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Chapter Five
Aura
The two guards tightened their grip on Aura’s arms as they carried her down a dim hallway. She thrashed the entire way, attempting to loosen even the slightest. “Release me!” she seethed. Though she’d never tell them that the king had captured her—after his threat—she wouldn’t go easy on them either.
Due to the king’s lies about a sick roleplaying game, neither of the guards paid her any mind as they halted in front of a door. The taller one pulled it open before they tossed her into a candle-lit bedroom that wreaked of sex. She crashed to a dark stone floor, a sharp pain running across her hip.
With a grunt, she pushed herself up, just as the door slammed shut. Aura darted toward it anyway—the sound of a lock clicking echoed. She gripped the knob, wishing she had a spell to open it, but sorcerers preferred to keep their secrets.
“Let me out of here, you beasts!” Aura screamed, kicking at the door and pounding against it with her fists to no avail. She wanted to break the wood into pieces and find the blasted king, then claw at his precious face. Her nostrils flared and her heart thudded furiously in her chest as she threw her one remaining shoe at the door. She rarely found herself angry or riled. Usually she drifted in those emotions like a calm lake, but not this evening, on what was to be her damn wedding night! The King of Sin had ruined everything. She didn’t know much about the dragon shifter king, except that he wasn’t sinful just in pleasure, but in stealing women on theirwedding day. Now that she’d met him, she loathed him with every fiber thumping inside her. Perhaps he had a vendetta against her family from when they’d ruled, even though neither he nor she had been alive during that time. So then why her? Why bring her here when she’d never met him?
The obsidian room was empty, save for a bed cloaked in dark sheets and too many lacy pillows. No wardrobe, no desk, no chairs. She peered at the bed, its slightly rumpled silk blankets, knowing the scent of pleasure filling the air came from those sheets.
Aura’s gaze fell to dark curtains, the thin slit in the middle exposing a glass window. She rushed toward it, throwing the thick fabric back, only to find iron bars lining the glass. Making a tight fist, she struck the pane with it as hard as she could. Not a single crack ran up its length or spiderwebbed across. Even if she would’ve shattered the glass, she never would’ve been able to squeeze through the bars.
Night still blanketed the court, the sky darker here, the stars brighter. Aura didn’t know how long Rush wanted to keep her in Moonstone. If he planned to kill her, he most likely would’ve done that already. Unless he wanted to toy with her first… Perhaps he planned on requesting something in exchange for her though. Her family didn’t have anything worthy to trade—what he wanted would have to come from the royal family of Starnight, from Pax.
Someone would come for her though. Pax would fight his way through dragon fire to save her if necessary. Rush had spewed lies about her beloved to get her to turn against him. The King of Sin was a deceiver, and she wouldn’t believe anything that spilled from his filthy mouth. But despite knowing the lies weren’t true, Rush’s words slithered within her, making her stomach churn.
Hana had never come back to the tent, and Rush had never given a clear answer about her whereabouts. What if she was hurt somewhere? The thought terrified her, but she had to believe she was safe for now.
Aura stayed staring out the window, at the stars, waiting for the door to open, for someone to walk in and tell her anything. But no one came. She stood there until the muscles in her legs ached, her eyes heavy, and she sank to the floor, praying to wake from this nightmare.
The door creaked inward and Aura peeled open her eyes to the world around her. She blinked, clearing the drowsiness from her gaze, before the horrors of the night came back in a rush. Aura stared at the king and another man standing beside him from her spot on the floor where she’d fallen asleep. The man was as tall as Rush, only more muscular, his dark hair short, his features sharper and full of angles, a rugged sort of handsome. She wondered if his heart was as black as the King of Sin’s. Rush was now dressed, wearing a black button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, trousers hugging his strong legs, and boots that reflected the light as if they’d just been shined.
Aura couldn’t push away the image that slipped into her mind of Rush’s bare form, how he’d spoken to her about his length in a taunting manner. He wasn’t wrong about the size of it. Even though it had been soft, it was large, and that only made her blood boil—she would have relished spewing at him how tiny his cock was.
No one spoke as they stopped in front of her, so she chose to break the silence, her voice raspy from lack of drink. “Oh my stars, you found trousers and a shirt. Now I won’t have to go blind.” Her gaze pinned on Rush’s silver irises without shying away from his heavy stare.
The king smirked. “In my court, most prefer my clothing off, kitten.”
Aura narrowed her eyes, wanting to throttle him, but she decided to play nice to see if he would release her. “I want to go home. Will you please take me back and we can discuss things there?”
“I want a lot of things.” Rush shrugged, then turned to the man beside him. “And I always get what I want, isn’t that so?”
Aura shoved up from the floor, an ache crawling up her spine from a night sleeping on the hard surface. Her back pressed against the bars of the window, reminding her that she was trapped inside this room. Heart pounding, she stepped forward. “No one’s touching me.”
Rush shifted between her and the window swiftly, and before she knew what he was doing, he drew her arms behind her back. “Astor, you see what I have to deal with?”
Aura froze.That name.She’d heard it at some point… “You!” she spat, glaring daggers at Astor. “You’re the hawk shifter, the one who’s been seeing my sister! What trick did you pull on her? Where do you have her?”
Astor pursed his lips, and she wasn’t certain whether he was going to ignore her or speak before he released a heavy sigh. “She’s safe in Starnight, not here. No one’s touched her. And no tricks—only omissions.”
“That’s the same thing!” She lunged toward Astor, but Rush pressed her against his firm chest. His smoky scent crawled across her senses, and she wanted to stop breathing any part of him in.
“Go to the cellar,” Rush said to the hawk shifter.
As soon as the door shut behind Astor, Rush released her and she ran for her escape. A hand slammed against the door, preventing her from opening it.
“You’re fast, but I’m faster,” Rush taunted, his foreboding presence at her back making the hair along her arms stand up. “Anyone, besides apparently you, would at leastpretendto be complacent.”
“That bastard skulked around my sister without telling her who he truly was!” Hana needed to know. Aura backed away from the door as if she could find another way out to get to her sister.
“Oh, he did a lot more than skulk. She practically begged him to fuck her. What did you want? Him to deny her?” Rush arched a brow, his face smug.
“Fuck. You,” she spat, pointing her finger at him.
Rush edged toward her like a predator until he stood mere inches away. He leaned in close, whispering in her ear, his breath hot on her neck. “If you’d like, I can take you on the bed. I’ll let your sweet cunt ride my tongue before I fuck you so hard you forget how to breathe, or perhaps you want to use the window bars? Grip them as I thrust inside you from behind, bringing you to the utmost sinful bliss. Has the pretty prince done those things to you? Has he fucked you the way he did the wedding guest?”
