Page 67 of Our Vicious Oaths
He held on to her hips, firmly keeping her seated atop him. “Where are you going, wife?”
“Stop calling me that,” she demanded.
“It’s what you’ve become, isn’t it?” Malachi murmured.
“Not in any genuine way.”
“You didn’t put up much of a fight against it when we were fucking.”
“Because it was simply that—fucking. A fantasy.”
“Does thisfeellike a fantasy?” he said, pumping once, his still-hard dick pushing into her.
She hissed as his silky yet callused hands roamed from her hips to her ass, cupping it like he owned it. Like he owned her. She scowled at the way heat bloomed low in her core and at the memory of her expressing such moments ago. But again, it wasa fantasy. And those words had been fueled by her coming so hard multiple times that it’d left her delirious. She wasn’t this male’s possession or anything else.
“But let’s get back tonot in any genuine way. That comment is precisely why we need to hash a few things out,” Malachi rumbled. “Did you miss the vows we exchanged, the blood we exchanged, my future child growing in your womb?”
She gawked. He’d lost his entire mind; it was the sole explanation. Unless … She fingered the Marking on his throat. Yashira had warned her the wretched things caused odd behaviors. “I think this ill-advised sex play we keep undertaking is muddling your brain.”
Malachi arched an imperious eyebrow. It was a small act that she was starting to enjoy being on the receiving end of. His brow’s lofty curve along with the menacing smile that graced his lips when he was being exceedingly arrogant combined in an effect that made this male tantalizing. Malachi oozed an ominous yet stately beauty that she didn’t ever think she’d have her fill of looking upon. Her eyes skimmed down sculpted muscles that comprised his chest and abs and then lower to the place where they were still joined together. She dug her nails into his shoulders and bit down on her lips to keep from moaning when he shifted inside of her. The low self-satisfied chuckle that was all male made her glower at him. The deep slow thrusts—one after another after another—that followed it wiped the glower. They nearly made her choke on her tongue. She didn’t know what her face looked like just then, but she was certain it was twisted in some form of ecstasy. She lost the battle and moaned. His eyes dancing with victory was the only thing that cut through the rapture that was hauling her back under the spell of Malachi’s admittedly amazing dick. It took every ounce of willpower shehad, but she managed to tell him, “Stop, so we can have a real conversation.”
The mind-blowing way he was working her over ceased, regrettably, at once. However, it was a necessity. And when she went to climb off him, he let her this time. But he didn’t allow her to go far. He snaked an arm around her hip as soon as she’d slid onto the bed beside him and pulled her against his side. He turned so he faced her, throwing one of his deliciously corded thighs over her legs, trapping her in a different way. His dark brown eyes bore into her almost as intensely as they’d done during their wedding. “Weren’t you just trying to run away from talking? Now you’re demanding that it occurs,wife?” he asked with mirth.
There was that unnerving word again. She decided to ignore it for the time being, so she could address a matter of greater significance. Besides, she was certain Malachi only kept calling her that for the same reason he’d called herprincessbefore,which was to needle her. He clearly got off on getting under her skin. That’d been the nature of their relationship from the start.
“Yes, I am insisting we talk now,” she said, not deigning to give an explanation for her abrupt shift. She looked pointedly at Malachi’s Marking but kept her hands to herself, since touching it so plainly made him incorrigible. “Our Markings are making you—the both of us, actually—not think clearly at times,” she said. “I was a hairsbreadth away from begging you to fuck me during the ceremony and there’s no way I should’ve ended up in your bed again after it. This”—she wildly motioned to the bed—“isn’t a smart place for me to be, given everything. And you certainly don’t truly feel any of what your statements about the vows and blood exchange and the babe I’ll eventually birth hinted at. This dance we’ve been doing began as politicalmaneuverings, and whatever you and I are at this moment and will become in the future are still precisely that. So, as I said, the Markings are screwing with our minds. If we see that clearly, then we can work to mitigate their effects moving forward for the benefit of us both.”
“You speak of the future as if you envision me remaining alive long after Rishaud is dead. But you intend to kill me afterward, do you not, love?” Somehow, Malachi’s thumb had found her Marking during his question, and he was tracing maddening circles over the spot. She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood, using the pain to hold back any treacherous shivers.
She raised her chin. “Isn’t that what you would’ve ultimately intended for me if not for the inconvenience of me carrying your child and heir at present? But what happens on your part after I’ve given birth to the babe? Don’t pretend you meant for me to live past my usefulness either.”
She didn’t know if it was to Malachi’s credit or further evidence of how much of a bastard he was that he didn’t deny the charge. “What I aim and do not aim to do moving forward have changed,” he simply said.
She scoffed. “I am many things. A dick-enthralled fool is not one of them. I can and will continue to see thingspragmaticallybeyond good sex.”
Malachi grunted as if she’d slipped a dagger between his ribs. “You referring to my dick as merelygoodis an egregious offense against the crown.”
She barked out a laugh before she could help herself. “You’re insufferable,” she let him know. She meant to slap his arm to stress the point, but when her hand made contact with the smooth, tantalizing dark brown flesh, her fingers curled aroundhis massive bicep on their own accord. When the image flashed before her eyes of her clinging onto his biceps while he drove into her, she knew that the Marking was definitely jacking with her mind as much as his. Why, in all the skies, would she go there given their current topic of conversation was their future plans to kill each other? She blinked to scatter the image before her body reacted and encouraged Malachi to action.Focus, she scolded herself. She cleared her throat, then restated, “Our Markings, as I was saying, they—”
“Play only a nominal part in what’s evolved between us,” Malachi said emphatically. “They don’t make sentiments manifest that aren’t already brewing to begin with. Which is why the matter of most importance, Kadeesha, is your plan to kill me. How do you mean to go about it?”
Before she could answer—or deflect, rather—she found herself yelping when he lifted her without warning, rolled on his back, and positioned her so she straddled him once more. “Will you be riding my cock in the near future,” he murmured, rocking against her core, “and plunge a dagger into my heart and then take my head?” He flipped them again. She landed on her back with a grunt as Malachi’s delicious weight pressed her body into the bed. He dragged his nose along the column of her throat, leaving a blazing trail from the bottom tip of her ear to her collarbone. Her nipples painfully hardened when he nibbled her Marking. “Or do you plan to be beneath me and sink your teeth into my vein and bleed me dry in order to incapacitate me?” he asked against her throat. His hands hooked behind her knees and pushed her legs up and outward. He settled them around his waist, her heels resting against the tight globes of his ass. “Or will you burn me alive while I’m lost to the ecstasy ofbeing between your lush thighs? Any of those three ways seems like a fantastic way to die. However, I’d be partial to the latter, if you care to know.” He splayed his left hand beside her head and his right hand collected hers. He laced their fingers together and lifted her hand to his chest. He let her go only to collect her wrist in an iron grip and hold her splayed hand to the skin that covered his heart.
“Whatever you intend, do it now,” he said, angling his head so he bared his throat completely to her. “Incinerate me. Tear out my jugular. Pierce my heart. Take my head. Do what you will, wife. You’ll get no resistance from me.”
Aether flames sparked at her fingertips and rippled along the digits. She didn’t truly burn Malachi, who’d certainly gone mad … yet. For now, she only let the heat lick mildly against his skin as she said, “Obviously, you’d put up a fight. You’re not the sort to allow anyone to strike at you without attacking back. I’m not falling for whatever mindfuck this is. Nor will you cow me by laying out what youthinkyou know of my designs.”
“Of all the fae that populate the realm, do you know how many I actually believe possess enough cunning, raw magical strength or brute strength to quite possibly kill me if they set their minds to it?” he asked instead of responding to her statement. “My auntie Nychelle, my cousin Trystin, each member of my Cadre … and you, Kadeesha. That’s the mark by which I consider someone a true equal and worthy ally. Nychelle and Trystin are both shrewd enough to have a good shot at taking me out if they sought my crown for themselves. My Cadre, they run the gamut. But nobody except you, my lovely wife, possesses all three attributes. Therefore, before you decide irrevocably that we will eventually clash to the death, I’d like to offerup a different future for us and hand you proof that my words are genuine.”
“Why are we even playing this hypothetical game?”
“Because you and I both know it’s not so hypothetical. But,” he said, holding up a hand to cut off her protest, “if you insist on it being moot, so be it.Indulgeme, then.”
She said nothing, and he took that as a sign to continue.
“In the future I offer, you could be my wife, my high queen, in more than a transient or surface-level capacity. After I’ve killed Rishaud, I would ask that you truly rule beside me as the high queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Truly bear and then raise our heir beside me as high queen.”
She … Well, she didn’t know what to say. Hecouldn’tbe earnest; there was no way. “I thought you’d go about things in a craftier way than this,” she at last said. “If you think so highly of my competencies, why do you imagine I’d fall for such a simple trap?” she countered. And the more she weighed it, the more insulted she became.
