Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
How had I not known we shared a lifetime of cat-and-mouse, in which I had been pounced upon and devoured time and time again? Yes, at the academy, I had grown cunning to get what I required. But my every last rebellion had been nothing compared to what he’d done.
I lived all those years full of dreams and had only just seen the stars.
Fog abounded—it was going nowhere. And I could not find my way to it. A century or two of time would mean nothing to a mate intent on keeping me.
Talons drumming against my thigh, my focus blurred as my mind worked through the absolute mess my life had become.
Suffering uncomfortable honesty with myself, I realized much of this was my fault.
I had been trained for war yet operated from a place of idealistic ignorance. I may as well have been playing with dolls and having tea parties during my tenure at the academy.
Ignorant of the ways of hybrid men, the odds were entirely against me.
So, I needed to work with what I already knew, reform my thoughts, alter my reactions, and consider uncomfortable facts.
Fact one: I had made Cyderial crazy enough to terrorize the academy. I even inspired him to hang boys. Therefore, every living creature outside his door was in danger, should he perceive them as a threat to me.
Fact two: I had no idea how to calm him into reason.
Possessing his unwilling mate made him all the more temperamental. How was I to handle an overly empowered male already under the influence of an urge to obsessively hoard his prize?
All he need do to round my opposition would be to lock me away, keep me drugged on his company, and fuck me into oblivion. Corner me in a shower and lavish me with touch, and I’d swoon, make little noises, and perhaps even enjoy it.
It could not be denied that I had a visceral reaction to his tactics, my own animal instincts calling from the most ancient parts of my brain that being locked away and fucked silly was exactly what I needed most.
That I should submit to his authority and be pleased.
That the fog could not fuck me, fill me, or keep away the fever.
To the awakened vorec stretching lazily under my skin, her urges must be appeased; otherwise, my higher thought was a slave to her demands.
And she did not want cold, wet, dangerous fog.
She wanted cock, and food, and to be petted until she purred.
As I rolled one shoulder under the downpour, the decadence of Cyderial’s touch roving where it would, the sweetness of his scent let me know his own monster had demands as well.
I could hear the beast whispering in his thrum, knew it roared in his mind, feeding the general’s burning desire to keep me for himself. To indulge his insanity and consider anyone outside his door a threat.
To do to me what had been done to Miranda—lock me away for ten years.
Armed as he was with over a century of experience, a mental reliquary of sexual tactics, and no one to challenge his motives, how was I to defend myself?
Nothing could stop Cyderial from doing whatever he wished.
And it frightened me.
Miranda’s disturbing warnings frightened me.
But it did not frighten the animal part of me in the slightest. Not now, since she had been acknowledged and compartmentalized.
As if to draw my thoughts back to him, Cyderial’s bold touch cleansed our shared fluids from my seam while he caged me in like cornered prey.
Watching him watch me, I observed his green eyes narrow as if he could read my thoughts and found them charmingly indiscreet.
But there seemed to be no offense in the male. Silently, he invited me to look my fill.
To consider.
To weigh facts and experience against imagined horrors and physical pleasures, just as I had been trained to do in the academy. Even as one finger breached me, swirling twice in my depths… because he could.
The involuntary hiss that slipped through my teeth, it wasn’t only a bark of warning. Not when the slut beast beneath my skin urged me to open my legs just enough to ease his path and left me trembling when I denied her.
After all, this man prepared me for this, had me beaten into greatness at the academy, so I could stand up to a monster such as he.
Prepared me to face an enemy. Given me the resources to manipulate almost everyone around me so I might thrive.
Learning from one’s failures was an art.
So, I steeled my spine as his touch withdrew from my slit. And I swear I saw his eyes flash a far more dangerous shade of green.
What pleasure there was in witnessing him tamp down his darker urges to take what I didn’t offer.
And perhaps, that in itself was power enough.