Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 136061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 454(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 454(@300wpm)
He dropped his hands, hunched over, and shook his head, at a loss.
I glanced back at Leala and lifted my eyebrows. Need a little help here, I thought.
“Do you know what is very confusing for people?” Leala said, walking into the room like she was as comfortable as could be. How the fuck did she manage it? “My kink.”
My mouth dropped open.
“Love, it’s not really the time,” I said through my teeth.
“I like pain,” she continued, coming to stand right beside me. She wrung her hands, her knuckles white. “I get off on it. Most people do not understand that. It makes them incredibly uncomfortable.”
A blast of power had Leala and I both hunching for a moment. Alphas at full power were no joke.
“She is not you,” he said.
“No, but she could be.” She held out a hand, indicating the master for some reason. “Right now she is feeling your misery, right? It is making her pain worse, I should think. All due respect, sir, but it is probably acting like a weight on her ankle, pulling her down deeper. It’s not helping. Instead…maybe put aside how much it pains you to feel what she’s going through and feed her uplifting emotions. Feed her your love and support—”
“I’m doing that. I’m trying to ease her suffering as best I can.”
“Okay then…” Leala stalled for a moment, shooting me an anxious look.
“Pleasure,” I blurted. “Not just love and support, but downright pleasure. Right, Leala? Isn’t that where you were going with that?”
“Yes.” Leala smiled. “Yes! Feed her pleasure. Make her pain mix with pleasure, and it won’t be as gruesome for her.”
I squinted as I nodded. “It’ll probably be a mind-fuck for her at first, but if she can feel it’s you—whom she trusts more than anyone in the world—yeah, I can see that working, sir. It’s worth a shot at any rate, right? It’ll dull the pain somewhat. And it’ll help her think about you, which is to think about home…”
The master’s face came up slowly, his eyes bleary and soaked with guilt and misery. He focused in on Leala, and I’d be damned if she didn’t stand straight and tall before him. That woman was majestic.
Suddenly, though, he let out a breath and sagged, bracing his hands on the bed.
“It’s over,” he said softly, his deep, gravelly voice thick. “She has passed out.”
“I’ve passed out before, sir,” Leala quipped. “I’ve gone so hard with it that I have passed out from pain…while still deriving pleasure from it. I think you can help her, sir. I really do. But you’ll have to be strong, sir. You’ll have to completely shove away your own pain so that you can give her only your purest pleasure.”
Ooh, she was good. She was giving him a way to help and making him feel like he was powerful and strong for going for it. Great goddess and her kinky men, she was the most valuable player in this little meeting of minds.
He looked up again, his fierce golden eyes taking her in. I could barely remember the blue they’d been before the curse—before he’d forced a shift and his retinas retained the original color of his dragon’s scales, which had been burned black.
He nodded once, curtly. He’d do it. Hopefully he’d succeed, and it would help both he and Finley.
Leala nudged me with her elbow. Whoops, shit, my turn.
“And the other way you can help is to prepare an arsenal for when she finds her way back here,” I said quickly. “She asked me to make sure you were freeing the shifters. That you were monitoring the efforts to cure your kingdom of the sickness unleashed by the curse. She made a deal with the insufferable demon king so that you—”
“Yes, yes, I heard you outside the door.” He stood, and I realized I’d gotten much too close. The prince absolutely loomed over me. “I hope that she does not come back—for her sake—but I will honor her wishes. Of course I will—looking after my people is my duty.”
“Yes, sir.” I rammed Leala with my shoulder so she’d get moving and we could get some breathing room. “Absolutely, sir. Perfect. She would be proud of that.”
“You will come with me. Get some rest. We’ll start at noon.” He rolled his shoulders, and power oozed from his mighty frame. “And every time they hurt her, I will brutally kill one of their demons. I will not suffer her ill treatment without some sort of recourse.”
I wasn’t sure whether that was a good idea—I’d need to think on it—but it was certainly a satisfying idea. I wanted to watch. Those demons had had it coming for too long.
It wasn’t until I got outside of the door that my brain zeroed in on what else he’d said.
“Wait, I have to go?” I stopped and turned to look through the open door. It shut in my face, and the lock clicked.