I’m not.
He manacles my upper arm and forces me down a row of shelving. The instant we’re out of sight, he pins me to the stacks. Ridges of unyielding wood bite stripes of pain across my back. His good hand rises to my throat.
I swallow. My knees weaken. He’s so close I can make out the striations of dark blue and gold in his gray irises, despite the low light.
“Whatever game you’re playing, Princess, stop now. You won’t win.”
Need pulses low in my abdomen. I squirm, but there’s no escaping his unyielding hold. I bring my hand to his wrist and clasp the back of his gloved hand. His index finger brushes my lower lip.
I bite down, hard.
White leather tastes of polish and has the texture of overcooked meat. Killian growls and pins me to the shelf hard enough to knock books to the floor. His mouth crashes down on mine, and he notches himself expertly between my thighs, the layers of skirts and jackets and pants proving to be no barrier to his hard shaft rocking against my intimate parts.
I moan and tug his hair at the roots.
Just as abruptly as it started, he releases me and turns away.
16
Killian
I’ve lost my mind.
One taste of her will never be enough. Briar knows exactly what she’s doing, and now she knows I’m susceptible to her misbehavior.
If I were to put her over my knee and spank her bottom red, she’d deserve it. A thought that does nothing to diminish the raging erection I now must contend with.
Briar’s determined to be the opposite of useful in this regard. She pulls herself upright, her petal-soft skin flushed pink, lips parted and glossy from the bruising kiss I gave her as punishment for her antics, not that it worked.
We both turn away from one another when a scribe’s shadow darkens one end of the row.
“Is everything alright, Your Highness?”
“Yes, everything’s fine,” she says, bending to gather the fallen books. “I was clumsy and knocked them off the shelf. I hope they aren’t damaged.”
The scribe hastens over. “Allow me, Princess. No matter how often we dust, books simply seem to collect it. I don’t want to get your dress dirty.”
Briar smiles sweetly and expresses her thanks. The scribe, a bald man whose sole experience with sex is probably his own wrinkled right hand, beams at her. I cannot believe how easily people fall under her spell. She is, undoubtedly, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever beheld, but I never realized how much power there is in beauty.
No wonder Alistair covets her.
No wonder every man does.
I examine the row of tiny, even teeth marks on my once-perfect white glove. She fucking bit me. Hard enough to hurt, but the pain was a jolt straight to my dick. And then she moaned under my kiss like she wanted to swallow me whole.
I glance at the ornate clock and do a quick calculation in my head. Sixty-four hours left until I’m free of her forever. Less than three days before I have my own castle, where I can lock myself away and sulk about the fact that Alistair has what I want.
Or I can say fuck the castle, and fuck the princess instead.
Damn everything. I might have finally met a challenge I can’t conquer.
I’d be publicly quartered, beheaded, and my cock stuffed in my mouth for treason if I laid a hand on her. Alistair would feed my corpse to the very monsters I once hunted. Even if she did want to run away with me—and that’s not at all certain—where would we go? To Isanthia, the homeland she’s barred from on pain of death? Beg mercy from the fae?
Neither place seems likely to welcome us, especially not with Alistair’s army hard on our heels. He’d chase after her. He wouldn’t rest until he dragged her back here and married her. He is that obsessed with the legendary Sleeping Beauty, and it’s twisting him into a beast.
Just as it’s doing to me.
Absently, I rub the scar through my sleeve. It writhes whenever she touches me, like a living thing beneath my skin.
