AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was across the room before I knew it, shoving a chair under the door handle and swooping down to kiss my man from his quivering ankles to the tip of his nose. I brought the cloth across his mouth just in time, muffling the cry he made as my attentions jostled his hand inside him, and then pulled his wrist away and impatiently replaced his eager fingers with my equally eager cock.
“Fuck,” I hissed, feeling his smooth, slick channel clench around me. “Nathanael, you have no idea how damn irresistible you are, do you?”
He couldn’t respond, gagged and held down as he was, but that was fine by me. The way he mumbled out incoherent words and attempted to shake me off totryto respond was fine too, and I grinned as I pretended to misunderstand.
“Shush,” I soothed, letting the rest of my weight press down onto him as I settled between his legs and began to fuck him ruthlessly. “You don’t need to waste your energy returning the compliment. We both know how fabulous you think I am.”
Mathias bucked against me indignantly and I chuckled, sinking my teeth into his neck to mark him. But it was only a few minutes later when he finally gifted me his hard-won submission and I felt him fall still, that I spilled deep inside the man I loved, affection and euphoria flooding my soul.
-
Panarina’s expression was of carefully sculpted impassiveness, not a single laughter line or eye twitch giving away what her position would be. We stared at each other across the heavy table without blinking.
“...and I want you to uphold safe refuge for anyone who asks for it,” Mat was excitedly saying to his brother, who smiled warmly at him.
Astrid frowned, her attention temporarily diverted from me. “Refuge?”
“You’ll allow any northerner who would otherwise fall afoul of the sodomy laws to cross the border into Quareh,” Mathias said, looking at her and then Velichkov to make it clear that it applied to both of their countries. “Call it a penalty of exile if you must, but you’ll permit them to leave without punishment.”
The queen considered his words. “And in return, we give shelter to Quarehian women who wish to flee abuse inflicted on them because of their gender?”
“That will be the offer made,” responded Mat, glancing at me. I shot him an encouraging nod. “But we’re hopeful that, in time, it will no longer be necessary.” He pulled out the draft law reform from his coat and rolled it across the table. Panarina’s eyebrows rose when she read it, and she passed it over to Velichkov as she began to speak again.
“That will be agreed, regardless of any other...terms.”
Mathias hid his flinch well, but I saw the way he clenched his jaw. “You have decided, then.”
Her eyes flickered back to mine where I sat across from her. “This endeavour to liberate your throne would come at great cost to my people.”
Valeri made an irritated noise. “None of what we do is ever easy or safe, Your Majesty, and Aratorre has agreed to compensate you for-”
She held up a delicate hand to cut him off, her fingers perfectly still as they hovered in the air. I hid my own shaking fingers in my lap.
“I don’t find your company easy to endure,” Panarina said to me, the words spoken with precise care. “But I expect it may become so in time.”
Mat snorted. “Don’t count on it.”
But I couldn’t join him in his teasing, for I’d finally noticed a slip in the queen’s otherwise flawless poise; a slight tightening of her lips that told me no one at the table was going to like what she had to say next.
“No,” I whispered, my head turning between her and my lover as it fell into place. The perfect solution from a political perspective...and yet also the most horrifying. “Don’t do this.”
“Your hand in marriage, Aratorre,” said Panarina, not heeding my plea. “That is my price for aiding you and Quareh.”
Mathias knocked over his empty water glass. It hit the floor and shattered, punctuating the end of her terrible pronouncement.
“Stop,” I growled. She didn’t.
“Our firstborn child will be named heir of Mazekhstam,” continued the queen, holding my gaze as I stared at her in dismay. “Our second will rule Quareh. Both will carry my name.”
Mat pushed his chair back, his face like stone, and shoved open the door without a word, before disappearing into the throne room and the corridors beyond.
Fuck.
I stood up.
“We have not finished our discussion,” Astrid rebuked me, her voice cold. “Leave this room before we are done, Aratorre, and I will offer you nothing. Algejón will remain with me. You might as well have never come here.”
I looked at the door, and then at Mazekhstam’s queen. I thought about everything she could give me; how she could help in recovering my country and my crown, all the people I could save with her as my ally.
