He waited for her answer. Annabell struggled for it, not knowing what he wanted.
"What did she see?" he pressed, his voice harsh rocky gravel, on the edge of that growl. On the edge of the precipice that would make her come.
"That morning, you told me of the hungries. You told me there were many and we would have to ride through them. I saw... I saw woe. I saw myself." The answer burst out of her, painful and ugly.
The Curse of Woe, isolating her at the center, the only person who could survive or do anything about it. They bonded the night before and she had woken feeling connected with him. But at the first test of woe, Annabell Roe reverted to type and stood alone.
"Anna saw woe. Not Doku-ni. Doku-ni failed to show her who she was. Failed to show her his heart. Failed to win her from her pain."
"No, it wasn't you. It wasn't."
He gave her that growl then, with more force than he ever used before.
And she came.
That hand at her throat, his wild breath on her face, she came in hard, painful, commanding spasms. Her body ruled by that sound, contracting over and over. Squeezing his hand, he again took her breath.
It was too much. Black crept in at the corners of her eyesight, hit hard by that sound only he could make for her; the air was knocked from her lungs as if by a blow. She couldn't inhale.
He held her there for minutes, seconds, eons. Until there was wet from her empty core to her knees and she heard the splatter on the floor.
"Anna no see. Doku-ni no speak. Doku-ni see Anna, hear, know his Anna," he said, stopping his growl so quickly, too quickly.
That growl had invaded like his spear, cut deep, the cause of her pleasure and pain. To cut it off in such a way reinforced his power, but also her need for him. If not for his hold, she would have hit the smooth stone floor hard enough to crack bone, but he controlled her fall, making sure she came to no harm, guiding her to her knees in front of him.
"I am not a child. I was alone for a long time. I can't change so quickly. My father died when I was seven, then my mother and Benjere," she said, defensive, looking at his legs, unable to meet his eyes. Defending herself.
"Is Anna no honor? Anna blind heart? Anna gives mother, father, nest-mates her choices?"
He wouldn't let her hide or make excuses. Wouldn't let her blame the red moon curse.
Anyone could walk down this hallway at any moment and see them. But they were alone, locked in their own space where nothing could touch them. Here, in this space where he owned her desires, dreams, flesh, and being. She surrendered. Let him unbind her life and show it to her in a new way. Balling her fists and squinting her eyes shut, Annabell didn't want to look at the picture he showed her.
She heard leather sliding on leather, before his waist covering fell between them. Only meaning to peek upwards to see what he was doing, she saw the pendulum of testicles between tree trunk thighs and the hard rise of his cock with the thick pink base where his knot developed to the demanding, painful-looking red tapered tip, dripping with the fluid of his arousal.
Up the stretched landscape of his body, his eyes roared with fury, shooting sparks of color and escalating emotion. Mouth stretched in a feral snarl, he said, "Anna is not alone. Anna is not wife of man. Anna is not daughter or sister. Annabell is gone. Anna is redress war bride of Doku-ni Orki Spear. Will remind Anna, show Anna, silence all the lies and false."
His words were a mandate.
"Hands behind back," he snapped the command.
She jerked as if he yanked a string, obeying before her mind translated what he said. Every impulse to resist ceded to the compulsion of a male who knew what he wanted and planned to take it. Winding his hands in her hair, he fisted the strands until her scalp stung.
"Eyes, who Anna see now?"
"Doku-ni, I see Doku-ni," she moaned.
"Open mouth," he said.
Another command. Her mouth snapped open.
Widening his stance and pulling her up, he bumped his length against her cheek, smearing her face with the warm, viscous spice of his essence. Eyes blinking, mouthwatering, Anna inhaled the powerful musk smell of him, her own hidden monster of want waking up to full awareness.
This. Him. Them. Yes.
She became a hundred yesses. Her white Orki wanted to put his cock in her mouth, down her throat, fill her up, take her voice, own her eyes. And she was going to let him. She would crawl through fields of horror if she had to. She would do anything to have this with him. Shaking with lust, gulping in breaths, she kept her mouth open. Clawing at her own hands behind her back to keep from touching him, Anna stuck her tongue out to steal a taste of his scent and precum.
He wanted none of it. Jerking away from her attempt, then thrusting forward. Past her lips and right to the place where she would gag. It was all she could do not to bite down in reflex.
