“Cas, I can’t hold on,” I moan.
Tears prick my eyes. From the ache. From the euphoria. From the knowledge that we’re being watched by the very monsters we plan to destroy.
Caspian’s grip tightens. The pace builds. The heat coils. My body quivers against the throne.
“Come for me, Rose,” he commands.
And I do.
My climax crashes through me like a storm of stars, hot and endless and utterly consuming. His hot pleasure courses through me. I cry out, shaking, lost in him. In us. In this terrible, beautiful lie.
The Below roars like they’ve won.
But they haven’t.
They have no idea what’s coming.
Caspian pulls out of me and releases the briars, dragging me to my feet.Stars, I wish I could kiss you right now instead of?—
Roughly, he turns me to the crowd. “Look at her, dripping with me. Off to her husband she’ll go so he knows who ownsher. To be fucked again and again and again until he realizes the whore she is.”
Stars, Rosie, I love you so much, he says in my mind as the briars of his and Kel’s bargain rise through the ground and wrap around me.
As they drag me under, I see Caspian tilt his head to the dangling cage and smirk. “She’s all yours, lover.”
45
Keldarion
Briars crack through a corner of the cage, and Rosalinaappears before me, naked, Caspian’s seed running down her thighs. I grip one of the bars of the cage and hold myself steady. I don’t think desire has ever sung louder in my blood than it does now.
Not only because of how delicious she looks but because of the pure need pulsing through our bond. Shelikesme seeing her like this,likesbeing sent to me, used and spent.
Rosalina blinks up at me. “Kel, I belong to you.”
The bargain. I have to release her.
She giggles, then says lowly, “How strange. I know I belong to you, but it doesn’t feel like it did before. I think breaking free of Caspian’s bargain has lessened the effect.”
Relief floods through me. “That’ll make it much more convenient in the future.”
“What, are you two planning to do this a lot?”
I only smile, and Caspian’s voice drifts up from below. He lounges on his throne, black cape draping over him. “Keldarion,” he croons, “do you like the state in which I’ve sent your mate? Do you smell her on me?”
I’m not the performer Cas and Rosie are, but I ram against the bars, closing my knuckles around them. “I’ll kill you for what you did to her.”
“No,” Caspian says simply. “I’ll kill you both if you don’t do what I say. And because I doubt you grasp exactly what I mean, the first thing you’re going to do is lick her pussy clean so you finally understand who she belongs to.”
“You bastard!” I roar.
His voice drifts into my mind.I knew you’d like that, pet.
Rosalina gives me a playful look before running to the back of the cage. It sways with her movement. “No! I only want you, Prince of Thorns.”
“The beast of Winter will do what I say,” Caspian calls. “By whatever means necessary.”
Rosalina gives me a desperate, scared look. Then a wink.Catch me if you can, Kel, she says in my mind.
