Because you are the key to his power.
I don’t quite know what she means, but I look directly at Arion. “I swear I did not see any troll.”
Arion watches my reaction. He is silent for a long while. “Good. Fortunately for you, we have come too far to turn back. So… The day after tomorrow you will stand beside me,” he says. “They will cheer, they will kneel, and every bowing head will erase a little more doubt. If you try anything, I will raze the mountains. If I see that troll again, I will kill him.”
Vann—no. I can hardly breathe.
Then he begins to circle me, slow and deliberate.
“Never forget: You are mine now,” he says. “Fear not. Though my words are strong, I can be merciful. I will be a kind lover to you. I admit, I may not always have been with my past brides.” He reaches out and brushes his fingers over my jaw. I fight back the urge to recoil, knowing that part will not change, no matter my discomfort. “I have…dark tastes at times, though you might enjoy them.”
I swallow as my heart rate increases. Dark tastes. Two words that zing through my skin like a knife. These weeks without food, after traveling and then endlessly preparing. There has been no arousal, no desire for intimacy. Perhaps touch and comfort, but sex?
The only moments I have even considered it are when I let my traitorous mind wander back to stolen seconds with Vann.
He stops behind me. His breath is hot against my neck, and then he grips my hips through the silken fabric of my gown. His hands are cold. Strong. “I will teach you to take me. We could even start right now.”
I keep still. Freeze.
“Should we not wait until after the ceremony? I know that purity is prized?—”
“There is no difference if you give yourself to me right now or in two nights,” he murmurs, releasing me momentarily to reach over and trace his fingers from my shoulders to my neck. “Though I might spare you if you promise to never see or speak with another troll again.”
I swallow hard.
“I swear it.”
He turns me around, cups behind my head, and then draws my lips to his. This is not the same branding sensation I have endured before. He does not seek to destroy me with his lips alone.
It feels wrong, but I can bear it, I suppose. He guides me, as if I have not kissed others.
The sudden contact works almost like instinct. I cannot help but imagine it isn’t Arion kissing me at all, but Vann. My mind forces me out of the now and into a fantasy where the man who indulged me so wholly is before me once again.
Without thinking, I open my mouth further and groan. It isn’t Arion at all who brushes his tongue over the seam of my lips, and I don’t part them for him. It is the Enduar with a poet’s heart and a warrior’s mind who pulls me tighter, wedging his thigh between my legs as he begins to move.
The heat of missing the man I’d considered my sky comes on quickly. My eyes burn, and my throat aches, and…Arion misinterprets everything.
He takes the arch of my back as a reward for his good technique. Suddenly, I am pushed against the wall, and the fantasy is shattered. A growl erupts from the Elf King’s throat, low like metal groaning under pressure. He looks to the ceiling, eyes fluttering closed as he traces his hands up the contours of my body possessively.
Then he steps back, roughly wiping his lips with the cuff of his long sleeve. He doesn’t look upset; he looks half mad.
“You will like being my consort. You will enjoy my cock, it will be your reward for all of this, Arlet.” He moves back into view, studying me as if assessing the worth of an object.
“All you have left to do is give me as many children as your hips can bear,” he says. “I trust you. I think I see that your body will carry my legacy as easily as obedience.”
I nod once. “Yes, my king.”
He seems satisfied. “You will not fail me.”
“I won’t.”
All I can think of is what he made me swear. There is too much I don’t know—too much I cannot predict.
He picks up the cup he had poured and brings it to my mouth. He presses it to my lips, feeding it to me, and then removes it and licks away the drop that begins to fall beside my lips.
Silence, save for the soft crackle of the fire. Then his voice again, lower. “Arlet?—”
There is a knock on the door.
