Page 29 of The Sacrifice

“For your sake, I sincerely hope you do not bring bad fortune to us.” Mayce smiles and raises his goblet to me, but I’d swear there’s a hint of mockery in the slight curve to one side of his mouth.

How much worse could it possibly get for you? I almost add but clamp my mouth shut to prevent the words from escaping. Not when I know so little of their history and experiences.

All my words and thoughts crumble when Drago grips my hips and pulls me closer, so his erection strains through the fabric of his breeches, stabbing my backside. I hiss wind through my teeth, narrowly avoiding a gasp. His rumbling laugh reverberates into every nerve ending in my body before he says, “Time for dessert.” He directs his attention to two of the servants, one with the deer skull and one with features similar to a cat, and commands, “It will be served in the bathhouse.”

Something in the way Kyan chuckles from across the table has suspicion prickling through me. I throw Drago a look, but all he offers is a smirk. Such dangerous and dark eyes fixating on me, ardent and concentrated, they steal my breath and spiral heat so deep into me, my core seems ready to combust. Without another word, the King rises, sweeps me into his arms in a honeymoon hold, and carries me out of the dining hall. I grow damper with each second.

20

"You taste like every dark and sinful thought I've ever had."

QUINTESSA

One glimpse at the bathhouse, and I’m swooning. Gushing from its eerie beauty.

Decorative columns, arched vaults, and painted landscapes of famous dragons on arcs beautify the stone interior. The dragon skeletons fused into the center columns with countless more masks and skulls nailed to the walls loom over the area, bordering on threatening. From what I know of life in the capital, bathhouses are prime locales for business meetings. If the Waste is similar, the intimidating features make more sense. Set in a pentagonal shape, four rectangular pools surround the centermost one, which mirrors the shape but is situated within a gazebo formed of solid ash. Steam rises from all five pools to curl across the vaulted stone ceiling.

And Drago carries me across the tiles, depicted with more dragon scapes, to that gazebo center. Despite the warmth of the bathhouse, with no torches lit, it’s dark and ominous. Hot, anxious, and restless, my nerves tighten while beads of sweat form on the back of my neck. More from how the Dragon studies me. It’s enough to shake my heart loose from my chest and to set fire to my blood, so it rushes to my face. He smothers all my thoughts, any sense of rational thinking. Not that I’m known for that. I smile at my unashamed hedonism because life is more interesting when you make it up as you go, damn the consequences. I’d rather be brazen and wild, drifting wherever life’s current takes me than plotting a course through carved plans, molded expectations, and societal standards. If that current leads me right to hell, then I’ll go. I’m already close enough.

He steps onto the gazebo foundation until we are close enough to feel the steam drifting onto my skin, dampening it more than my sweat. Savage mercies, his seductive eyes set a fever within me, and my pussy practically screams for him. When I clench again, I wince because it’s still inflamed.

“The pain will fade soon,” he assures me.

I bite my lower lip with a grateful nod. “Practice makes perfect after all.”

“Nothing and no one is perfect, little Tessie. Especially in the Waste.”

Giggling as he sets me on my feet, I touch his slabbed chest and alert him, “Then, I’d suggest you change your track record and prove it.” I flinch from the spark that snaps from my fingers, parting my lips in awe.

What leaves his mouth is halfway between a growl and a purr, and Drago touches his thumb to the center of my chin, staring at me with those fathomless emerald eyes. “If you wish to please me, Tessie, then you will never change your track record.”

My cheeks blaze hotter from his words, and I squeeze my thighs. My breaths turn heavier when the King removes the leather jacket, tugging it down my arms, then unbuttons the tunic. His growl is low and gravelly the more skin he exposes while my breath quickens to steady pants. He makes quick work of the pants, leaving me in nothing but my panties. As he looks upon me, my nipples pebble to attention, and his neck muscles harden, veins bulging. Need stokes flames into his pupils. I hiss in the darkness when he brushes his knuckles across one peaked bud. My inner muscles convulse, and I feel the panties grow wet from my arousal.

“Get in the fucking water now before I lose all control and take you like a damned beast against the column,” the Dragon snarls the command.

Spinning, I scramble into the water, ignoring how its burn lashes my skin, heating it and turning it red. The line of the pool ends above my high breasts, but I take a moment to bend and curve back in the water to soak my hair. It’s been too long since I had a bath. Despite how my blood-binding work paid for our family’s mansion, we only had one bath, and Pater said it was a waste of water if I ever used it. Half-ghost girls with monster magic in their veins don’t need baths.

When I rise from the water, I marvel at all the torches in the bathhouse flickering to life. A second ago, they were cold and bare. I don’t have long to wonder. Drago commandeers my hips, a silent summons for me to turn. I knit my brows low because I can’t see his hands, but they feel larger and coarser, and when I slowly turn, I choke on my shocked breath. My pulse skyrockets at the sight of him.

Two heads taller than he was before, shoulders as strong and hard as boulders, his chest, and torso like the columns around us. I study him as fervently as he studied me earlier, and he gives me time to process his dragon-man form. In the Wailing Woods, it was far too dark, and I was more concerned with stabbing him. Black shimmery scales with that emerald sheen cover his body. Long horns, shaped like scimitars, curve from his temples. And he bears a long and thick dragon muzzle—massive as a log and too wide for me to wrap my hands around. Still, I lift my hand, fingers eager to stroke the scales. His large nostrils puff out smoke, but I don’t flinch. Instead, I close the gap between my hand and his muzzle before I lose my nerve. I gasp from the contact, surprised by how soft the scales are and yet how rigid and thick the skin is. Like layers of fine leather bound so tight and hard. My morbid mind wonders if all of him is like that.

Before I get a chance to roam my eyes downward, the movement behind him catches my eye. Smiling, I peer beyond his side to find a large, thick tail swinging in the water. No sooner do I eye it than Drago wraps that tail around me to cover my back—large and long enough to drape the flesh from my shoulders to my lower thighs.

“Savage mercies!” I squeal from that tail thrusting me closer, so I’m pressed against Drago’s mountainous body. And that’s when I feel his arousal against my lower belly. So hung and heavy, cannot possibly rise. I remember his words from the bedroom, hear his rumbling, dark chuckle, and a hungering ache preys on my body because I can’t deny it: Drago has two monstrous cocks. I whimper when they throb against my mound, stirring my heat all the more.

“How do you feel?” he asks, voice deeper and grittier than ever.

I scrunch my brows, only then realizing how well I do feel. Suspicious, I curve my fingers below the water, slide them over my mound, and plunge them into my folds, awed when I discover no pain or swollenness.

“The water is infused with moon-flowers—ones we’ve smuggled in from the capital," he explains.

“I didn’t know others could pass through the Veil to smuggle anything."

He gives me a toothy grin. “Of course, the Borderlands’ brothers don’t wish you to know of this. Now, enough of your confounding curiosity. I fully intend to introduce you to every inch of two friends who are closest to me. But only after I have you filthy wet and screaming my name like the dirty good girl I know you want to be for me.”

My toes don’t get the chance to curl. I lurch from Drago snatching me from the water as if I weigh little more than the droplets trickling off me. Before I hardly have a chance to blink, he has my back to the nearest column, my legs dangling over his paramount shoulders, and his muzzle sinking toward my center. I gulp, nails curving onto his arms as he explores my feminine heat. Thanks to his dominating strength, the Dragon can bear me with one hand on my buttocks while the other lowers to my folds, where he carefully and tenderly parts them with his claws.

“Oh!” I mewl when that claw trips against my clit.

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