We’d spoken about this before we came out here. Our roles in the ritual. The Shadows, me, DK. I wanted to argue. To tell them it wasn’tsmart, but I accepted this position. The Kingchose me.He must know what I’m capable of.
But does she?
I press the smallest orb to her entrance. She’s soaked–fuck, she’s soaked from the ceremony, and I smirk. “You liked that, Hex?Watching them touch each other? Feeling their sticky fingertips paint your body?”
She whimpers, scared of me? Of the ritual? The knife? I use that fear as a motivator and push in. The wet sound it makes sliding in her pussy is obscene. My cock throbs against my robe, a traitor. I clench my jaw so hard I taste blood.
It’s not me touching her.
The hilt. The ritual. The weapon.
I can control this.I can control myself.
“Ansuz,” I say, voice flat, and thrust.
Her head snaps back, throat exposed, a choked cry muffled by the night. The rune at her throat–next to the collar our King locked around her–glows like it’s burning. Her body jerks, hips buckingawayfrom the intrusion. Too soon. She’s only been broken in twice. Her walls clamp down, resisting, then flutter in panic.
I freeze.
She’s hurting.
The thought detonates behind my eyes, a white-hot flare that sinks straight to my cock. I want to pull out, to stop–fuck that lie. The ritual is a chain, yes, but it’s cinched around my balls, dragging me deeper.
Her pain is my oxygen.
Every spasm around the stone, every shredded gasp that tears from her throat, is a tug at my balls.Her body fights the intrusion—too soon, too raw, walls clamping like a fist—and the resistance liquefies me. I feel it in my teeth, in the pulse hammering at my wrists.
Look at her.
Eyes glassy, lips parted around a soundless scream. The way her hips jerk away, then betray her and rock forward–needing the hurt as much as I need to inflict it.
I lean in, just enough to taste the salt of her sweat in the air.
“Take it,” I whisper, so low only the trees hear. “Open for me.”
Her eyes find mine again, and she shudders an exhale, pussy loosening.
I lick my bottom lip. “Good girl.”
“Uruz.”
Another thrust–deeper.
She whimpers, a sound that cracks something in my chest, something hot and dangerous. Her thighs tremble, knees knocking together as much as the ropes allow. The stone drags against her, too dry now, too rough. Her slick is there, but not enough. Not yet.
I can’t watch her suffer.
Not like this.
My free hand moves before I can stop it—breaking protocol—thumb finding her clit. I circle, firm and clinical.Just to ease the way.Not for her pleasure. Not for mine. Just to get through this.
Her breath hitches.
Her hips roll into my touch, involuntarily. The whimper turns into a gasp, then a moan—soft and broken, but real. Her walls loosen again, just enough. The stone glides now, slick with her again.
“Tiwaz.”
I twist the hilt.
