Page 158 of Settle Down, Princess

He shook his head sharply.

“When I became a man, plenty of my father’s underlings made it clear that getting hard during a torture session was a normal response.” Silas’ snort was meant to be of amusement, but it felt far more pained than that to me. “Not me. Other people’s blood, other people’s pain, it claws at me.” His hand raked across his chest, leaving a red trail on the white skin he bared. “I’ve never developed the requisite taste for it to satisfy my father, but my own?”

If I thought I was the one running the show, forcing Silas to submit, I learned then how wrong that assumption was. His eyes seared into mine, commanding, demanding a response from me.

“It’s all pain, from birth to death, so I like to feel mine at the hands of a beautiful woman.” He blinked. “My woman. In her hands, with her in control, it settles something in my head, allows something to fly free, makes the whole fucking world stop for just a second and lets me just be.”

My grip on the knife loosened then. Not due to reticence, though. If anything, Silas’ speech strengthened my resolve to do this and do it right. I knew some of what he spoke of, but even admitting that in the safe space within my head seemed ridiculous and trite. All the deaths I’d seen were from a distance, each one carefully choreographed, up until the moment I met them. But the quiet he spoke of? If I could give him that, I would, over and over.

“Only pain?” I asked in a thin voice. I was afraid of his answer, a sadness rising at the prospect of that. My hand smoothed up his leather-clad thigh, feeling the taut muscle beneath his clothing. “No pleasure?”

Had he enjoyed anything we’d done before this? My mind raced frantically, making connections and assumptions until he smiled up at me, grabbing the knife from my grip and tossing it aside, then dragging me onto his lap.

“Have I treasured every kiss and touch? Your fingers burn a trail into my skin every time you touch me.” His hand went to the back of my neck, drawing me down for a slow, sensual kiss. “Forgive me for wanting that sensation to last long after you’ve slipped from my bed. Leave your mark on me, Princess Jessalyn Pearl Yasmina Tennesley. Make clear to the world what I already know. That I belong to you utterly.”

As I kissed Silas, my hand slid across the bed coverings to find the knife. I gripped the hilt with intent now, drawing it closer so that when I reared back above him, it was back in my hand. I noted the flare of heat in his eyes, then turned to Arik.

“Something tells me you’re going to interfere no matter what I do.”

He snorted at that, but his smile told me everything I needed to know.

“You’re all very accepting of Silas’ nature, but not mine?” I bristled at the challenge in his gaze, then forced my spine to soften. “But you’d be right. If we’d planned this out, you’d complete an apprenticeship with Rose first, learn how to bind your partner, apply pain with considerably less dangerous tools.”

I thought I knew how this was going to go, that the commander would muscle in and separate all of us, but Arik had made a name for himself by doing things other’s dared not. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he moved, sliding in behind me, his hands going to my waist.

“But you’ve never been one to shy away from an experience, have you, Princess?”

Sometimes Arik used my title as an insult, other times as a lash for my back, but occasionally it was like this. His mouth against my ear, that same feeling of air against my skin as the last time, but this time it wasn’t the fear of the executioner’s axe that had me shivering, but anticipation.

“You’ve obviously done this before, Your Highness,” I replied. “Maybe you could provide me with some guidance.”

His hand slid along my arm to wrap around my wrist.

“I couldn’t think of anything I’d want more.”

Chapter 91

Silas

Sometimes I felt like waiting was the best part. While I couldn’t crave the bite of Jessalyn’s knife more, the anticipation had a sharp edge of its own. I felt it slicing into me as Arik settled in behind our queen. He shot me a look over her shoulder, right as his lips brushed her ear whispering something. We’d been in exactly this position before.

Growing up in the Guild, I didn’t have the customary shame others felt about giving or receiving pain during sex, but I’d learned to mask it when I enlisted in the army. Most of the men there were like Roan. Simple in their pleasures and hostile in the face of any greater complexity, but Arik? Ever the commander, he’d quizzed me on my nature, asking for all the relevant details with his usual directness. I’d answered him the best I could, and then when I slipped away to visit one of my father’s establishments, he’d followed.

Putting a knife in the hand of a whore was never a wise thing. It wasn’t that they were any more or less trustworthy than any other Kheanian, but the temptation to plunge the blade into my guts and twist, stopping the play and killing me for the gold at my belt, could prove too much for some. Arik entered the room, the girl I’d bought for the night looking up and then smiling, thinking she’d get twice the pleasure. Instead, he’d watched and learned, observing me, observing her like he did the maps of battle formations our tutors sought to teach us. Then, when she was done and I was gasping, my head reeling, all sense of self and the world, driven from me, he’d slung my arm around his shoulders and hauled me back to the barracks.

Our bond was forged in the fires of the cadet camps, hammered in battle, but it was this that annealed the metal, making it strong and impervious. I nodded, just a small thing and he moved.

“It might be good that you ruined the tip of this blade.” He plucked it from Jessalyn’s grip, testing its sharpness with his thumb. “But a blunt knife can still cut a man with the requisite force.”

“So I should go slowly, with little pressure?” she asked.

“No—” I said, my head jerking up off the pillow. I’d waited too long, needed this too much for her to do a half-hearted job of the thing.

“Yes. Always slowly, always with an awareness of what you’re doing, how he’s responding.” He pressed a kiss to her neck and I watched her head lower to one side, surrendering more skin to his mouth, my own bone-dry. I wanted to kiss her, make her sigh. His hand slid under her chin and directed her focus back to me and I bathed in her sky-blue gaze. “Eyes on Silas at all times. Watch his responses. Read him the way I know you can. What is he feeling right now?”

“Arousal.”

She chuckled that out, bending down like a siren might from the rocks when spying a drowning man in the water. Her hand slid up my pants, then gods… right where I needed it. The heel of her palm ground down, making my teeth clack together as my body rose up off the bed.

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