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Laura issues a teasing wave, then goes back to rubbing the King’s chest beneath the heavy plate mail. “Hey, sis.”
Cora starts to tremble.
My gaze flits to the King, whose attention is entirely on me. “Giroth,” he announces, tolerating the woman’s groping. “I thought you might have gotten lost on the way back.”
I am so surprised by the scene in front of us that I’ve forgotten to bow. I do so in a rush, my gaze never leaving the pair. “I would not have been concerned,” I lie brazenly, “if I had known it was you, my King, that had taken the missing woman.”
A wry simper comes over Laura, and she glances to the King, stroking what must be his cheek under the darkness of his hood. Again, he seems to tolerate her touch. He could have any Matron in Ti’lith, and yet he has placated himself with a human? This must be some sort of trick that I haven’t yet pieced together. This is why I am not suited to court life.
Cora moves to approach. I snake an arm around her and hold her fast against me, even as she blurts out. “Why, Laura?”
Laura cocks her head, her hair tumbling over one shoulder, and her gaze sparking with glee. “Do you even have to ask?”
Cora strains against me, and I look to my King. He seems wholly bored by their reunion, and shifts in his seat before speaking, his hand tracing Laura’s bare ass. “I apologize for the confusion, Giroth,” he says in a rare display of humility. “This human acted as my eyes and ears before our siege. I had to be certain it was a viable settlement. And she was only too happy to assist.”
My jaw tenses as I struggle to keep hold of Cora, whose emotions are starting to overflow. I can feel fury tightening her limbs like an Ur’gin ready to pounce. “How dare you,” she spits at her sister. “You did this to us.”
The King looks to me as if I should control her.
He does not know how spirited she is, if he expects reason to settle her rage.
Laura, never taking her eyes off Cora, whispers something in the King’s ear, and he nods. That smile returns to light up her face and she slides off his lap and approaches. “You don’t understand,” she says in a tone meant to reassure. “The dark elves wanted to work us to death. King Asmodeus has promised us a better life up here. We’ll be cherished in Ti’lith. We’ll be the mothers of a powerful race that can bring about the destruction of the dark elves.”
Cora trembles against me, but there’s not an ounce of fear in her. I’d have smelled it on her skin. This is all rage, and I worry that if I release her, she will strangle her sister. “What about Beth? And Matt? They could have died during the siege!
“And you were willing to chance it for another insidious master to worship? The other women weren’t given a choice. I, your sister, wasn’t given a choice, because you took that away from us!”
A look of disgust comes over Laura’s fine features, so like Cora’s. “I did it for us. I did it so we could carve out a better future for ourselves, one where we could live for a greater cause than for our corpses to act as the mortar for the dark elves’ damned cities. The demons are weak without armies. They need us,” she says with a tone of finality, “and we need them.”
My gaze strays to the King, who shifts on his throne again.
There is something keen in the chaos energy building around him. A force that means he is growing impatient with these proceedings. Though I am taken aback by all that has transpired, I have to distract Cora from killing her sister before the King takes it into his own hands.
And, simultaneously, I have to right my grave mistake.
Even as she tries to tear away from me to get to Laura, I catch Cora by the nape of her neck and hold her plainly in the King’s view. She stiffens under my grip as I growl out my next words. “For the price of executing your will, my King, I demand the rights of this human. She is mine, and no one else is permitted to touch her, under threat of death.”
It sufficiently distracts all parties from Laura’s victorious little rant. The King’s attention falls on me, again, just as I’d hoped.
But I don’t give him time to speak when I gather Cora up in my embrace and our lips crash together. At first, she is stunned by the display, but quickly yields to my insistent kiss. I take her lower lip with my teeth, making a show of being more violent than I am, until a keening whimper escapes her. I drag her body flush with mine, digging my claws into the soft flesh of her ass. She wriggles against me, gasping for air as our tongues dance feverishly.
And I swear, in the heat of our caress, I taste her tears in the air.
29
CORA
He wants me?
His dark tongue is heavy in my mouth, claiming me with heated fervor. I can’t help the tears that spring freely to my eyes as I grin into his kiss. Giroth’s pale eyes are closed, and his brow is knit into a scowl, but everything about his heavy caresses tells me he’s desperate to prove it to our audience of two.
I ignore the surprised gasp from Laura, content to strangle her later. He wants me!
Something about his pace changes, and his eyes slide open to revere me. Then, too soon, they flicker up to the king. He holds me against himself as he waits for an answer.
The king seems amused, though it’s impossible to see his features. “You have done well, Giroth, and I accept your terms on one condition.”
Giroth tenses around me.
