Back through the tunnels with a small group of the female goblins and Katz still trailing behind, they all spilled into the main chamber where the shined-up trinkets and the fancy chair, er,thronesat. At the door stood Skoob again, looking very proud of himself, Moghart at his side, and just ducking through the opening, completely naked save for his bracer still dutifully strapped around his forearm and a swath of thin, black fabric wrapped precariously around his hips, was Damien, face pulled into a delicious scowl.
Amma inhaled a sharp breath and beamed back at him. “Everybody out!”
CHAPTER 14
IN SERVICE AND OUTDONE
Humiliating was a word for it. Damien knew he had nothing to be ashamed of when stripped, but he’d rather actually be naked thanthis. With what was essentially a washing linen hanging from his hips and nothing else, things were just too loose.
He also smelled too nice. The goblins had surprised him with the cleanliness of their bathing facility. He was shocked by its freezing temperature too, but after he’d been pushed into a pool of clean, mountain water, he became preoccupied with the tiny, blue flowers they sprinkled in to give it, and subsequently him, a sweet aroma. As Damien tried to scoop them out, Moghart and a retinue of other goblins started scrubbing him, and that was absolutely where he drew the line.
By the time he’d fended them off, insisting he was more than capable of rubbing dirt from his skin on his own, some enterprising goblin had absconded with his clothing and armor, the things too fast and small to properly keep track of.
His bracer had been dropped though, and he grabbed the sheathed dagger, convincing Moghart that their new king had a peculiar fondness for him wearing it. That only worked once though, and they refused to bring the rest of his clothing back when he insisted Amma preferred him dressed to naked. He supposed it wasn’t a terribly convincing argument anyhow, especially with the reaction he’d just gotten from Her Majesty.
There was unparalleled delight on Amma’s adorable face, and a struggle between pleasing her and debasing himself flared in his chest. A past version of Damien would have just wiped outthe clan of minikin goblins ages earlier, but his amicability had earned him this, and his internal seething was so quiet and so deep, that he wondered if it were really aseethinghe felt at all.
He wanted to be angry, and maybe he should have been, but standing there in naught but a scrap of linen he’d had to sling dangerously low on his hips to cover the entirety of his length, without evenbootsfor all the dark gods’ sakes, he could really only smirk because Amma had ordered—actuallyordered—everyone to leave.
The goblins scrambled, and Damien stood straighter at the insistence in her voice, but he knew she didn’t mean for him to go. Chamber doors opened and closed, Katz trailing out last, and the two were left alone.
The vaxin popped into existence on Amma’s shoulder. “Not now, Vanders,” she said, and it poofed away again.
Amma was staring at him from across the room, still carrying around that ridiculous scepter and wearing that silly, little crown, but her eyes—well, her eyes actually frightened him for a moment. They’d never looked quite so hungry before, even when she’d climbed atop him in the karsts, made lusty and aggressive by a confidence potion. He didn’t mind at all.
Taking a deep breath, Damien’s bare chest expanded, and he tried to think very little of it as he opened his mouth.
“Wait!” Amma held up her hands, and he froze. She dropped the scepter, scurried across the messy chamber, and climbed up onto the raised, bizarrely-adorned chair in its center. Crossing her legs and draping herself backward, she tried to nonchalantly lean on her elbow but missed the armrest, flailed for half a second, and then composed herself again. “You may proceed.”
Damien ran his tongue over his teeth, rolled his eyes, and tapped a bare foot. “This experience has been illuminating, but I think I’ve learned my lesson.”
Her smirk said she didnotbelieve him. “Oh, have you?”
He groaned. Perhaps she was torturing him because of the situation she’d been put in at Yvlcon, or because he’d been so withholding since they’d left, but didn’t she know all of this was just as agonizing for him? “I’d like my armor back in any case.”
Amma made a small, flippant sound. “There are things, I imagine, we would all like but can’t have.”
She had no fucking idea.
When she curled a finger, beckoning him closer, he didn’t think, he simply went, an easy demand to give in to. She was meant to be raised high on the goblin’s makeshift dais and throne, but with Damien’s height, their gazes were simply matched as he came to stand just before her.
“Tell me why you think you deserve your clothes,” she said, sitting back, arms crossed under her breasts, and he wasn’t sure if she knew how well she pushed them together.
Damien’s jaw tightened, but not quite in the way he’d become used to, not with ire incomprehensible, not even with trivial annoyance, but with a covert grin. He shouldn’t have liked being at someone else’s mercy, and while he perhaps was not truly her subject, it may have been the only chance he’d get to be at Amma’s behest while the talisman was still inside her.
Damien Maleficus Bloodthorne was rarely brought to his knees willingly, and he could not remember a time he was sincerely happy about doing so, but as he lowered himself before Amma, a sort of euphoria spread out in his chest. He held Amma’s gaze as he went, the haughty amusement chased off her delicate features. She uncrossed her arms and legs to lean forward and look down on him, shocked. No, of course, she wouldn’t expect this, but then, if he’d ever worked up the courage to tell her the absolute torment her presence had been waging inside him, it would never have been a surprise to find him on his knees for her.
“Brilliant, gentle, beautiful Lady Avington,” he said, voicelow, “would that I be allowed only what you deem me worthy.”
Amma’s lips twitched with perhaps nervous laughter, satiation, regret, he didn’t know, but her hand came up to pull the goblin’s bent crown off and drop it over the edge of the throne. “Okay, you can have whatever you want.”
“You would grant me anything?” His gaze roved down her body and back up.
She nodded, fingers tightening on the armrests as she leaned closer. “Anything, just name it.”
Damien placed his palms on her knees, easing them apart. He had told her she would be punished, but there would be time for that later. “I could make a request,” he said, sliding hands up along her thighs and gripping the waist of her breeches, “or I could show you.”
Amma trembled under his touch as he began to tug, revealing the soft curve of her hip’s flesh and making him bite his lip. Then her eyes widened, and she sucked in an inhale so sharp, he stopped. As he released her, the trembling continued only beneath his knees. Of course it wasn’t her; it was the bloody cavern.
