Page 16 of Tethered Thrones

I turned on my heels and started walking, trying to keep pace with the others and ignore him so we wouldn’t cause a scene. And we did just that for some time until Hadi caught up with me and forced me onto his back. My feet were cold, so I welcomed it until panic settled like a knife in my gut.

Clem glanced back and beamed and either didn’t see or chose not to comment on the look of sheer unease on my face.

Luckily, I didn’t think Hadi was the type to force an awkward discussion.

“Why?” he suddenly demanded and I cringed. Never mind.

I remained mute, and his pincers flicked by my knees.

“Did I not make you cum hard enough that you fled to Kiar?” another guttural whisper turned my cock hard as stone.

Fuck!

“Stop it. I don’t want to talk about it right now.” I tried to sound harsh, but I was too quiet to pose much of a threat.

“Why not? Jaw sore from helping Kiar last night,” he mocked me.

I did not appreciate him making me feel bad for it. But I didn’t know what else to do but take it. When I denied Kiar and Bracken, we were enemies. Hadi wasn’t my enemy any longer and I had accepted his touch once already.

“It’s more… complicated with you, is all. I said no to Bracken and Clem, too! And Kiar at first–” he cut me off.

“Oh, I’m sure you put up a good fight.”

“I will not be guilted into your web,” I snapped.

Hadi grumbled, falling silent, seething, and I let my face dig into his shoulder, wanting to bite him and mark him, too, if it would make the arachnid shut up and stop arguing about our sex life close enough that the others might hear us.

If I allowed that final barrier to fall… maybe foolishly, deep down, I thought by guarding this last wall around my heart, my people would accept me again someday. In their eyes, if the noc king didn’t debase me, maybe I could be forgiven.

“You are mine,” Hadi said, so firmly and absolutely that I feared he read my mind. “You are mine now and forever, and you will never escape. Get used to it already. I can be gen–” Now I cut him off.

“Now that sounds ominous,” I said, chuckling without mirth.

“This is no time for jokes,” he barked loudly enough that everyone was forced to look back at us.

“I’m not joking. You’re scaring me,” I admitted quietly, not because he felt like a threat but because the resolution in histone told me all I needed to know. My defenses were useless; I was his, and he knew.

Hadi fell utterly silent at that, recoiling as if I slapped him. He marched us to everyone’s side, clicking his pincers nonstop. Everyone seemed uneasy, sensing the tension, and I ignored them all to rest…

When I openedmy eyes again, we’d traveled a great distance, far past Ri to the west, the third largest provisional capital, and approaching Hae, the second largest, over the mountains. The Yang River was also thinning, which meant we were nearing the mighty dams that helped power and protect our new capital in Kari.

Hadi’s breath was slightly labored, and I realized we had climbed a rugged pass, one that was very dangerous but helped us avoid the slower, more winding pathways through the mountains.

All while I slept like a babe on his back. I spat.

“We should rest. It’s alright. We need a plan anyway.”

Besides, it was a little too convenient we hadn’t been intercepted yet.

“No. We move,” Hadi said, ignoring the fatigue on Bracken and Kiar’s face as I turned left and right to look at them.

I grimaced; they were warrior princes, which meant they would follow orders, as I sat like Clem, a dainty protected thing on their back.

I tried to struggle off Hadi’s back, but the sharp click of his pinchers said he’d have none of it. I opened my mouth to argue, only to slam it shut as something large and black leaped fromthe sparse treeline above us in our direction. I hardly had time to speak before it was upon me.

And then, I was tumbling off the side of the mountain, wrapped in the claws of a snow-white beast.

Chapter 6

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