd never say, "'Tis fine for you to do so, my liege." Never.
But then, just to throw him once more, she kissed his lips tenderly, licking and coaxing until his head swam from sensation.
Ah, gods, mine.
When she drew back, her eyes were glowing metallic blue. "I heard your thought loud and clear. You know it's me. You've accepted that I'm the one you've waited so long for."
She'd read his mind yet again. "And you?" he snapped. "Have you 'waited' for me?"
Her tone grew cold. "Do you expect me to be a virgin when you were out furiously attempting every skirt in your kingdom?"
"How many males have come before me?"
"I'm five hundred years old. Use your imagination. Does it bother you? The idea of other men petting my
body, tasting it, penetrating it?" He felt a muscle tic in his scarred cheek, and she saw it. "Oh, it does!"
"Just finish me."
She gripped his shaft, stroking him once more. "Say the words, demon, and I'll do anything you want me to. How many times do you think you'd want me this first night of our marriage? Ten times? So many positions to try."
He gritted his teeth to stifle the vow he was tempted to utter. The pressures battling his resistance were nearly overwhelming. Could he deny the sight of his fantasies? When unsatisfied need had built for weeks even before he'd met her? The air seethed with tension.
"And then there's your bondage fetish to explore-"
"I don't have a fetish!"
"Why do you deny it-or me? What male could be expected to resist this?"
Chin raised, he bit out, "J would be. Others would count on me to deny myself for the greater good."
"To what end? How does denying yourself help any­one else?"
"The sooner I do this, the sooner I die."
"What if I told you I wouldn't kill you-I'd keep you as my pet?"
"I'd opt for death."
"Then I need to make it so that you want me so much, you don't even care."
"It's good, Sabine," he rasped, trying to catch his breath as she expertly stroked him. "It's really f**king good: But it's not that good."
Her eyes narrowed. The chamber seemed to rock once more, and wind from nowhere blew her hair. "Then you won't miss it, stubborn demon. When it goes away."
She removed her hand and rose from the bed. "I'll keep doing this every night. I'll do it until you lose your mind from lust. You might have an indomitable will, but mine was forged in fire! You'll find it's more than enough to break yours."
"You're not going to leave me like this!" He swore once more for the vilest, crudest revenge on her. Each second that passed, he hated her more and more. She was going to leave him throbbing in pain, his shaft thick with se**n, his claws biting into his palms. "Come back here and finish me!"
"I can play these games over and over, demon. As a matter of fact, I think I enjoy them."
Gods help him, he might, too.
Once I turn the tables.
12
" You still look unsullied," Lanthe said when she and Sabine met upstairs, Sabine hated that word. She hated that it was never used to describe males and that she couldn't get herself sullied quickly enough. "Yes, Lanthe, I'm still pure"
"Round two went that well?"
For the first time since she was a young woman, Sabine experienced total bewilderment. "I've waited all this time to have a purpose, to gain power, my life on hold for centuries." She remembered wanting nothing, aspiring to nothing. I care about nothing very much . . . Now was the time to act, yet she couldn't. "I never thought he would resist me."
She shivered to recall the way his green eyes flick­ered black when he'd looked at her with utter lust. And still he'd denied her. He'd resisted not only the call of a female to a male but the call of his mate.
"What if I'm not his? What if the prophecy was wrong?" Oracles didn't usually make mistakes, but those
interpreting their words did. "I don't get it. I'm sexually attractive to a remarkable degree-"
"And humble."
"It's not bragging if it's true. And I'm his-which means, this is in the bag. Or should be." Though most of his kind searched their entire lives for their other half, Rydstrom hadn't. Once he'd lost Tornin, he'd been obsessed in his quest to reclaim his crown.
Now that the worst of her pique had passed, she reflected on all she'd learned. To please him as he truly needed, she would have to surrender the reins-or appear to.
Sabine was so strong on the outside, always having to be on her game, never revealing any vulnerability. There'd been times that she'd actually wondered what it would be like to lie back and just surrender to a man.
If she trusted him. I/he was worthy. The demon would never seek to steal my powers....
"I knew he was complicated." But she'd never guessed to what degree. "The levelheaded, upstanding king has a wicked side." And one he'd obviously long denied.
Lanthe's eyes went wide. "Do tell!"
"He craves total control, but he doesn't want me to give it to him. He wants to win it."
"That sounds kind of exciting."
It was. Gods, that demon's masculine heat was addic­tive ...
"When you were with him, did you feel more drawn to him? " When Sabine frowned, Lanthe said, "Just tell me-if this was another place and time, and you were just two ordinary beings, would you see him again?"
He wants to kiss my neck and tell me that I'm beauti­ful. .. . "Our kind considers demons hardly better than animals."
"That's not what I asked."
"I... maybe," she muttered.
Lanthe's face brightened. "Oh, Sabine! This is won­derful. You could fall in love-"
"Always with your talk of love! Do you know what I love? Life. And romantic love is a distraction that makes staying alive more difficult. Besides, we're not in another time or place."
And still Sabine glanced over her shoulder toward the dungeon and felt a tinge of... something.
When she turned back, she found Lanthe preoccu­pied, gazing up at the sky.
"A karat for your thoughts," she said. "It's Thronos, isn't it?"
"What?" Lanthe cried.
"You're worried he will find a way to this plane. But, Lanthe, he can't. And even if he could, we're not the same scared girls we used to be. We'd hang him by his own entrails."
"Yes, by his entrails," Lanthe repeated in a weird tone.