Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
When the door is closed, Luthian finally deigns to look at me.
I push myself up and reach for the goblet of water on the side table.
“My honey flower, you should be very prou—”
I hurl the glass at him, and nearly hit him. He barely has time to wave the projectile out of existence before it smacks him. His brows draw together. “Have I done something wrong?”
“Is that all I am to you? A means to an end?” I shout, trying pathetically to cover myself with my arms. I don’t want to be naked in front of him. It’s too vulnerable, even though he’s seen every part of me already.
He tilts his head. “Yes. That cannot be news to you. I’m a means to an end for you, as well.”
What a fool I am. Of course, I know all of this. But I’m angry and hurt, and I’m not sure why. “Why haven’t you been with a human?”
“I’ve never had an interest,” he says with maddening calm. “Cenere, I’m shocked at this outburst. We made an agreement.”
“An agreement that you would train me,” I spit back. “Not that you would use me to... That you would weaponize me and...”
But that was all part of what we discussed. Every bit of it.
“You entered this arrangement with the same goal I have. To make you a queen, ruling at Cassan’s side. Human memories are short, but not that short.” His eyes narrow. “Has something changed?”
Nothing has, but everything has, in ways I cannot begin to express in words, because I can’t identify what I’m feeling. I’m angry, and that anger clouds every other thought in my mind. So, I ask again, “Why haven’t you ever been with a human?”
“As I already told you, I’m not interested.” He’s annoyed with me; it radiates from him. “I’m going. You need time to calm yourself—”
“Is it because I’m ugly?” I demand, climbing from the bed to follow him toward the door. “Because I’m too innocent, even now? Am I beneath you because I’ll never be as depraved as you are? As cruel and disaffected?”
He reaches for the handle and I make a swipe for his arm, briefly catching his elbow before he wrenches away.
“Or am I beneath you because I’m human?” I demand.
One moment, I’m standing behind him. The next, my back is against the door and his hand is around my throat. He doesn’t choke me, as he’s done in our games before. This is not a game. He’s furious, his starry gaze alight with a rain of silver fire.
“The reason I have not fucked you, Cenere, is not because you’re a human. It’s because if I fucked you, I would never stop. I would let my palace crumble, let the world forget who I am, that I have ever existed. I would abandon every scheme, forget every slight I’ve yet to repay. Because if I were ever to be inside of you, I would never leave.”
“Then don’t.” I whisper.
My plea undoes something in him. The rage in his eyes quells. The grip at my neck loosens. And then his mouth is on mine, he’s pressing me tighter against the door until the ornamental whorls in the wood dig into my back. He fumbles between us to unlace his breeches. My hands find their way beneath his shirt, roaming over his tightly muscled chest, desperate to touch all of him. He jerks my leg up to girdle his hip and I feel the tip of his cock brush my center, the head of him barely pushing inside. I cry out in anticipation and—
He vanishes. I stand motionless, holding nothing, my body aching and clenching, still longing to be joined to him.
But he’s gone.
Chapter Fifteen
The days following Firo’s departure are not so dreary and lonely as I anticipated. His absence accelerates my training, likely because Luthian has more time now. He doesn’t mention what happened after Firo left, and I don’t either. It’s an unspoken agreement: that moment never happened.
Not all of my lessons are pleasurable, tormented or not. I spend a full day in mind-numbing, knuckle-splitting tedium with the housekeeper, who I now suspect is kept around for more than simply style. She has a mental library of manners and protocol, and she doesn’t want me to embarrass her.
In the evening, I’m fed by Luthian, teased, and tortured by him, but there is one boundary he never crosses. And at night, when my desire should be all but wrung out of me, I can’t stop remembering how I was fucked by Firo in that very same bed, the incredible intimacy of being face-to-face, breath mingling, bodies straining together toward ecstasy.
Why, I wonder, would Luthian pass up the opportunity to have me in the same manner?
He’s also stressed the importance of tenderness in the wake of our consensual violence. I worry that perhaps I don’t fully understand how to turn my emotions so quickly from a desire to inflict suffering to nurturing. I suppose I’ll simply mimic what I’ve experienced with my teacher, should the need arise. Luthian is a marvel, where such delicate care is concerned. I never leave an encounter feeling afraid or resentful, or as if I’ve done something reprehensible by enjoying myself.