Page 207 of Settle Down, Princess

Her fingers flexed against my skin, and I felt every scrape of her nails, but the tension bled out of them. We breathed each other in, one long inhale after another until finally sleep took me.

Darkness licked at my skin. There was no space here for dreams, not as my determination grew. Instead, I saw it in my mind, all of the ways I would take out my father. In front of the entire Guild. Secretly in his office. Dropping from the balcony above as he walked down a darkened alley. There was the way I was supposed to do things, issuing a formal challenge, but that only mattered if I intended to keep his empire in place. I’d need to prove that I was capable of taking it over to the entire Guild.

There was no precedent for those who wished to burn it to the ground.

My eyes opened to the sight of flickering flames, but these were just those that had burned low in the grate of our fireplace. I blinked, simply following the shifting shape of them until I realised I wasn’t the only one awake.

“Can’t sleep?” Jessalyn asked me, the bruising on her face setting my teeth on edge. That purplish spread across her cheek? My father’s fault, as was the slightly swollen shape of her nose. That anyone… That he…. I swallowed hard, then very carefully stroked her cheek.

“I have to leave you, even though I don’t want to. There’s something I must do,” I told her in a hoarse whisper.

“To keep us safe?” I nodded. “Then…”

I was too scared to kiss her. She had a split lip, but her grip on my head would not be denied. I brushed butterfly kisses along her lips, wanting to memorise their shape, carry it with me as I went about sorting out unfinished business, but my princess would not allow that. When her lips opened, mine delved deeper, tasting her, feeling her. For just this moment, I forgot about killing my father as I pinned her to the bed, the way she felt underneath me perfect, right up until she parted her legs. I fell into the space between them willingly. My hips moved as I kissed her more deeply, before the coppery taste of blood registered on my tongue, which had me jerking backwards.

“Jessalyn…” She didn’t let me get far, her grip like iron, even as I saw blood well on her lip. “You’re hurt.”

“The pain of what you’re about to do hurts far more.” Her nails pricked my flesh. “You could die.”

“I will die,” I corrected, “if that’s what is required to neutralise the old bastard. There’s a new world order and as a result, there will be no more monsters in Khean. People need to be able to walk the streets safely knowing that they won’t be caught up in baroque plots if they stumble down the wrong one. From what I can tell, my father has orchestrated all of this…”

That was just a hunch until she nodded slowly, but the realisation that he had been the one pulling everyone’s strings was like a knife to the heart. Father always said I’d grown soft, living outside of Guild headquarters, but now I wondered. Perhaps it was something else, the sloughing off of toxins, the removal of parasites sapping your blood. Perhaps I was repelled by his actions because being away from him had allowed me to develop a moral compass.

And I knew which way it pointed.

To Jessalyn at all times because she was my true north. I stared down at her then, trying to burn the image of her on my retina, storing it away, so that if things went south for me…

“I must go.”

“No!” She exclaimed that into my chest, clinging to me like a monkey, and while I knew I needed to prise her fingers away, I didn’t. Instead I cradled her against me, right up until I felt her working at the laces of my pants. I was hard and in her hand in seconds, the shocking feel of her making me shudder, the movement forcing me to kiss the side of her neck. That smell of jasmine, I’d never get it out of my nose.

“Jessalyn…” I whispered her name. “Jessalyn…” That came out as a moan. “Sweetling, you don’t…”

But anything further I had to say was cut off as she raked up her skirts and then bore down.

She wasn’t ready. Her cunt was slick, but still too tight to take me easily, her cry of frustration muffled by my chest.

“No, no…” I rasped. “Not like this. Not…”

“You were saying?” Roan blinked slowly at the two of us, looking over Arik’s shoulder before rolling the commander sideways and taking his spot. “The prick always sleeps like the dead after a fight. But you…”

As he gazed down at our girl, his hand slid between the two of us, finding her pearl and stroking it with his fingertips to the sounds of her pants.

“I can’t…” I groaned even as I thrust deeper, the velvety suck of her more tempting than anything I’d ever experienced. My eyes rolled back in my head as I pulled away, only to slam back in.

“Yes, you can.”

Her reply, almost as sharp as the small knife she now held, one I recognised as Roan’s belt knife. The tip was pressed against my throat, just pricking the skin, my entire focus narrowed down to that point, which forced me to stop. She was glorious, flush faced and eyes flashing, her lips baring a set of neatly bared teeth as she met my gaze. “Yes, you can. Give me something to hold on to, Silas, as you do this. Give me something.”

Regretfully I forced her to lower the knife, feeling the slight sting left as she drew a red line down my neck and to my chest.

“Here no one’s likely to slip and cut anything fatal,” I said, yanking her forward. The tilt of her hips, the way she opened up around me was everything that I needed. “Now you’re free to cut whatever you need into my skin. Your initials, perhaps?”

She couldn’t answer me, because between the two of us, we were rocking Jessalyn along on a sea of pleasure, but she recovered quickly.

“Mark you as mine?” she said with a smile. “But I have a terribly long name.”

“Cut every single one of them into my worthless hide,” I told her. “I won’t protest. Make me yours as I know you are mine, Jessalyn.”

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