Page 75 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
The prince.
The beast.
The master.
The cursed man who’d vowed vengeance.
The loyalty.
The cruelty.
The last thing that remained was his hatred flashing and snarling at me in the depths of his golden eyes.
But at last that too fell away, as he dropped forward, hand landing by my head. He bowed down to the hold I had upon him, and my pleasure rose up to meet it. It was a cruel, petty kind of pleasure compared to what he’d already given me, but I’d take it.
I tightened my grip, and he shuddered, eyes squeezing shut like he didn’t want me to see there was nothing left in them.
With a bellow he surged onto my belly. That victory together with the bunching of his tail in my arse threw me over the precipice once more with a beautiful, perverse certainty.
He was mine.
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After, he stood back, chest heaving, eyes widening for an instant as though he only now realised what he’d done. He pulled from me, taking a step back, and tucked himself away.
“There’s healing salve in our room. Put that on yourself.”
I eased upright, body sore from being so beautifully used. He hadn’t come inside me, but I’d made him lose control for that moment. I grabbed a napkin and wiped away the evidence of it.
Retrieving my tattered dress from the floor, he wrinkled his nose at me. But it was a ghost of his usual glare, like that had died and its shade was all that remained. “I suggest you hurry there. The scent of your blood and arousal will call to the others.”
My heart rate had been slowing, but that thought sent it spiking again. If Roark found me…
I pulled my tattered dress up my legs—he’d only split it down to the waist—and the surviving strap over my shoulder.
He watched with a smirk as I held it over my chest and left.
Striding through the corridors—I wouldnotrun—I held the image of him in my mind. There was something brittle about his smirk. If I’d fucked him, I think I might’ve broken it entirely—brokenhimentirely.
But I couldn’t dawdle and ponder that. I felt eyes upon me, though I saw no sign of Roark or any other members of the Court of Monsters.
It was only once I reached my prince’s bedroom that I slammed the door and allowed myself to stop.
And that was when I realised.
He’d called itourroom.
* * *
That evening,I stood on a stool in one of the many sitting rooms, holding up a decanter of wine. If its base dipped any lower than the crown of my head, I had to drink the lot. My arms burned, but I kept them aloft.
Around me, my prince’s inner circle drank and chatted and ignored me. Most of them, anyway.
Sepher sat with a glass of honeyed whisky, watching me even as he had a low conversation with Anya. The slightest weakness, and he’d make sure I completed my punishment.
Jaw clenched, I held his gaze.
We hadn’t addressed what had happened in the dining room. Or the fact he’d said “our room.” The more time that passed, the more I thought it was just a meaningless slip of the tongue.
