Lilac gasped against his mouth in breathy surprise and did it again, losing all sense of her own safety; she straddled him and ground herself over his trousers, cutting herself and kissing, rubbing her clit with one hand until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
Her fingers found his waistband and yanked it down, freeing his cock. Garin’s teeth and ears were not the only things that had transformed.
Mine,his voice echoed in her mind again, this time taunting.
“Let me rule,” she whispered, crawling back, taking his thickened head into her mouth. She choked, dribbling down it.
Garin cussed, his head lolling back. “Fuck, Eleanor,” he panted. “That feels so good.”
“Let me do this,” she repeated determinedly, working him from base to tip, coating it in her saliva. She willed her lust to win out over the fragment of hope that seemed to carve its way into her throat. “We can do it together, can’t we? Without Maximilian. King Henry will send us his horses. I’ve sent him?—”
“I know you have,” he said tightly. His smile grew at the triumph that faded from her eyes. “I sent John on his way and instructed him to follow your orders. To deliver your request your way.”
Garin propped himself up on her pillows to watch her rise, then slide onto him slowly. Lilac’s breath hitched at his size probing at her cunt. Politely, he said nothing; his apprehensive grin grew teasing when she barely held back a shuddering moan.
Mine, came the voice again as he filled her. Louder. Somehow closer.
That delectable throat is mine. Your unbelievable body. Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine, for all of eternity.
Lilac winced and straddled him, eliciting a low hiss from deep within Garin’s chest. She reached up and placed her hand around the curve of Garin’s throat, tightening her fingers around the sides. His smile only widened as she stretched herself slowly around him. “Then, ask.”
Something like warning flashed across his features, his jaw clenching through his glorious grin of fangs.
“If I am to be yours,” she managed, moaning around the throbbing swell of his cock. “It isyourname I shall bear. Not his.” She rose, then sank, stifling a whimper. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Something broke in him at the same time her will splintered. Lilac leaned back, her hand sweeping against the crumpled duvet for the key to undo his shackles, desperate to feel his claws against her flesh.
But Garin yanked his hands free—snapping them in a single movement—and molded them around her hips. He shifted his feet and plunged himselfupand into her, causing Lilac to fall against him.
His fingers traveled up her back, shredding her nightgown completely down the middle.
Garin’s mouth found her breast without effort; his tongue flicked against her nipple, sucking and teasing. She writhed against him, alarmed at the brush of his fangs against her tender breast, but he only shifted her, biting into the curve of it and moaning against her burning flesh.
It stung badly, but she only leaned into him.
He gulped deeply, thrice—lashed the gash with his tongue—then lifted his head from her bosom.
“Don’t you understand, Eleanor?” he growled into her ear, each painstakingly slow thrust punctuated with restrained fury, his nails biting into the silk over her thighs. “You could wear the crowns of dozens of empires, take kings to your bed and birth entire dynasties, and still—still—I would bleed for you. Nothing you do, no one you fuck, no child your bear nor no kingdom you lead could unravel what you’ve sewn into me.”
Relieved, heartbroken tears began to spill at his words—and his enormous cock stretching her. Her breath hitched, her hair sticking to her face, nails digging into his shoulders to pull him closer. Deeper. She wanted him to fill her andfillher.
Garin didn’t stop.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he rasped, the request both an oath and a curse. He looked up at her, his own eyes filled with a weighted grief and self-disgust. “Even if it shouldn’t be true—should never be uttered outside this room. Even if it damns us both. Please, tell me.”
“Yours,” Lilac managed, savoring his long strokes, his arms around her. She was exactly where she wanted to be. “I’m?—”
There was no warning—Garin snarled under her and sheathed himself deep, cussing into and kissing her collarbone; at the same time, Lilac came over him, her body convulsing, clenching, pressing in sweat and heat and remnants of soot against his bare, chiseled form.
She collapsed over him, and he pulled her in close, his claws threading her hair.
“I may belong to the kingdom,” she breathed into his chest. “To anemperor, even. But the parts of myself I squander and hold close. I want more than anything to share them with you, Garin.”
