Page 10 of The Bone King and the Starling

“Rosalind spoke truths, my king. I don’t know about any of this.” I cling to the straps covering his chest and he bites his bottom lip.

He makes a sound, a deep coo in the back of his throat. “That you are a virgin does not displease me.”

“But I may displease you, my king.”

“It is not possible,” he murmurs.

“Choose another.”

“No.” His other hand shifts up my back to apply gentle pressure at the nape of my neck. His hand fits fully around my throat. He bends down, inhaling as his nose drags up behind my ear to my hair. The smell of him, sweet bread and wine and leather, is pleasing to me in ways I’m unfamiliar with. My thighs are trembling where his hand is locked between them and I feel and unfamiliar heat pooling at their juncture.

“I promise you, my king, I do not know what I’m doing…in this…”

“And I promise, little bird, you need not worry about that.”

His hand crawls higher up my legs. He will reach their juncture soon and I choke, afraid by the surprising pang of pleasure I feel. I don’t understand it. “Please.” I grab his forearm.

He presses our foreheads together, a new and sudden urgency in his touch. “You fear me, little bird?”

“Yes, my king.”

“I understand why, and I am sorry for it. There will be time for me to reassure you,” he snarls against the side of my face. “But not tonight. I cannot and I will not wait.”

He proceeds with none of the gentle caution he did before, allowing me the chance to seek his mouth with my own. This time, his lips swoop in and gather mine up like a prize left out in the grass, so ripe for the taking.

He crushes his warm, dry lips to mine, angling his face so that he can devour me fully. His tongue licks the seam of my mouth and I gasp, surprised at the startling sensation. His tongue slips between my lips, past my teeth and gently strokes the roof of my mouth, my tongue — anywhere he can taste. At the same time, his hand shoves up my dress to where my thighs come together and he touches me there where no man has touched me before. The feeling is dangerous and scary and I feel humiliated anew at both the fact that he intends to rut me here and the fact that I no longer am pretending when I release a wild and needy mewl. My head falls back on my neck and I gasp for air.

“Fuck,” he curses, separating our mouths as he catches me. His hand kneads my mound through my dress and all I can think to do is spread my legs for him to grant him further access. It feels…too much and not enough. I am going to cry out of need and frustration, for I do not understand this, how to make him stop or how to make him give me more of it.

He comes for my mouth again, kissing me ruthlessly at the same time that he stops his ministrations on my mons. Heremoves his hand and I twitch violently, panting against his mouth, my wine-laced breath mingling with his.

“Come,” he grunts against my lips.

Before I understand what he means, he lifts me up in a cradle hold and I’m distantly aware of the sound of his warriors — and then everyone in the entire great hall — cheering as he carries me away to the room behind the throne where the chief and Lady Rosalind ordinarily sleep.

I’m clutching his leathers for dear life while he hugs my body high on his chest. He kisses me feverishly, cupping the back of my head. I part my lips, allowing him entry as I pretend that this is real and that he truly wants me, not just another receptacle for his seed as he’s known to take as he passes through all of Wrath’s villages. As I saw tonight, there is no shortage of females available to him.

He bites my bottom lip and a crazed energy compels me to want to match his violence. Or at least, to try. I move my lips around his upper one, nip at it with my teeth and, when he releases a strangled groan and pauses, I stick my tongue into his mouth to taste him like he tasted me.

He breaks our kiss and staggers into Chief Olec’s chambers. He leans heavily on the wooden posts lining the threshold and tilts his face up again to the thatch again. My face is hot with embarrassment that leaves my body in a rush when he pants, “I thought you said you’d never been with a man before.”

“I haven’t, my king. I’ve never even kissed one before. I would not lie to you, I promise.”

He shudders and whispers, “Mercy,” before looking down at me with a startlingly dark expression. Like he’s debating not whether, but how, he intends to kill me. “Then how is it that you feel as if you’ve practiced on a thousand men before with the express intent to learn how to kiss me?” He rubs his thumbroughly across my mouth, punishingly, as he takes another step. “You taste made for me by the gods.”

A warm pressure fills my chest and it is enough to distract me as he sets me down on shaky legs and moves behind me. He pushes me forward and my hands fly out to support myself and catch a support beam in the center of the space. There is a large bed in the nook to my right, a small eating area to my left. There are two more rooms branching off of the eating nook, but I cannot see what they hold as they are covered by drapes.

I glance towards the bed, wondering if I should move towards it, when the king suddenly grabs the back of my dress and yanks hard on it. I gasp and shiver all over at the brush of cool air against my spine and realize in the jerky way he moves that he’s cutting my dress in two. A fleeting despair at the thought of no longer having clothing is replaced when I feel his warm, heavy hand alight on the center of my back.

He makes a choking sound and for a moment, doesn’t move. Doesn’t say more.

“M-my king?” I nervously breathe after a moment has gone by, in which he’s pushed my dress down my arms and then shoved it down over my hips so that I stand facing away from him, hands braced on the beam, naked all over with my clothing pooled at my feet. He must not be pleased with my body…I think, and flush.

His fingers skim my spine and then move back up to the nape of my neck. His hands start to trace patterns and I realize what’s troubling him a moment before he says, “You’ve been beaten?”

I exhale, glad that is all that’s concerning him. I nod.

“With what?”

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