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Franzy seizes my face and needles her amber eyes onto mine. “My mind is a’mince, Isla!”
“And I’m off my head...” I purr in her ear and press my lips to hers, tasting the sweet, fruit wine from her tongue. Can she taste the Sythe wine on mine? When I’m full of drink, it’s the only time my Nether-mark dulls.
“Ye’re out face!” she shouts of my full-intoxication, flustered when I twirl and kiss her again, hands groping with her gown.
“Come, we promised to dance the night away.” I grip her hand, leading her through the crowds. We lose the soldiers and bustle down a dark passage.
“Isla, I?” Franzy squeaks, but I press her against the wall, mold my mouth to hers, and thrust my hips toward her pelvis.
It doesn’t take long for her to bow to my prowess, for her lips to part. I moan, loving the taste of simple, honeyed wine on her tongue. Heat buds between my thighs, heart forging a blazing path out of my ribcage. Her hands stray to my waist, but I seize them and pin them above her head, savoring her adorable groan as she arches her neck to welcome my lips on her throat.
“Oh, gods! Oh, Kryach!” Franzy slurs when I trail my tongue along her throat and lower.
I smirk and murmur against her skin, “He will steal my soul soon, my bonnya sweet. But you’ll always have my heart.”
A draught sweeps my back.
Without hesitation, I spin and use my body as a barrier, a shield between her and the shifters who close in. My gaze darts between them. I shiver at the sight of the fleshy crown one wears: the beta Prince to the alpha Emperor! Younger, more muscled but not as skilled as the warrior alpha well known for his lion prowess, the beta Prince is here to make a point, to play me as a pawn in his game to achieve notoriety in his ranks.
Still, I’d be a fool to underestimate the Shifter with his dark stubble of a beard, his carmine pupils?dilated to hunger?, his rippled muscles, and bristles of short fur and claws he may extend at any time.
He clicks his teeth and opens his mouth. “The first tribute in centuries.” He approaches me. Franzy trembles and whimpers behind me as I stare him down and wrinkle my nose. “Hmm...do you taste as arousing as you smell, little korye?”
Despite the beads of sweat gathering on my brow, I disguise my fear behind my rage and dare them, “Why don’t you come and discover for yourself? Just let her go. She is far too sweet, no?” I divert them, prepared to shove Franzy down the hallway.
The Prince lifts a hand in dismissal, granting me my desire. Before Franzy can protest, I command against her mouth in a whisper, “Go or I swear to Kryach, I will use my bone barb on you instead of them.” I wink at her, gesturing to the barb I retrieve from my cleavage. A worthy weapon for shifters.
Franzy gathers her gown skirts and skitters away because she will always resort to flight while my spirit always battles.Little fire blossom, Fathyr would call me. Petals of flame, nectar of poison. The girl with hellfire and heaven’s light in her hair and death’s Nether-mark upon her back. It flames. It blazes along my spine, but my ignited temper matches it.
The shifters charge with their lightning speed and superior muscles and knock the barb from my hands and slam my arms above my head. In the wake of the Prince licking his hot tongue down my throat to my breasts, I don’t break. I seethe and jam my kneecap into his balls, earning a growl and a prompt strike from his hand.
“Where are those bright eyes now?” he mocks and nips my jaw. I hiss.
I spit in his face, and the Prince grips my throat in a direct threat, extending his face into a dominant wolf muzzle.
Fear plagues my body. The Nether-mark runs cold, penetrating my spine with familiar ice bursts. My limbs quiver. I buckle, but the Prince holds me, claws digging into my gown, lacerating my thigh, drawing blood.
“Mmm...” he leans in and growls low, savoring my fear, his muzzle nudging my cheek. I cringe and hold back bile when his hot tongue lashes at my mouth, forcing its way past my lips. “Little flower, I will pluck her petals and bite her before the Corpse King may sink his teeth into her. And all will know I am true alpha!”
Shifters would attempt as bold a statement as marking the Corpse King’s future bride. I am nothing more than a pawn and a pleasure. Proof when he grips the edges of my gown and bunches them above my hips.
I gulp the urge to protest, to whimper, to show any weakness. They will always use weakness against you. They will use it as a fucking sword to draw your blood, to pierce your heart. You must always wear your skin as armor, kindle fire in your veins, and forge an iron ribcage to protect your weakest and ficklest of muscles.
But when the Prince palms my maidyan mound through my underclothes, I lick my lips, knuckles whitening, shaking uncontrollably. I close my eyes and brace myself because I want to curl on the floor, but the last thing I will do is surrender without a fight. When he retains his man shape, opens my lips, and dips a finger beneath the line of the fabric, I bite his lower lip as hard as I possibly can. He howls and tries to pull away.
Oh, no, you don’t!
Blood fills my mouth, but I hold on, and somethingfleshytears. The next I know, the Prince jerks away. His Shifter men weaken their hold on my wrists as they gape at their noble who wails and holds his bleeding lip. Disgusted, I chuck the fleshy piece lodged in my teeth and retch Sythe wine onto the two shifters on my left who release my wrists.
Blood rushing to my ears, I fall to my knees, but it doesn’t take long for the Prince to recover. As he stalks to me, all fur and lust and fury, I curl into a ball and cover my head, prepared for a brutal and bloody bite. But his darkened shadow retreats.
“Prince Carsten, tsk, tsk, tsk...” A voice of silk and smoke, of blood rubies and dark roses, of shade dreams and lustful fangs, quells the moments of fire and rage. “You still pick battles with lionesses. To your own demise.”
I peek through my hair strands. There she is! Arrayed in her seductive glory, her gown of scarlet beauty, the Sythe Queen sways past Carsten and slides a hand along the side of her body to rest on her prominent hip as sharp as a diamond. With her deadly barrier of a body between Carsten and myself, she peers at me, eyes wandering in a glimpse. “People are looking for you, little lioness,” she directs before turning to the Prince who gnashes his teeth.
“This is none of your business, Narcyssa!” he fumes, lower lip still bleeding. Half a lower lip now. I purse my own, wishing I could rid my tongue of his taste.
She rolls her eyes, tossing her fiery hair back. “If Alpha Drakos is impatient, it ismybusiness. Such moods, when left to fester, will lead your Emperor to prickle. And then, it’s my sythes against your shifters. And more fur is always shed than fangs.” Queen Narcyssa slides her confident fingers, enthroned in lace gloves armored with trophy fangs, along Carsten’s bare arm and to his pelvis, causing his muscles to bulge and his breath to pant as she finishes, “Besides, you know I am willing to offer you a pocket of heat to rival this little maidyan’s. Heat which will accept yourwolfmember, Carsten.”
