Page 22 of The Kingdom of Flames

I enjoy his command, being his prize. Beyond the court and the battlefield yesterday, what is more dangerous than being in this room with this Lord of the Red Banner.

His breastplate came away, red leather and steel. Names of men moved and slid under her touch, shifting down and being added to. She could feel the magic in the strong plate. She unlaced his tunic and undid the brass buttons along his left side. Drawing the cloth apart, his body was hers now to witness. She exhaled heavily when she touched his flesh. It was hot, hotter than this room. Scars tattooed him, lines, punctures, stars, and deep ravagement.

His abdomen resembled the jutting stones of a castle wall, ridged and proud. She ran her fingers across his abs, and he shuddered, stirring for her.

Celestine looked up at the Red Lord in his circlet of metal and blood. His chest was a shelf of muscle, his shoulders like two boulders placed above scarred arms tanned from the season he commanded. His forearms were as thick as her thighs, and she slid the tunic free.

Encarmine regarded her, then took her in his arms, her soft flesh forming around the impossible hardness of his sinew. He was taller today, like he had been when at Calendar.

He placed her upon the bathing table like an offering at an altar, and Celestine shut her eyes, feeling the fear give way to want. She would be an eager sacrifice. Low growls came from him, the deep timbre of his throat vibrating the air between them with want.

Red haze circled above his crown, the stubble of the soldier, the haunted and feverish eyes that took her in.

I should hate him. But I don’t…

Shirtless, his red belt and burnished bronze buckle glinted in the lamplight. Steam rose from openings somewhere in this bathing room, the heat of it all making her flush. The only thing he wore from the waist up on his magnificent body was her token, the ribbon of his torn banner he had won from her, bound around his thick wrist.

“I have won your touch, and now I will pay it to you in kind,” Encarmine’s deep voice rumbled. He reached low. His voice was different, deeper, as if he was straining to hold himself back from taking her here and now.

Hot water splashed along her body from a steel pitcher in his hand. He drenched her, the bathing robe now clinging tight to her body, to the curve of her breast and hip.

Celestine arched her back. The onslaught of hot water, the despair of the absence of it, was delicious. She was his, in his control, a token won, and now she was being paid in his touch. He produced a sponge laced with soap and lathered her, first her neck, his hand large enough to wrap around her entire throat, but he was strong and guided her. He guided her against her trepidations, and she felt the defenses within her fall under his campaign of touch.

“So lovely,” Encarmine growled. War itself was tending to her. “Something terrible touching something so pure…” he spread her bathing robe, lathering her chest, his hands forsaking the sponge and soaping her arms and armpits, pulling her wrists back. Celestine fell into the wonder of his embrace. It was fire.

Like anyone, she sometimes longed for a different body. A different heft, a different flesh. The hair another girl had. The eyes.

In this place, all that vanished. Celestine felt Encarmine’s hands, so impossibly strong and rough, scaling against her smooth flesh to the bones in her hips. His body was hot like a furnace, and she opened her eyes to see his wet skin, browned and muscled and glistening with steam and sweat.

Celestine spread her legs, her quim yearning for touch. Encarmine took his time, teasing her and coaxing her. She squirmed, reaching down to ease herself but he stopped it.

“Do not presume to touch that which is mine by right.” The demigod stared down at her. The clit hardened under his words. The steam and magic of the moment bathed her.

“Take it,” Celestine murmured. "Take my crest now."

If my realm saw me now… I’m not ready, but gods, I don’t care.

"My prizes are won, not given or stolen,” Encarmine growled, the force of his voice enough to flatten her. Her heart raced.

His hand traced down her hip to her pubis, over the bathing cloth flattened against her hair. “But I rule what I conquer.” His fingers slid down into her lips, to her swollen clit, and when he touched her, finding her mark, her weakness, she jolted at the rapture of it.

“Encarmine,” Celestine huffed the words. It was so hot in here, the steam, the heat.

He petted her slowly. Encarmine stood beside her, standing up straight, working her, teasing her. Celestine writhed and tried to sit up, but within a moment, his hand was at her throat.

“Take your payment, Final Bride,” Encarmine rumbled.

“Yes,” Celestine groaned.

His hand was firm against her throat. He did not threaten her life. He simply held it in his hands. Encarmine stopped touching her, and he reached down, bringing forth a steaming pitcher of gold.

“What is…” Celestine’s question died on her lips when the sensation struck her. Hot oil, rich with the scent of lavender and mirkwood, flowed over her body. Across her chest and breasts, around his thick arm, and hand at her throat. He poured it lower, across her belly, mound, legs, and feet. She felt a liquid blanket enveloping her flesh, clinging to her and not falling or sliding away.

“Your payment,” Encarmine whispered, and now he picked her up, the oil of her body pressing against his massive chest and torso. She was a doll being moved around. Encarmine turned her over. Never ceasing his grip on her throat.

The demigod lowered her head down to the bathing table, raising her rear up. Like a peasant thrust over the cart at the hands of a conquering soldier.

Encarmine tore the fine silk from her body. The sound of it ripping made her tremble in anticipation. She eased back, begging to be filled. To be taken. Held down, split open. Those dark needs she felt so often in her bedchamber at night. The whisper within her when she heard terrible stories that disgusted, yet excited her.

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