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The number of times I cried on this man since waking up in his bed the first time shamed me. That I could find comfort with him degraded me. That I was even capable of crying with such fervor confused me.
Recruits do not cry.
No, pain was to be buried deep, deep, deep down.
But I wasn’t a recruit anymore, was I? I was an instructor now. Mated to a demon I clung to as I purged.
I bawled until my stomach hurt, until I was out of tears and thirsty.
A strange sensation I had almost forgotten. A parched throat didn’t belong to mated females, because a flood of male ejaculate should have been plugged inside me. And this made me angry with him on a very different, very strange level.
Holding me as I broke apart, Cyderial gave me all the time in the world. My breath a shivering wreck, I drank down his scent. Nose at his throat, arms wrapped around his neck, I called him horrible names.
Let him witness the damage he’d done.
I hated him. I was fond of him. Addicted to him. And I needed him.
Cyderial had done monstrous things, no question. But he could be so gentle. And forceful.
The man could make me do anything he wanted.
And I suspected he knew I liked being compelled when I was scared. Maybe my brain was broken from academy life. Maybe there was no better way he could have claimed me than by taking me by the throat and dragging me into a bond.
Maybe I deserved him.
A strange thought that quieted my brain, slowed my hiccupping breaths, and lulled me as he rocked me in his arms.
When my voice returned and I was somewhat stable, I muttered, “Did you know recruits call this the death couch? No one who has sat on it lived to tell the tale.”
With a dark chuckle, he rubbed warm circles into my back. “You’ve sat on it.”
Voice hardly more than a whisper, I answered, “And I told no one.”
“There is some truth to the couch being taboo. No one but you has ever sat on it. It’s forbidden, even for the staff. It’s always been yours, waiting for the day you might be here with me. Every decoration in this room, I chose while thinking of you. Every flower.” Soft smile on that devious mouth, he petted me, setting me back to lounge on his fine couch. “The little mythologies made up by the recruits will change. They will see you sitting on it, and the story will grow. Just as the stories grew from my academy years. The workings of academy culture are fluid and ultimately such a short tenure of our lives. In fifty years, current recruits will have forgotten there was even a white couch in this room.”
Grim, I grew stiff. “And what of the other places in the room?”
“We make new memories there, change the story in your head.” His purred a little harder, stroked less for comfort and more for enticement.
Voice small, I asked, “The floor?”
A husky tone warmed my ear. “I’ll give you such pleasure on the floor you’ll beg me to hold you down and give you more.”
I didn’t know how I would survive it.
Pulling back to wipe my tears, he offered a soft smile. “You must be thirsty.”
I nodded, watching him rise so he might fetch me water from a supply cabinet near his desk.
A pretty glass was pressed into my hand, just like the one I had broken weeks ago in that very room.
Cold water tasted brand-new, fresh, and lively as it filled my stomach. Food followed, a plate organized with pretty, flared fruits.
Pampered as I sat on that white couch, I was watered and fed, my shoulders rubbed until the weight on my chest released.
He even smoothed my hair and fixed several of the pins holding my bun tight to my skull.
And I knew this was what it was to be a mated female.
