His breath is a chuckle against my skin and he releases my hair. “Then this will be a physiological reaction as well, Malisse ni.” He pauses. “I honor your plea, but I’ve waited too long to deny myself, at the very least, a taste.”
He’s gathering the dress in his hands to raise it so he has access to my body and I edge away from indecision. He hasn't restrained my arms again and I ball my right fist to?—
The air ices. Our gazes clash, a silent battle. My refusal, his enraged need. Eyes on mine, he releases my dress but reclaims my breast instead, an edge of cruelty to his lips.
His grip on flesh is brutal, then a gentle massage, a playful twist of my nipple and I try, Itryto keep the betraying noises from spilling from my throat because no matter how much he's able to manipulate my body into desire, I don't want this.
“I hate you. Every breath I take into my lungs feeds my hatred.”
He twists my nipple, too sharp to be playful. “Tell me so when your honey coats my tongue. Tell me of your hatred then.”
I grab his wrist. “You have noright,Renaud.”
His expression breaks with a snarl, the most. . .alive expression I've seen on his face. “You offered to pay the price,any price,and you were warned repeatedly, Aerinne Faronne.”
The words throw me into a mess of confusion but I remember Nora’s counsel and?—
Protection. Redirect him to protection.
I shove aside distaste and let my knees crumble, let him feel my trembles and he slides arms around my back, holding me up, pulling my body flush against his to brace.
He’s a furnace, and I didn't expect that. Earlier, I also didn't expect the hard musculature under the layers of his robes, a disciplined warrior’s well-trained physique. Which is stupid. He didn’t use magic to decimate me in our fight; it was an old-fashioned fists only brutal beat down.
“Will it be rape then?”
All that lean, hardened muscle goes rigid. “Youdareaccuse me of?—”
“I said no. Do you understand?—”
“Do you think at my age I don’t understand consent, Aerinne?” The words are icy with offense, with another emotion once again I can’t define. Almost like pain, but why would he feel pain? “That I don’t understand the words stop and no? Yes, if I held you down, you would never be strong enough to fight me unless I allowed it. But you are not truly fighting me.”
“That’s an ugly lie. You can make my body feel desire, it doesn’t mean I want you.”
“I condition you now so when I take you to my bed, you will not be as afraid. You will anticipate pleasure and understand that I can control myself enough to keep from injuring you—a valid concern between a halfling and one of my power. This is mercy, not force.”
My mind struggles with his reasoning and the mad, twisted sense it makes from the perspective of a sociopathic demigod. Does it make it better if he believes he's doing this for my own good?
“Then control yourself now. If you want me, you should want me willing. What satisfaction is it for you to take? There’s no challenge in that, Prince. It would destroy me, and any petulant child can smash their doll into pieces. Is that what you want?”
The air swells with his struggle; it’s my same struggle. To give into animal instinct, to yevserra, to lose myself in the mindlessness of savage passion.
I can’t.
I take a deep breath, let it out. He hasn’t moved. He’slistening. “I didn’t expect this tonight,” I say, sorting through my feelings for words that are truth.
Helpless? No, I recoil. I will never be helpless.
Vulnerable. . .closer, but too intimate, almost.
At a disadvantage?
Yes. At a disadvantage and outraged to be so. Never have I faced an unwanted advance—who would even dare? It’s common enough when gaps between the power of individuals are frequent in our society, but I never thought I would fall victim to it.
No, I don’t like that word either.
Subject. I never thought I would be subjected to it. This is how it feels to be truly Low caste. Truly unprotected.
The irony isn’t lost on me that if I give into him, there will be no one else, ever, in this city who will ever dare what he dares again. Play politics and death games, yes, but bedroom games? No. No one will touch even a castoff of the Prince in that manner without permission, for fear he may one day circle back to reclaim what remains his, even if only peripherally. Nora doesn’t have to explain that much to me—I’ve witnessed such dynamics among District elite, and bullies. The principle is the same now.
