He had been quiet most of the way, a ruminative way about him. But now the distance cleared from his eyes as they turned down to her. "You'll have to forgive them, and me, for I was sure we would not be disturbed. Though I can assure you, none will bother us here."
It was a serious enough topic certainly, yet Astrid could not help giggling. 'Bother' seemed like such a gentle word for such an intense situation. Did he really not understand the consequences of what was to come? When he had done his part and entered her, then exited her, as she believed was the usual way, she would have him forever.
And he truly thought that this was just sex?
"Oh, good."
He'd shown her into the king's castle, walked her through the quiet halls of venerable stone and jumping torchlight shadows. There seemed to not be a single watchful eye about the corridor, save for that of men condemned to motionless lives in paintings and that of the occasional attention-seeking wind, coming in from the other end of the hall's open window.
And still, despite the underlying deceitful intention, he treated her to an unusual kindness, opposite of his siblings. Perhaps even A'zur.
To emphasise this, he stopped before the sole chamber door in the long strip and quirked his lips. "Before we enter, close your eyes."
On the exterior she exuded a gentle form of excitement, told through smiles and the rising of her brows. Internally, she was poisoned by desire, anticipation, impatience, and a growing anxiety. This was not just her first time with him, or with anyone for that matter. This was the sole opportunity for success or failure.
Of course, she still had her big brother to assist if things did not go to plan.
However, she did not relish the thought of making a man a cuckold.
Her lids slowly descended and she nodded. "Don't let me walk into a wall."
Rather than be guided into the room, he took her hand in his and—
The feel of cotton mesh string pressed into her palm, as well as something cool and hard. Smooth like a lava rock.
"Open."
She was quick to follow his instruction and looked to him briefly with curiosity plastered across her features before she glanced down.
In her hand perched a bird. Rather, it perched upon a branch, wings tucked against its plump sides, its stare cast ahead. A vitric necklace, clear as crystal.
Or diamond. Had to be by the way it stole the smallest ray of light and threw it back in iridescent glitters. A thin black tie was stringed through the bird's spine, snapped closed by a preservation wrap of tape.
"It reminds me of you. A hummingbird. I thought it might make up for what you so graciously gifted me in the passages." He smirked, teasing but endearing all the same.
She cupped the bird with as much delicacy, if not more, than if it had been a live creature. "It's the prettiest thing I've ever seen..."
Truly, it was. And it was hers.
And yet, she felt guilty all of a sudden, as if she were clipping the wings of whatever bird he was. Cutting off his future with whatever union had been briefly mentioned between his siblings.
But they could have a future together. She was not taking advantage of his kindness if she could offer him a wife from the best lands in the world. She would be a good wife and would give him more than anyone else ever could.
A strong, handsome child, born with the blood of winter and summer pulsing through his veins.
"Thank you. I will cherish this forever."
"Here." Hands went to her shoulders, turning her slowly before prying gently what her fingers reluctantly yielded. And then he was fastening it to her neck, careful with each strand of hair escaped from her braid before resting it back over one shoulder.
His lips fluttered against her nape. Then lower.
"I intend to continue where we left off. And you still want this, yes?"
"More than anything."
There was no other option.
Did he know he was saving her life? Giving her a purpose? A reason to live?
"I want you."
The words seemed to spur him on, as an arm was then barred around her middle, dragging her back into the room, spinning her to face him, where he then attacked her mercilessly with kisses. All over her hair, her neck, her cheek.
He even nipped at the sensitive flesh, kicking the door closed and commanding, "Say that again."
Already she was moaning softly and rapidly through his barrage of kisses. Despite him being all over her, she managed to drape her hands over his shoulders, securing her to him as she nodded.
"I want you... Tristian."
The pain came instantly. A sharp sting to the neck.
He'd bitten her. Actually bitten her, the flash of heat chased by his tongue and a whisper, "Properly."
"Please," she whispered up breathily. "Please, may I have you, Prince Tristian?"
"Mmmm, since you asked me so nicely." He rid of her belt faster than it'd taken her to tie it, discarding it to what she now noticed was impossibly soft sheep wool that practically ate her weight. Their weight, as he was between lifting her and relieving her of her clothing with the eagerness of a starving man.
Until she was barefooted and standing in nothing but her nightgown, as she had been when she first opened the door to him. As he'd promised her she would be.
They seemed to be in a dim, reserved boudoir. Large enough to be two chambers, wall sconces lining the arching oakwood panels. Black candles with blue and red flames. A bed of even darker adornments, massive, consuming. Set before the foot of it was a long couch of what was no doubt cushions whose plush texture rivaled that of the wool carpeting sinking between her toes.
Such a dark and foreboding chamber, and yet, the prince before her was more so.
He took a step back and did nothing more than look to her.
She stared back and could not shake the feeling that she was being examined. Taken in, scrutinised...
What if he suddenly thought her too fat? What if he changed his mind because she had displeased him?
But he had liked her before, he liked her enough to do this with her now. He had come to find her after all, to invite her to walk with him. The tenderness, the hunger, the smiles, the present... he wanted her.
"I want to please you."
"You will," was all he said.
"Will you show me how?"
His mouth twitched. "Where is all of that prowess of before?"
She began to close the gap. It was a game she realised she was rather good at playing. Toying with him as a beacon flickering between confidence and inexperience. Her hands went to his chest and she tilted her head upwards, her chin pressing into the sculpted plane.
"You are so big and I am so small. You are a great prince and I am just a girl who needs guiding. Will you help me?"
One hand remained while the other trailed lower until she found her desired target. Cupped and heavy. "Please show me what to do."
No sooner than she'd gripped him did his hand snag onto her wrist, his eyes swarmed with alertness. "First lesson, never grab a man here unless they permit it—or you've intentions to rip it off. I should hope the latter isn't your intention."
He was teasing again, yet flames heated his words no less.
"Forgive a girl for wishing to handle something so great."
He pried her fingers loose, only to run them by his lips in forgiveness. "You wish to please me, but pleasing me will certainly bring you pain."
"I will suffer for all eternity as I cannot be with you. But this will soothe my wounds..."
She would be back here in a number of months. Pleasing him would most certainly bring her pain, but that was to be expected with the dangerous business of childbearing. They would have a future together though, and that would be the ointment to her wounds rather than memory of this night.
"Take off your gown."
Her fingers trembled, for she was truly nervous, as she lifted the garment over her head. Discarded, forgotten about upon the floor. She made no
attempt to conceal her body, for he had seen enough of it before.
"Is it true that a man's... you know, shapes a girl's passage the first time they are together?"
His smile was slow and deliberate, which she was sure was a sign that he was making fun again. He did not answer. Instead, he looked to the sofa expectantly. "Sit."
The walk to the indicated furniture had her conscious that she was being examined from behind. Did her buttocks wobble as she walked? Was her gait not perfect and delicate as it should be?
She perched on the edge and placed her hands upon her knees, as she gazed up at him in expectation.
His carnal look of hunger was enough to lance a man. So different from before. Not mere lust, but an intense pound of need in his eyes which were less gold and more dilated, ravenous pupils. If he hadn't been examining her before, he certainly was now as his gaze drank in her form from top to bottom.
He stalked closer, hands hooking the bottom of his shirt before flinging it carelessly onto the back of the seating. She saw without obscurity just what her hands had been placed against prior.
Lightly sun-brushed skin was set by power, strength. Immensity. Muscles that trailed from two chest pectorals to the defined sculpt of six bars. Descending, leading to the ridge of his trousers' waistline. A dark tuft of hair tapered a line from his navel.
His form reminded her of the statues of heroes dotted along the alcoves of Thellemere's castle. Sculpted to the absolute ideal of masculinity through years of training. A true image of a prince.
She had seen A'zur without his shirt, of course, yet this was different. Both pleasing to the eye, but it was hardly the same. Tristian was broader and had the potential to be more imposing than the gentle affections of her big brother.
"Please can I touch?" She reached out and allowed her hand to linger an inch or so from his torso. "Please?"
He hadn't lost that painstaking starvation in his eyes, looking to her possibly the same as she was looking to him. Famished with but a stomach for one thing: each other.
And then he leaned in close, those powerful arms caging either side of her, hands gripping the back of the sofa. Forcing her hand against his abdomen.
If she were renowned for the ice in her blood, the cool touch of her supple, porcelain flesh, then he was that of fire. Unrelenting, spreading fire. His skin was practically that of a furnace, fevered, smiting. And completely unyielding.
"It feels nice, does it not?" His head lowered right beside her own, soft curls that smelled of summer leaves singing against her cheek, his leg wedging between her own, prying them apart and inviting the cool draft which was quickly enveloped by his heat. "I do have sympathy for you, though. You will never find another such as I."
I'll have you though.
"No, I won't. But I can have you now. Today?"
He would soon belong to her officially, just as she belonged to him, or would. The moment he entered her, their fates would be sealed.
There was no room for failure.
She took the initiative to move her hand lower, the tip of her fingernail lightly grazing the tufts of dark hair below his navel.
He shuddered.
"Please?" she whispered against his ear as she pushed her chest forward, pressing soft mounds into the hardened surface. "Please?"
Air hissed in through his teeth and with blinding speed, he pulled her down to where she sprawled on her back. Hand digging into her thigh, his waist suddenly planked between her legs, his body eclipsing all light there was to be seen as he loomed above her.
His kiss at the corner of her mouth chastened. Harsh, ruthless, as mindless as the hand which forced her leg apart as though she would close them to him.
Another kiss, gentler. "You wish to madden me, is that it?"
She was not quite sure whether she preferred the more forceful movement of his lips or the tender ones. "I wish to please you."
He rocked into her and through the breeches, there was a stab of something hard and large at her naked sex. She gasped, her core tightening curiously. He rumbled low in his throat. "Are those the only words they taught you up there, then?"
"I know other words," she said softly. "They aren't ladylike words though."
His hand found her breast, and devious fingers tortured the beaded bud until her breathing shallowed and her mind threatened to blank. "Teach them to me."
"They are not proper for a prince either." She expelled a calming air and raised a brow. "Perhaps you already know them."
"Perhaps." Amusement. His eyes flitted to the back of the sofa before he snagged down his shirt and...handed it to her.
Now this was a strange practice she had not heard of before. It seemed that she was being given an additional souvenir other than the necklace. And the seed that would form into a child of course.
She could not consider failure.
"For you," he said, placing it in her hand before fumbling below with the ties of his breeches. "Bite it."
Without question, she rolled the shirt into a loose cylindrical shape before she placed the middle of it between her teeth. The other sides flopped loosely to her shoulders, though did not conceal her breasts from sight.
It dawned on her then that there would be a show of blood, as was expected to note that a consummation was complete. A legal necessity. She did wonder whether there would be some inspection of the cushions or the material of the couch, but she prayed the swelling of her belly would be enough to convince everyone that she had indeed had sex. She was not some maiden who had been placed in her predicament by the magic of a forest imp.
If there was blood it would hurt. Perhaps this was for her benefit.
Tristian gazed down into her eyes and made a mock, awed face one might over a gushing, precious infant. "If only you could see what I see," he said before chuckling and pecking his lips against her nose.
Then he tugged the shirt, jostling her head slightly, causing her to grunt in surprise. "I think she likes it."
Another tug as all she did was stare up at him. "No? She seems very fond of it, reluctant to let it go. A little growl, perhaps?"
She felt like an animal. Like a kitten, a pet.
Really, she could not dislike it.
Her eyes narrowed playfully before she gave a light growl, perhaps more akin to a purr. As she indulged in his game, her foot trailed down the back of his leg, then up again. Her big toe poked at the firm muscle of his buttocks, causing it to flex and his body to seemingly expand above her.
Then she growled properly.
His delight shone through his eyes, true pleasure and contentment. He returned the growl, a lion in attendance to a cub, and it was in this jesting air, that she felt the warm press of his manhood positioned at her entrance, his look of play darkened to primal instinct.
The thrust came with no warning, lodging him inside the place no other had been before.
She screamed against the shirt.
It had barely begun and already she was not sure she wanted him there at all.
Stretching and intruding, no time had been taken for her to be ready for him. Or perhaps it had. There had been truth to her words when she mentioned their differences in size. She had not seen it, but gods, she certainly felt him. The inside of her clamped around him, as if her womanhood approved of his presence and wished him to exit her simultaneously.
Tears were trailing from her eyes before she could help it and she had to remember why she was doing this.
Pushing the baby out would hurt even more.
She shook her head, then nodded, then groaned. The sensation, she couldn't place. It was a white pain that only grew, yet dulled, and her muffled sounds could not be doing anything other than causing his shirt to dampen between her teeth.
She did not want him to stop.
Yet he had not moved once since the thrust, his face a war between revealing what was obvious pleasure, and conveying remorse for her pain. His head dropped onto her shoulder, his body quaking with restraint for
he was likely used to ploughing through females without much care for if their eyes watered with pain or pleasure.
After a delicate, tense moment passed with both their bodies responding opposite of each other, he looked to her once more—and smiled.
The warmth, the kindness, the tender caress, it was washed away. This was the crooked, satisfied smile of a man who had finally gotten what he wanted. Spied, pursued and conquered. His manhood was the flagpole, her entrance his sought pastures.
"Does the hummingbird wish for me to stop?"
She could not regret it now.
It would get her what she wanted.
She reluctantly shook her head and another burst of tears traveled down her reddened cheeks. Her privates pulsed in time with the frantic beating of her heart, the organ which beat beneath the skin where the hummingbird shifted.
He drew his hips back, then drove forward perhaps harder than the last. And then again, and again, his grunts falling questionably in line with her jolting grunts of pain. Her fingers dug into his shoulders.
She did not regret this.
Her brother would have been gentle, though. He would have taken his time.
Weakly, she grasped his forearm and squeezed as if it would help her deal with the discomfort, but if anything, the next thrust to impale her was harder, faster.
"Tristian!" She couldn't help it. "It hurts!" But he did not stop. Perhaps he could not even make out what she was saying through the cloth in her mouth. Maybe that was why he wanted it there.
He was looking in fascination at her eyes, gaze shifting slightly downward, following the tears. Slowly, his brows creasing and as though confused, he put his finger to her cheek, swiped at the liquid and looked at her. Then his finger touched the shirt between her teeth.
And pushed it a little deeper.
"Hm?" he asked. "I couldn't quite hear you."
She tore the fabric from her mouth and gasped for breath. "It really hurts!"
He seemed to mourn the loss of the shirt more than her words. But it was short-lived. Another thrust, smaller, slower, but sinking just as deeply into her. "Will you be alright?"
Bonds: A Cursed Six novel (The Cursed Six Book 1) Page 19
