Page 52 of Settle Down, Princess

“Wait.”

Creed turned to me with a snarl, the wolf too close to the surface, but the beast and I knew each other. We’d been forced to fight it out more than once because that’s what wolves do. Scrap it out—usually in a non-lethal way—to test the other’s mettle and work out where we stood in the pack hierarchy. So I simply stared him down, not looking away until his hands dropped loosely to his side.

“And how did being taken by bandits and tied up here factor in your plans?” I asked, my lips twisting into a sneer.

There, I knew I was getting under her skin when she plunged forward only for the rope to haul her back. Silas was the one that liked to tie girls up, but I was beginning to see the appeal of it. Because despite the fact she’d been bound like an animal, her spirit remained unbroken.

“I won’t go to my death.” She was every inch a princess as she spoke, command vibrating in her voice. “I won’t. I drugged the lot of you, and I’ll do it over and over.” There it was, the core of the matter. “That’s what my mother told me to do.”

My eyebrow jerked upwards. It took a lot to surprise me, but I hadn’t seen that one coming. But the words that came after? They were all too familiar.

“Apparently the king isn’t my father.” Other lips had said these same words, and I knew the shape of them by heart. “It was one of the court knights, and my mother and grandmother think that no noble-born child is related by blood to the man who is supposed to be their father.”

Except me. That was the thing about being born to his mistress, not the queen. Mother had no reason to try and trick him, because she came to his bed willingly.

“She told me to drug you, seduce you, and then—”

“Make us loyal to you and only you?’ My mouth quirked up in a vicious smile. “Become your allies at court?”

“Well, yes…” The tension went out of the rope as Jessalyn peered at me quizzically. “And then she told me to poison the king.”

“Kill King Magnus…?”

I had been doing so well in keeping the flames inside me tamped down. I’d wanted to tear these fuckers’ heads from their shoulders the moment I reached the cave, but I hadn’t. We’d worked as a well-oiled team, using skill, not the heat of battle, to take the day. But when I heard those words, all my self-control snapped, then and there. I moved without thought, the fire raging through my blood as I stormed right up to the little minx.

Stupid, stupid girl.

That was the thought pulsing through me, fast and hard, as I took up position behind her. She twisted on the rope, sensing danger, but was not able to escape it. And that was exactly what she’d done when she’d tried her grab for freedom and had gone blundering through one terribly thought-out plan into another. None of that gave me reason to snatch up great handfuls of her skirts, but that’s what I did. There was no rationalising baring her little arse to my eyes, the slip of fabric she called underwear doing nothing to disguise the gentle curve. And there was absolutely no reason to haul my hand back and then smack her bottom hard enough that her hips jolted forward.

“You… spanked me!”

That outrage in her voice was what I needed to hear. It was like a cup of acid, the likes of which would burn my throat raw, but I would down it anyway. I wanted her angry because then she would be at the same level of fury and outrage as I was.

I was furious at her mother and grandmother, so blithely sending a princess to do a job that trained assassins had failed at. Poisoning was a daily risk at the court of Khean, and the king had many fail-safes in place to protect him from it. I was furious at the bandits for daring to lay hands on her. The flash of that bastard’s knife had been a goad to my flanks, spurring me on a bloody rampage before I could think twice. But most of all I raged at the fact that she hadn’t found herself men unburdened by the constraints of me and mine; men who would take her gold to get her as far the fuck away as possible from the hellhole that was Magnus’ court. That’s why my hand smacked down, once, twice, three times, because I wasn’t teaching her a lesson anymore but teaching myself one.

I’d never done this with any of the other brides we’d ferried to the capital. Not even when they’d bitten, scratched, or just sobbed the entire way. I’d definitely never smoothed my hand across a reddened rump or listened to a woman moan when I did so.

My eyes glanced over her shoulder to where Silas now stood in front of her, his eyes dancing with a dangerous light.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice as sharp as his blades.

“Yes!” Jessalyn snapped.

“Very badly?”

My hand moved of its own accord, mapping every inch of the flesh I’d struck.

“Ye…” Her voice trailed away as my hand continued to move, then something miraculous happened. She didn’t buck away in anger or, worse, cringe back like a beaten dog. Instead, as my hand moved down, her thighs parted, and it was like the gates of heaven opening.

And all I wanted to do was work myself in through them.

“Does it really hurt?” There was something gently chiding in Silas’ voice, as if prompting her to tell the truth. “Or does it just sting?”

“Stings.”

Her voice dripped with the petulant kind of attitude that made me want to spank it out of her. I wanted to smack her until she danced on the end of the rope and promised she’d never run from us again.

That thought was like a cool, calming breeze in all this heat, but the roseblood didn’t allow that clarity to remain. There was only heat pulsing in my veins, burning the curve of her arse. I tugged her underwear part of the way down, assuring myself it was only to make sure I hadn’t hurt her, and was confronted by my handiwork. Her skin was reddened—I’d marked her—and that should’ve dragged up feelings of horror within me.

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