“Whatever dance you’re doing better be just for me, Pumpkin.”
He could squawk all he wanted. Noth wasn’t in a revealing dress so deeply red it was almost black. I wasn’t an insecure person in public, especially with how I looked, but I wasn’t so sure about the power play we were about to pull off.
Evie had been so generous with her time, attention and lessons on Queen-ing but when it came down to it, Harrowood was not Allfenheim. She could only help meso much before I had to put on my big-girl panties and, apparently, flash them to everyone.
I fussed with Noth’s very sexy, but very tight clothes instead. His pleated trousers, long-sleeved tunic, all midnight black, dressed him in shadows. The cut was Elvish. The color was all Nightmare.His vest wasn’t lying flat after he gained a bit more weight and today it mattered. The royal cape would cover it all, and Noth would be topped by his crown and as much regalia as we could fit on him, but I fussed anyway. He slipped on more jewelry. Why were there official royal bangles? He would clink when he walked.
“Are you nervous, Pumpkin?” he asked as I pulled on the fine fabric for the tenth time.
I wasn’t nervous. I was terrified. “Nope.”
Noth stilled my hands, wrapping them in his own. “Bad girl. You know I can feel an echo of your emotions. You can’t lie to me. Want to try again?”
“Nope. Nervous implies I have a chance of still being alive after this and I don’t know if that would be the truth.”
He crushed my hair in his hands, ruining all the careful braids Jax wove into it. Noth wouldn’t trust anyone else with the knowledge I was here, or to help us get ready.
“I would never let anything happen to you. My Nightmare wouldn’t think of being parted from you. You have my sword, my life, myvow.”
“That’s why I’m not running for the hills,” I said.
“Don’t think about it too much. You’ll know what to do.”
Noth stepped back to grab the diamond-studded collar from the rumpled bed. I looked at it longingly–the bed, not the diamonds. I had a ridiculous number of them now. Maybe I should have taken that opportunity to be a faceless concubine while I had the chance.
As Noth clicked the collar around my throat, my power rose up to fill it, pulling more from the endless pit Noth and I seemed to generate together. The diamond-studded leash he attached glowed when he snapped it to the collar.
I flicked a sigil into my hair to set it to rights and couldn’t think of a Goddsdamn thing I might do to make this moment last. I had spent a week locked in this room, but this time it was to prepare rather than because we were trapped and now I didn’t want to leave it.
“You look beautiful.” The red glow of his eyes made those words mean more than they ever had. “And powerful.”
Heat licked through me at the declaration but it was dampened by all the ridiculous King bling Noth lugged around.
“This is all wrong.”
I grabbed the cape and flung it onto the bed. His bangles went next, in a heap with his crown. The rings and ceremonial belt came off - even most of his ear piercingson one ear. I left one starburst at the tip and the ones pressing against his trousers as I manhandled his ears.
His hands stroked my bare back. “I wish we had time, Pumpkin.”
I gained enough space to grab the vest too, stripping him down to pure darkness against the menace of my dress. He wore his power instead of his clothes proclaiming it. My eyes quickly scanned him, with his tousled hair and spreading smile on display.
Noth took my breath away.
“Better. Much better.”
“I’ll walk out naked for you if you take out the last piercings.”
Noth kissed me so thoroughly I forgot his request for a moment. But he let me up for air long enough to get my hand working again and he sank to his knees in a puddle of nightfall, his short hair gleaming. I made a production out of taking out the rest of his piercings, gliding the pads of my fingers along every whorl and curl. Noth clutched me to him like I was his life raft in a demon storm.
“I don’t want to come in my trousers… again. But I also don’t want you to stop.” His ragged breathing said he would.
I licked a long line up his ear just because I could and because denying him gave me the confidence to do this.
“You’ll have to finish this little play for me tocontinue.”
“You’re a cruel, cruel mistress, Pumpkin,” he said into my thighs.
Standing up in a rush, he grabbed my hand. “Let’s get this over with then.”
