Page 43 of Fierce Monarch

“You have a choice. Do you want to hurt, or do you want relief?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Greyson snapped. He hadn’t moved from behind the bag, but I had no doubt he’d pull me away if it came to that. “If you put a hand on her?—”

“She’s fraying.” My chin jerked toward Mari, whose eyes were too wide, her breathing too fast. Not that she realized it. This was Mari at her most basic. All sensation and need, none of the put-together queen we were accustomed to. “Look at her.”

Grey peered around the bag and swore. He saw it now. This was the true creature we’d devoted ourselves to, this feral being with the face of our love. It was easy to praise a goddess when she was benevolent, but it was something else to worship her when she was at her most needy, her most wicked.

And worship was what I intended to do, despite how it was going to look.

“Everything that’s been happening has built up, and she’s got nowhere to send that energy. Fighting should have helped, but it didn’t. Fucking is an option, if you’re both up for it.” I didn’t have to ask Grey to know his answer. He couldn’t hurt Mari, even if she needed it, and she did. She really, really did.

Mari spent every day making life-and-death decisions. That level of power took a toll, and some people couldn’t handle the emotional accumulation. They had no way to excise the overabundance, and it rotted them from the inside out. Mari was one of those people. We had to break her so she could heal again. In this case, we had to fuck her into submission, forcing her out of her head and into some form of subspace where she could let it all go and come back to center. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but it was going to be necessary.

Greyson swallowed and looked away. “Not like this.”

I nodded, and he looked relieved when I left it at that. Being unable to do what had to be done was a problem in most cases, but I didn’t consider it a weakness when someone else could take up the slack. We were a family; where one failed, another succeeded. There was a reason one man would never be enough for Mari. I just had to hope two would, because Grey and I were never letting her go.

“Agreed.” Mari’s voice wavered like she wasn’t sure about her answer, but I took it at face value. If it wasn’t an enthusiastic yes, it was a no.

No fucking. At least, not yet.

“That leaves feeling. You in?” I stared down at her, knowing she was almost to the point of no return. All the shit with Nate and Cash was poisoning her from the inside out. I could almost see the blackness creeping into her gaze, the recklessness that would get her killed. We had to fix this before there was nothing to save.

“No, but if I don’t try something, I’d have to resort to more destructive methods, and I don’t have the time for a hangover.”

As if getting drunk was the worst she could do to herself.

I let her go, stepping back to give her space as I pointed to the floor. “Lie on your stomach, arms at your sides.”

“Is this a joke?”

“Do I look like I’m joking? On the floor.”

Mari looked at Greyson, but she eventually dropped to her knees. When she didn’t move beyond that, I clicked my tongue for her attention. “You can use a safeword.”

But she wouldn’t. She needed this as much as we did.

For every moment of anxiety that Mari had, Grey and I shared it. We’d felt the betrayal that rocked her. We were stressed and angry about the Wolf and Rafael. We’d been at her side through everything, and we were close to fraying too.

Tonight, everything changed. For the better, I hoped.

It took longer than I liked, but eventually, Mari lay down. The moment her belly touched the mat, she hated it. It didn’t matter that the only two people in the room were ones she trusted with her life—or the fact that Grey strode over and locked the door at my urging—she felt too vulnerable, and vulnerable was bad.

Which was why she squirmed and fought like a cat when I pressed softly on her back.

“Dominic—”

“Arms down, mariposa. It’ll all make sense in a minute.”

But she was too far into her hindbrain, so she scratched and clawed, bit and tore. My arms were a mess by the time I finally had her hands shackled in my own. Grey watched closely, ready to beat my ass if she said the word, but she didn’t. She needed the fight and the surrender equally.

Mari’s cheeks were wet with tears of frustration, anger, and grief, though we all pretended to ignore that for the time being. She vibrated underneath me as I slowly gave her more and more of my weight until she held it all. The pressure shouldn’t have felt good. She was already suffocating under the weight of everything. The last thing she needed was more, but the longer I lay on top of her, the more tension released until she was only slightly stiff below me.

Progress.

I didn’t touch her beyond that. Didn’t kiss her or grind my body into hers. This was about connection and release, and the longer it went on, the better it turned out.

“Why does this work so well?” She finally groaned, letting her muscles melt into the mat below. I felt the vibrations through my chest, and it soothed me as much as having her close did. Like she was whispering to the animal inside me that we were okay. Everything was fine.

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