Page 24 of A Book of Royals and Deities

I don’t dare tell him all the other creepy things the book told me. They can’t be true. It’s a book, not a future-telling magic being. It wanted to scare me into helping it, and that kind of did work. “The only way we are going to get the barrier down without my death is with that book.”

He brushes his lips across mine. Teasing. “I don’t want you near that book again, Storm. There are legends about it, and none of them are nice fairy tales. The book is evil.”

“I have no intention of going anywhere near it again.” Ziven kisses the tip of my nose in a cute way he has never done before, only making me want to push him back onto the sand and see what places I can kiss he might find more than cute, but he stands up, offering me a hand. “Finally, you’re agreeing with me and not arguing. I’ll make the most of it with some training while we are alone. You’ve been slacking in your training.”

I shake my head after standing up. “You’re all work and no play, Moon king.”

He curls a hand, with a smirk on his pretty lips. “Land a hit and I’ll play anygameyou wish, Storm.”

Heat burns through my body at his promise. It doesn’t take long for Ziven to let me hit his arm, and he smirks as he runs his eyes down my body. “Come with me?”

I frown, wondering where he wants us to go, but I trust him. We fly our dragons back to the mansion, and Ziven leads me into the Moon Dynasty rooms, right past my room and what I assume is his. He opens it up and I go inside, looking at the dark room. The walls are a deep silver, matching the fourposter bed with silver swirling wooden posts. The bedding is black and there arecrescent moons embroidered into a comforter on the end of the bed.

Ziven shuts the door behind me, not before I see the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. “You stay with me now. I wanted to give you some space, but move in with me. I might actually get some sleep rather than sleeping on that shit bed of yours.”

I smile at him, looking at everything in his room. There is only one chest of drawers, and his crown is casually thrown on top of it. He follows my gaze. “Has Hettie given you my mother’s crown back yet?”

Spinning, I face him. “Your mother’s? Why didn’t you say?” I wouldn’t have traded it for a cake otherwise.

He walks to me, pulling me up against his chest. “I didn’t think you’d wear it if you knew it was a thousand-year-old crown only worn by Moon Dynasty queens. Hettie is fine to have it for now, but it belongs to you.”

I push him away and walk around him, rubbing my arm. “You’re right, I wouldn’t have worn it. That’s a lot of pressure and I’m not?—”

“Not what?” he challenges.

I wave a hand at myself. “I’m not born for this. I’m not a royal princess or anyone you should consider, really. You’ve seen my body; I’m ruined and I can’t be?—”

“Come here.” He tugs me in front of a mirror. I gasp as he tugs off my top, then my bra and leggings until I’m bare in front of him. I can barely look, instead I choose to stare at him.

His hand runs across my stomach, across every one of my scars. I flinch, looking at us both in the mirror. He is flawless and beautiful. I’m broken and scarred. How can he want me like his? How can he desire me?

He roughly grabs my chin, forcing my gaze back to the mirror. “Look at yourself, Storm. See how fucking beautiful you are? These scars make you beautiful. They show me how you survived every bit of pain they were caused by. I want you to keep your eyes on your body as I fuck you and show you exactly how breathtaking you are. Don’t for a second think any less of yourself. You. Are. Mine.” He throws me onto the bed, on my knees above him. I’m forced to watch in the mirror as his tongue sinks into me, and I cry out, digging my nails into his chest. My eyes close on instinct, and he stops. “Eyes open and watch yourself. You are my queen. Not some broken thing you believe yourself as. The crown belongs to you just as much as I do, so be a good girl and watch the mirror as you come on my face. I want to taste my queen.”

I blush, but I don’t dare take my eyes off the mirror as he sucks, licks and teases me until I’m shaking with pleasure. He doesn’t let me finish, not until he wants me to, and when he does, I cry out his name as intense pleasure vibrates through every tiny part of my body.

“Ziven,” I moan as he pulls me off him. He pushes me down on my hands and knees, tugging my ass up and plunging every inch of his thick cock into me. I’m still shaking from the orgasm as he slams into me with a vengeance, just as punishing as it is perfect. He tugs my body up, my back to his chest, with his hand curling around my neck to hold me to him while his thick cock sinks in and out of me. I can see us in the mirror, my hair flowing around his arm, his hand on my neck and hip. His cock drivinginside me, over and over. He reaches down, parting my folds and running his finger across my clit. It’s like magic, like some control he has, and I moan as he pushes me into another orgasm and my body tightens around him. He roars, gripping my hips as he finishes, filling me as his head falls to my shoulder, his dark locks of hair touching my cheek.

Breathless, he turns my cheek so I face him. He softly kisses me once, twice. “I will never not want you, Storm. Never. Stop thinking I will.”

He lays me down, only to begin kissing my stomach, and he spends hours showing me that there isn’t an inch of my scarred body he doesn’t love. With each kiss, I start to believe it, too.

Chapter Fourteen

Page Fourteen?—

The people of the Twilight Dynasty are doomed unless I help.

I’m glad to be off the ship, and my stomach turns as I think about the choppy waves that threatened to pull us all into the watery depths. I pat the black stallion I’m riding, glad to be given such a good horse. He is fast and easy to lead, making the journey so much more comfortable. The queen’s plan so far has worked out perfectly, and I know she must have been planning it for a long time.

My body aches everywhere as the princess slows down into a trot, and I see why she is. The magical barrier stretches up out of the trees of the forest, where the trees look like giants, the tips hovering in the clouds. The magical barrier is tightly wrapped around the Nightwell city lands, and this is where the dragons must be.It’s where I belong, a voice whispers into my mind. Nota voice, the book. It can’t harass me from its box coffin, but it whispers sometimes, and each time it does, I purposely ignore it.

The princess looks over at me with her pale blue eyes and empty expression. Her silver hair is as messy as mine, falling over her shoulders under a black cloak. Her horse is silver too, and I think they kind of look like each other. “I’m gathering that your answers are in there with the dragons, Avaluna.”

She hasn’t spoken to me much in our entire journey, and I might as well have been travelling alone. We’ve been travelling for over a month, by my count, and I couldn’t tell anyone a thing about the princess. Other than the clipped directions and instructions of her mother’s plan, she is silent. I don’t mind, I’d take any silence from anyone to escape her father. I don’t know anything about her, other than her title, but sometimes she looks at me with such horror that I find myself wondering what broke her. I want to hate her like every other member of her family, but she hasn’t bitten me. She hasn’t bitten anyone, and she drinks from flasks stored in her bag. I think it’s the longest I’ve had without being bitten. Ever. “This is where we depart from each other.”

“Where are you going?” I question immediately. Almost like some deep part of me actually cares. Her eyes tell me everything. She’s not going to answer. Whatever plan her mother had given her will send her away, and it will keep her safe. “Why don’t you feed off fae? That ship had fae blood slaves. I saw them under the deck.” I wanted to free them, fight for them, anything, but I knew I couldn’t. If I dared, I would end up dead, and I have to get this book to the dragon riders. “Your family?—”

“I am not my family,” she quickly interrupts me with a snarl and a bare of her silver teeth. “I know you’ve seen the worst of my kind, but maybe you can remember me. I do not like to bite anyone for food, and I prefer animal blood to fae. Thereare thousands like me and thousands who do not want to serve my father.” Maybe that’s where she is going. “I had a lover, a powerborn fae who could beautifully make patterns in just about anything. He was a kind soul, and when my older sister found out, she murdered him for loving me. I told my mother what happened when she caught me trying to kill myself.” I freeze at the truth in her voice, at the break. “She gave me a path that leads to freedom from my family. She gave you the same, and for her, I’m asking you to remember that not all vampyres are monsters.”

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