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My little one shoved the bread around in her mouth as she spoke, lacking all the graces of nobility, but they’d started to bore me a good while ago, anyway. “I’ve sometimes been quiet. Now and then, obedient. I’ve certainly never been both at the same time.”
“And did the punishment correct your… defiance? Should I fashion a belt from the next beast coming to the Pale Court? Maybe it’ll cure your desire to escape.”
“Nothing cured in our home but the salted ham hanging from the rafters.”
My chest ached as neglected muscle pushed a faint laugh from my lungs. “So outspoken, your loyalty to a man this rotten confuses me greatly.”
“John was a good man.”
“So good, he only took a belt to you a dozen times? I despise pain, Ada. But not as much as I despise those who inflict it without mercy.”
“Because you have a right to speak of mercy?” Shaking her head, she tossed what was left of her bread onto the platter, the blood in her veins thickening with dismay. “Yes, my husband whipped me, as do all others. But he never kept me under lock and key, never forced himself—”
“Calm your heart.”
“—on me, even when he swayed home drunk from port, and he certainly didn’t push his length up my… my burning arse…”
Her voice trailed off as I slowed her compromised heart, tampering her anger into the faintest tingle beneath her skin. Ah, my little one hadn’t liked it when I took that hole. A little too roughly, too, since she’d torn but, oh, how tight that untried muscle had been around my aching cock.
“You did that.” She pressed a hand against her chest, but only until her blazing eyes snapped to mine. “So, it’s not enough to take the last bit of pride from me, but now you have to steal my rage?”
“A good little mortal gets my mouth on her cunt.” I cupped her cheek, relishing how the weight of her head pressed into my palm because I made it so. “A bad little mortal who runs from me gets my cock up her ass before I pull out and spend my seed all over her face. Or perhaps, welts on her hide after all?”
“Take a belt to me if you have to, but it’ll achieve nothing.”
Or I might just chain her to my throne. “Will you run from me again?”
Lips trembling, she braved my gaze. “Yes. I’ll hide in the back of beyond until my hair’s gray.”
Her honesty pinched me somewhere. “You should have lied.”
“No point in making myself a liar if we both know you won’t believe me, anyway.”
Eternity already scraped its claws over my mind, the thought of losing her chilling the blood in my veins. Perhaps I needed to break her neck after all? But then she would be cold…
Against my better judgment, I caved to the desperation manifesting in my core. “What will it take to make you stay?”
A swallow dragged down her throat as her brow lifted, undoubtedly judging my sincerity. “Spread rot and let the dead in.”
“I won’t break my oath to see yours spoken.”
And I better remember it.
She tortured her upper lip long enough, I wanted to suck it between mine to make her stop. “Then rot my husband’s body.”
The bones of a bastard who’d beaten this woman, and even now, who burdened her with the false responsibility of his death? For him, she would give herself away like a fool?
I had only known this mortal for a short while, but I could tell she was no fool. That made her a liar after all, whispering promises from the most tempting of lips, only to ensure her escape. Had I hoped differently for a moment?
“I won’t rot your husband’s bones, little one.” I rolled out of bed. “How can I make my home more comfortable for you? Should I send Orlaigh to gather books? Paints, maybe?”
The mortal’s posture stiffened, the innocence in her eyes not matching the deceit in her voice. “Can we leave the Pale Court? If only for an hour so I can… see the sky—”
“The sky.”
“—and birds, and trees—”
Did I look so easily fooled? “You’ll get books and paints.”
