I struggled to keep my breaths even. I had so little against his mercilessness in these moments except bravado and the protection of our mating. There was still so much he could do to harm me and my plans.
“Perhaps my power will not hurt you,” he mused. “But there are ways around that.”
In display, his power circled the chains on my wrists and pinned them by my sides.
I didn’t bother struggling against his hold, more worried about the heady lust creeping over my vision. The throbbing lower in my body was painful.
“You would be foolish indeed to forget all that my power can do without harming you,” Carmine said darkly.
To prove his point, he pushed his power over me, so that I could feel the coffin of it. The trap and the dungeon.
His power strapped my arms to my sides and snapped my legs together. I was in a straitjacket prison, but as the vise of his power tightened over my boobs and the topVof my thighs, an agonized scream was torn from me. Pleasure ripped from nothing toeverything.
I screamed again from the savage release, realizing I’d collapsed to the ground.
Such pain. Andmother be,such pleasure. My body shook as aftershocks racked me. I whimpered, pressing my thighs together.
I wanted it to go on and on. Hundreds of times. Because a deep part of me knew that the pain of denying the mating would eventually disappear as I “surrendered” my body to Carmine each time.
Enough of the tremors had dissipated that I managed to roll to all fours. I bumped into Carmine, who was crouched beside me. He was talking?
“Syera, where are you injured?” Carmine said urgently. I heard him inhale deeply. “What happened? Did you…?” Horror filled his voice. “DidIdo that?”
I felt the same horror.
Too much of his power on my skin and scales had made me orgasm. That was apparently a thing now, and I took it to mean that the mating ritual was losing patience with my denial.
Tears squeezed from my eyes. They weren’t tears of shame. The intensity of what happened had left my body and mind in shocked tatters. I’d been filled with adrenaline, then left to make sense of the rush.
“Enamai.” Carmine started. He hung his head. “Syera, I am sorry.”
I managed to stand. Part of me believed he hadn’t known what would happen, but shock and anger needed a target. And in a calmer moment, I would have absolutely used his guilt against him too. That was the nature of our healthy relationship. That was who I had become for knowing him. “In the sense that what happened is my fault? Or in the sense where you’ve somehow grown a conscience?”
He didn’t answer or so much as lift his head to look at me. For once, words appeared to have been robbed from the demon king. A nice change.
I stumbled away to the four walls of my room, where I could gather the scraps of me again.
I’dneverdoubted my ability to hold fast to who I was through all this. When had that changed? Because now my mind reeled from wondering how many times Icouldreturn to myself before that was no longer possible.
Two? Three?
Perhaps this was the last time.
27
“Mate-Intended, how did you get the king to agree to us dressing you?” Yiti asked.
Tewewh pulled in material here and there, no less curious than Yiti, but certainly less courageous.
I considered my answer, but mentioning his guilt over giving me an unintentional orgasm would lead to further questions. “I have my ways. What of the head tailor?”
“Exiled,” Yiti said in displeasure. She’d wanted him dead.
My brows rose. “Unexpected.”
“For us too,” she answered.
I expected that Carmine had gauged my eagerness for the tailor’s demise. “This way he will live in the torture of his fall from favor.”
