Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“Why do you say that?”
Emrys gives me a thin smile. “I drank of you. When I absorb the essence of a human, I discover them. I know their name. I see the world from which they came. Everything they ever loved and ever were flows into me. Nothing flows from you. You are placeless. You must have been plucked from your mother’s arms at birth. Is that what happened?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“The amnesia of the early years can be a blessing, but it has cursed you.” He caresses my cheek tenderly, and I feel his sympathy. “Do not worry, my empty vessel. You will shatter soon.”
I tremble at those words, because I know he does not say them lightly. If Emrys says he is going to break me, then he is absolutely going to break me.
He brushes a little hair tenderly away from my eyes. “Do not look so scared, princess. I took mercy on you by giving you some private pleasure before the public ceremony.”
“… public ceremony?”
Emrys explains the situation to me with a patient tone. “Homecoming is the time when the king mates the queen before the eyes of the assembled council. It is when a beautiful, regal creature is humbled. She is made a vessel of the king’s seed. Sometimes she takes on new life. Sometimes she simply flows with seed and brings forth an energetic new era. Whatever happens, it is a powerful ritual of great importance to our kind. You will be at the center of it.”
Evening has come, and the preparations are complete.
I am led through a nearly silent crowd of Emrys’ valker subjects. All eyes are on me, dozens of vicious, hard, hungry glares running through me. I am still feeling the effects of the first feeding, so I am calm as Emrys holds my hand and walks me to the altar prepared for me.
I am naked, dressed only in florets of my own blood, pale designs traced into the red flow by Emrys’ fingertip. I catch sight of myself in the mirrored surfaces, and I see a beautiful young creature who is going to be sacrificed.
I will not survive Emrys.
I am no longer sure I care.
He has exposed me in ways deeper than I thought possible. He has laid me bare emotionally and spiritually. What does it matter if I now stand before his kind with only my own sanguine essence as cladding?
When we reach the large stone surface, he picks me up and lays me down on it as tenderly as any lover. Nothing is being said out loud. There is no fanfare. There is nothing but the silence of carnal anticipation and an air of solemnity. This ritual is deeply important to the valker. I can quite literally feel the significance of it deep in the very marrow of my bones.
Once he has me in place, Emrys begins to disrobe. He has been dressed finely for the event, but all that finery is removed piece by piece and handed to Aristo, who hovers nearby with an obeisant look upon his refined features. I watch as my royal lover’s body comes into view. He is like cold slate-gray marble. His musculature is that of a predator who has gone hungry for a long time, prominent and without any real covering of fat. He is broad shouldered, and he is…
His cock is an astonishing thing. His pants come down, revealing long powerful legs and a thick cock which narrows to an almost sharp tip. He looks like throbbing stone, his mating rod broad in girth and perfectly in proportion with the rest of his powerful, regal body. I have felt the presence of that thing from the moment we met. I have been running from him, but also from his huge cruel cock.
Emrys mounts the plinth, straddling me with his larger, more powerful body. One of his hands gathers both my wrists and he pulls my arms up over my head, elongating the rest of my naked form. I feel the heat of the rocky material radiating into me, keeping me at the proper feeding temperature. I notice as I squirm that there are channels cut into this platform. Instinct and intellect tells me that they are for my blood.
“So much fear in such a little creature,” Emrys purrs, his bright red eyes lit with amusement as he looks down at me. “Do not be afraid, my bride. You are about to be sacrificed for a greater purpose. When this is over, your life will have meaning in a way it lacks now. You have come from nothing, but I will make you something.”
He parts my thighs with his leg and takes his place between them. This is not a romantic tryst. This is not a seduction. This is a public claiming, a ceremonial joining, and for that reason the foreplay consists of a light nuzzling behind my left ear before his fangs sink inside me again, and his agile hips guide the head of his cock into my molten interior.