"Ungrateful?" The word tastes like poison. "For what exactly should I be grateful? The nightly humiliation? The complete lack of pleasure? The fact that you can't find my cunt even when you're inside it?"
"You're a princess now," he snarls, stalking toward me. "You should be on your knees thanking me for saving you from that monster."
"That monster made me come so hard I saw stars. Actually paid attention to me. He read me books every night. You make me want to fake sleep for another hundred years."
"I'll have you know," Benedict sputters, "I've readextensivetexts on marital relations. The royal physician himself told me I'm quite... proficient." His voice cracks on the last word.
I arch an eyebrow. "Texts written by other virgins, I assume? Did you compare notes in the castle library?"
His face burns crimson. "I knowexactlywhat women want!"
"Clearly," I drawl, "which is why you're so desperate to prove it."
His hand shoots out, grabbing my arm. For a moment, I think he's going to hit me. Part of me wishes he would. At least then I'd have an excuse to use one of my hidden blades.
But he doesn't hit me. Instead, something shifts in his eyes. Something darker. Hungrier.
He pulls down the front of my dress, exposing my lace-clad breasts. Then his mouth is on my breast through the fabric of my bra, and he latches on like a starving infant. The sounds he makes... wet, desperate suckling noises mixed with these high-pitched whimpers that make every hair on my body stand on end.
"So soft," he whines against my chest, his voice muffled and petulant. "Mother always said... she always said a wife should... shouldnurtureher husband..."
Oh God. OhGod.
I feel bile rise in my throat along with the burning. He's actuallynursing. His mouth working at my breast through the fabric, making obscene wet sounds, little frustrated whimpers when he can't get what he wants.
"Why don't you make milk yet?" he complains, pulling back just enough to look at my chest with genuine disappointment in his eyes. Like a child denied a treat. "You're supposed to make milk. That's what breasts arefor. Mother's physician said once you're pregnant, you'll make milk, and then—" He cuts himself off, latching on to the other breast with renewed fervor.
The burning in my throat intensifies. I want to vomit. I want to scream. I want to set him on fire.
"I'm so hard right now," he whines against my chest, one hand fumbling with his pants while the other squeezes my breast roughly, possessively. "You've made me so hard, being such a brat. Bad girls make mesohard. Mother always said I needed a woman who'd—"
He doesn't finish. He doesn't ask. He never asks. His hands are already shoving my skirts up, bunching the fabric around my waist. He tries to kiss me again, and this time I can't turn away fast enough. His mouth crashes against mine, all tongue and teeth and saliva, and I can taste his desperation, his entitlement. It's like being licked by a dog. A dog that doesn't understand how mouths work and was raised by someone who told him he deserved everything.
"I'm going to need you to shut up." I spit out as he grinds himself against me. "This had better be more fulfilling than usual," I manage to say when he pulls back for air, gasping.
"I'm going to rock your world, princess," he pants, fumbling between my legs with all the grace of a drunk man searching for a keyhole in the dark. "You'll see. You'll see, and then you'll be nice to me. You'll let me... you'll be soft like Mother said you should be..."
I roll my eyes. Rock my world. Sure.
He's jabbing at me now, his cock poking my thigh, my hip, everywhere except where it needs to go. I'm not wet. I'm never wet for him, which doesn't help. He grunts with frustration, using one hand to try to guide himself while the other holds my hip in a bruising grip.
"Just—hold still—"
Finally,finally, he finds the right spot. He pushes in, dry, painful, wrong, and I'm about to tell him to at leasttryto make this bearable when he makes a strangled sound.
He comes. Immediately. Before he's even fully inside.
I stare at the wall over his shoulder as he shudders against me, his pathetic little thrusts already finished. Three seconds. Maybe four.
"Fuck," he mutters, pulling out. "Your pussy is so tight and soft. And you... You're too tight, also. That's your problem. You need to relax. Mother says you should be grateful for whatever I give you."
I'mthe problem. Of course. And if I have to hear about his mother one more time...
He's already tucking himself back into his pants, not looking at me. "If the physician says you're barren, I'm sending you back and keeping the money and the trade deals. Getting one of your cousins instead. You're probably defective. Maybe all those years fucking a dragon messed with your... whatever it's called that makes the baby." He pauses, a cruel smile crossing his face. "Hopefully that brunette one. The one with the big tits. She looks like she'd be more... accommodating." He's walking towards the door now.
"Oh God. I've imagined sucking on her tits for ages! Bet they taste like honeyed milk. What do you think? Honeyed milk? Or maybe melon with sugar? Mmmm! Mother says a good wife produces sweet milk. That I'm allowed to have as much as I want."
The burning in my throat is an inferno now. I imagine it pouring out, consuming him and his mother, turning them both to ash.
