Page 42 of The Poison Princess and the Lord of Misrule

Aldric stands behind her, his black doublet parted open. His breeches are shoved down. His pale hair iswild, his eyes flashing manically, his mouth twisted in a mix of pleasure and something half feral. He has one hand fisted in the woman’s hair, holding her face down. His other hand grips her hip as he thrusts inside her in long, slow strokes that make her cry out against the table.

Next to Aldric, a man kneels on the edge of the table beside her. Lean, dark, his trousers undone, his hand wrapped around himself and stroking. Aldric’s mouth is on his—open, hungry, kissing him ravenously. Aldric’s hand leaves the woman’s hip for one second to wrap around the man’s, guiding him closer, and the man moans against Aldric’s mouth.

I can’t move, realization shocking me into place.

Morrishan save me…the dwale.

I realize, as I watch the furious snap of Aldric’s hips, that the dwale I slipped him must have had an adverse effect on him. The valerian should have slowed his blood, knocked him completely out. Rather, it’s made him even more brazen, stripping him open. He’s clearly under its influence, but he’s ruthless in his lust.

The Threnmere herb running through his blood has burned through whatever small civility he held, and what’s left is the man underneath, who wants and wants and wants. And takes.

I stumble a step back. The slipper makes the smallest sound against the stone.

Aldric’s eyes shift?—

His gaze locking right onto me.

A menacing flash there in his pale eyes. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even slow his thrusts. He breaks the kiss with the man and turns his face fully toward me, holding my gaze as he fists the woman’s hair tighter, his hips snapping forward, making the woman cry out into the wood beneath him.

Aldric looks right into my eyes and fucks her harder. A devious grin twists his mouth, as if sending me a promise, a warning for what I will endure from him on our wedding night.

My breath leaves me in a small, broken sound. His mouth twists into a feral grin. He lifts a hand and crooks one finger at me. Beckoning me closer.

I run.

Yet I don’t make it halfway down the corridor when I hear the woman cry out from the chamber, then the fast and hard slap of bare feet on stone.

Aldric gives chase.

Goddess, I’m still in this stupid gown, my laces cinched too tight for me to draw a full breath, and the corridor stretches so long.

“Seravyn—”

His voice is excited, guttural.

“Making me chase you will only ignite my hunger, darling.”

I don’t dare look back. I gather my skirts higher, running for the corner. The corner that leads to the north wing, that leads to the tapestry, that leads to Ren. And I’malmost there?—

Aldric’s hand closes around my wrist.

He yanks. Hard. The force of it spins me around, then his strong arm is banding around my waist, lifting my slippered feet from the floor.

His mouth presses to my ear. “Fuck, why’d you have to come down here.”

My back hits the cold stone of the corridor wall hard enough to knock the breath out of me. Aldric’s body slams against mine a half-second later, pinning me, his breath ragged at my neck, his hands now gripping my wrists and dragging them up. He pins my arms above my head against the stone.

“Let me go—” I yank against his iron hold.

“Impossible,” he murmurs into my hair. “There will be no more games between us, my sullen, tasing bride.” His mouth grazes my temple. “Not when you watched me fuck into her, your eyes aflame with desire, and you forced me to chase you down…and I cannot for the life of me decide which of those two things has me harder.”

His hips cant forward, grinding his solid length against me to prove his point. I can feel him through the layers of silk, pressing into the space between my hips. His breeches are unfastened, slung low on his hips.

When he pulls back a measure, his pupils are blown so wide his eyes look black.

He is all wrong. Something in him is wrong. He’s too brash, too unruly, the careful court mask he wears entirely stripped back, and the thing underneath is untamed, feral.

“Aldric, please?—”