Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine Book 1), page 17
Then he stepped back, his eyes on mine as he placed his finger in his mouth and sucked. Unbalanced, I fell to the edge of the bed.
He groaned and stalked to the door. “Good night, pet.”
Another entourage arrived at dawn.
These wagons appeared to be filled with rice and grain and various other treasures I now knew were from Baneberry.
“Will he have the stolen goods disposed of?” I asked Kreed when I went to fetch my breakfast. “Or will he at least make sure they’re not wasted?”
I was no longer interested in eating in the dining room—in pretending that this nightmare was the magical world I’d naively thought it to be.
Kreed did not protest when I grabbed the sugar-and-banana-dusted oats from my breakfast tray and sat on a rickety stool by the door to eat. But he did pause in slicing vegetables as he said carefully, “We live in endless winter, Princess. We waste nothing unless it has been contaminated.”
“Poisoned, you mean?” I questioned. “How can you tell?”
“It’s thoroughly inspected by those the king trusts with the sense for such things before we use any of it.”
The sense for such things.
Briefly, I wondered what other types of magic the Fae of Hellebore possessed that I hadn’t known, and if detecting poisons was something all of us could learn how to do. “And if it is poisoned?”
“Then it’s dumped over the border into Baneberry with the severed heads of whom were involved.”
The oats became glue in my throat. I coughed and forced them down. “They can sense that too?”
Kreed’s voice held a notch of unmistakable pride when he smiled at me over his shoulder and said, “All of us have the ability to hunt, Princess. Some just more so than others.”
He resumed chopping, and I stared at his broad back. “So Florian has been doing this for a long time.” He didn’t need to confirm as much. The weight that now sat in my heart ached. “Years of stealing from a land that is not his.”
Kreed’s tone hardened with his next words. “I do not meddle in the king’s business, and he doesn’t meddle in mine. Some things are better left alone.”
“But you are his cook.”
“Exactly. He trusts me as much as he can trust anyone.”
Interesting. I knocked a piece of banana around in my bowl with my spoon. “How long have you served the Hellebore family?”
“A few decades now,” he said.
Which meant he might’ve also served Florian’s father. Perhaps his sister.
That weight became heavier.
Kreed added, “Though they were too little to be of much use, the king allowed my sons to stay and work here when their mother passed on five years ago.”
This cook had the king’s favor indeed.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, although it seemed as if he’d been estranged from their mother.
He nodded once but said nothing else.
I ate some more, mulling over all he’d said for a minute. “Why take Baneberry’s food and valuables?”
Kreed swiped carrots out of the way and snatched a potato with a sigh. “Their king has committed egregious wrongs.”
“My father,” I said, the words so mystically foreign they evoked a slight flutter in my chest. Regardless of what he’d supposedly done.
Kreed huffed, but said, “He seldom tries to stop us, and he’ll continue to lose the respect of his people by failing to engage with Florian besides that of defense.”
I frowned. “But why wouldn’t he engage?”
“Because he knows he won’t win, and no king nor queen of faerie wishes to be humiliated in such a way. Pride, of course.”
So Florian intended to force my father’s hand. For if picking at every thread to King Molkan’s pride, including wedding me, failed to encourage his surrender or retaliation, then Florian planned to do as he’d told me.
He would march upon Baneberry. He would take everything.
This soon-to-be husband of mine was growing more and more monstrous by the hour.
I kept those thoughts to myself, knowing to voice them would be futile.
Apparently, my stewing silence spoke volumes. Kreed turned and crossed his giant arms over his chest. Abundantly blessed with handsome features and muscle that pushed at the blue stitching of his tunic sleeves, he was not what I would expect to find hiding underground and cooking for a royal household.
“You hate him,” he stated.
I almost laughed. “Whatever do you mean?”
His lips twitched. “Just...” He scratched at his clean-shaven cheek. “Be mindful of where you stomp.” A look cast to the stairs beside me had me setting the spoon in my bowl. Kreed gave his brown gaze back to me. “A creature who has lost everything fears nothing, Princess.”
I refrained from wincing—at what he’d said about Florian and the ill-fitting title.
“Please don’t call me that.” Not only did it not sit right, but it reminded me of what I was to Florian. Another toy in this game he played with my father.
Kreed frowned. “You truly knew nothing about yourself?”
“Nothing.” I hopped down from the stool and scraped my leftovers into the compost. “And after wasting all these years wanting answers, I should have just left it that way.”
The twins barreled down the stairs as I set my bowl by the sink. Olin followed, muttering words I didn’t catch at their backs.
The steward glared at Kreed with a flaring of his nostrils. “Your spawn were annoying the newest and youngest member of our staff.”
Kreed hid a smirk behind his hand as he rubbed his mouth. He crossed the room and waved Thistle and Arryn on. “Get washed up and start on lunch.” He then looked at Olin and asked, “Annoying?”
“The poor thing was red in the face and hiding behind the mountain of bedding she was attempting to take to the washrooms.”
Kreed snorted. “I see.”
Olin shifted his weight to his other foot, his attention unmoving from the cook.
Tension warmed the already stuffy kitchen, and though Olin hadn’t so much as glanced my way, I had a growing feeling that I should quietly excuse myself.
I smiled my thanks at Kreed, then climbed the steps right as Olin hissed, “You’re conversing with the swine’s daughter?”
“She’s hardly his daughter when she’s never even met the asshole, Ol.”
“That doesn’t make what she is any less real.”
Kreed cursed. “She’s young, harmless, and just trying to understand all of this. Sharing a few words with her won’t hurt anyone.”
The softer and lower tone of Kreed’s voice, as well as the way he’d addressed the steward, had me pinching my lips together as I leaned back against the wall atop the stairs.
Olin’s response was snide. “Providing you don’t keep it a secret from Florian, of course.”
“Must you make everything I do a fucking crime?”
“It’s not my fault you’re as trustworthy as a fox in a henhouse.” Olin’s steps sounded below, and I ducked into the hall.
Zayla frowned and straightened from the wall. “What have you done now?”
“Nothing,” I said, smiling. Then shrugged. “Just a little eavesdropping.”
Olin grumbled something behind us as he exited the stairwell. When he passed, he said sharply, “Your beast has soiled the carpet. Take it outside before I have its head removed and hung above a mantel and her pelt made into a cushion for my feet.”
Zayla watched Olin head into the foyer and out the doors, murmuring, “Well, he’s certainly more surly than usual.”
“He found me talking with Kreed.”
She nodded, as if that made perfect sense, then whistled slightly.
I was tempted to ask her about it, but I had enough plaguing my mind. Not to mention a lovely mess to clean up.
Dinner was eaten in the kitchen while Kreed cleaned in a tense silence I assumed had nothing to do with me.
I wasn’t hungry. Food wouldn’t help to alleviate the tension in my head and muscles. The aches unsettling my flesh and bones. I ate what I could anyway, knowing I needed to and not wishing to offend Kreed.
Upon returning to my quarters, I found them empty of my wolf.
“Snow?” I called, inspecting the bathing and dressing chambers.
About to charge out into the hall and back downstairs in search of ghastly Olin, I stopped dead in my tracks.
The door connecting my rooms to the king’s was wide open.
Beyond it was a dark and narrow hall squashed between his bathing and dressing room.
He’d taken her as bait. Yet I still walked toward the dim light of his bedchamber. To get her back, I had to, and I’d grown fond of having her comforting weight at my feet while I lost sleep in this manor filled with serpents.
Florian sat shirtless on his bed with a glass of whiskey in hand. My wolf dozed at his side, the novel he’d evidently stolen from my nightstand in his lap.
“I see what you mean,” he said by way of greeting. “Though the descriptions do leave a lot to be desired.”
Snow’s ears pricked when I told her to come with me, but otherwise, she didn’t move at all.
Traitor.
Florian smirked and ran a long finger over Snow’s head. “She would make a lovely—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
His eyes flashed. “Pet.”
I gritted my teeth, growling as I spun to leave.
His chuckle quickened my heartbeat. “I do not intend to harm your wolf, butterfly, or she would already be dead.” There was a pause, then threateningly soft, “Come to me.”
The command lashed at my skin with caressing fingers. My own curled into my palms, temptation mixing with hatred and a myriad of other warm and cold feelings. It should not be a hard thing, ignoring this king after learning his true motives.
Yet it was.
Even without the needy changes occurring within my body, it was nearly painful to ignore a being so overflowing with wretched power. A being with a presence so commanding, it had rendered me submissive from the moment I’d first laid eyes on him.
It went beyond mere attraction.
The sound of his voice stirred more than the acute and growing want inside me. Florian Hellebore evoked a violent blend of hunger and curiosity. An unquenchable need to get as close as possible and burrow deep beneath his skin.
But surrendering would only give him what he wanted.
And I was now all too aware that his wants were not the same as my own, and that he’d tricked me with honest lies.
Kreed’s earlier warning lingered. But it couldn’t stop me from saying, “I’d rather not.”
Though the words had been more gentle than I’d intended, they still created a silence that felt like a heartbeat thudding closer to my back.
The heat of his gaze was a winter breeze, and I swore some of my hair shifted over my shoulder before he made a sound of amusement. “Your little games of disobedience,” Florian said, and my skin grew taut over my flesh, “are good for nothing more than exciting me.”
I shouldn’t have, but I’d already done so many things I shouldn’t have, so I turned and said, “You only say that so I will stop disrespecting you.”
A thick brow arched, his eyes darkening as I stepped closer to the bed he lounged upon as though it were a divan.
As if the growing tension in the room rankled, or she could sense what was about to happen before we could, Snow stalked back into my chambers via the door I’d left open.
Florian placed the book upon the bed, carefully and with his gaze moving from mine to the erection pressing into his loose cotton pants.
My stomach swirled, my eyes unfastening from the truth he’d shown me and roaming up his stomach. They took their time, counting his abdominals as I imagined what it might feel like to touch every muscled and defined inch of his bare torso.
He noticed. He noticed everything.
Rather than allow the embarrassment to creep up my neck to my cheeks, I forced a small smile and swayed closer to the edge of the bed.
He might affect me. That much I could never deny.
But that didn’t mean I would do as he expected—flee from him with my cheeks heated and my heart thrashing through my limbs.
The only tell that he was surprised as I climbed onto his bed at his feet was the slight narrowing of those moonlit eyes.
Crawling between his knees, I prayed to the goddess he wouldn’t hear the fear in my thundering heart, and said, “I’m afraid I do not understand what you’re talking about.”
“To be expected.” He sipped his drink, then set it on the nightstand without taking his eyes off me. “As you are very much a hands-on learner, aren’t you, sweet pet?”
My teeth met, even as thorny heat dropped to my core.
The challenge in his eyes said that no matter what I decided—if I stayed or if I stormed back into my rooms—he would win.
Regardless, I wouldn’t back down now. I couldn’t.
And not one part of me wanted to when I kept my eyes on his and dragged a fingertip over the waistband of his night pants. His breath hitched, his giant body instantly tensing.
My head spun with the knowledge that just one touch could elicit such a response in this arrogant and cruel creature. “Are you going to teach me, then?” I whispered with a smile and pushed that fingertip under the elastic of his waistband. “Majesty.”
His skin was shockingly hot for a male with winter running through his veins.
“Of course,” he said, voice thick. “Nothing has ever given me more satisfaction.”
The air in the room became stifling. The flames in the sconces and fireplace guttered as the king regarded me with cool amusement that failed to hide the twitch to his jaw and the erection just a breath away from my hand.
Dipping lower, I encountered coarse hairs.
My stomach shook, and I sat back on my knees to tuck both hands into his waistband. Distracted by his warm and toned hips, I traced them, and gooseflesh arose.
Interesting, I thought. That a male as unstoppable as he would allow himself to produce such reactions.
“I half expected you to be an unresponsive statue,” I admitted.
Low and humor-loaded, he asked, “Disappointed?”
He knew I wasn’t. In response, I drew in a breath and tugged his pants to his thighs.
And almost flew backward off the bed when his cock bounced free right before my nose.
His laughter was a volcanic eruption that sent fire straight to my cheeks.
The heat melted quickly and settled into my chest as I gazed upon him in helpless wonder.
It was akin to cracking marble, the way that uninhibited sound transformed his cruel beauty into a hypnotic work of art. His cheeks rose high and tinged with color, his eyes ever so slightly creased and ashine.
He calmed, noting my fixation, and I found myself already missing the deep and throaty song I knew I’d never forget. “You are far more beautiful than you deserve to be,” I said with both awe and irritation.
Sobered completely, the king chewed the tip of his thumb as he surveyed me with some of that foreign light still lingering in his eyes. “One could say the same about you, Princess.”
The reminder of who we both were, of what I truly was to him, fell between us and chased all warmth from the room.
I ignored the bite of hatred that had me thinking of leaving and kept my eyes on his as I wrapped a hand around his cock. He jerked, almost imperceptibly.
His very thick cock, I realized, the heft and smoothness of him widening my eyes.
Florian bit into his thumb, smirking. My blood whooshed in my ears.
Needing to, I dropped my gaze before I did something more ludicrous than I already was, such as crawling over his body to kiss that smirk from his undeservingly handsome face.
Of course, lowering my eyes brought my attention to the heat pulsing in my hand.
He was long and large, which I’d already guessed from having him pressed against me, but nothing I imagined could have prepared me for the thick stone wrapped in soft skin.
Fascination warred with intimidation as I stroked my thumb over the vein beneath his shaft, from the engorged head right down to the base.
He groaned, the rumble spurring me to explore more with my fingers. Holding him at the base, I used my other hand to brush at the wetness leaking from the tip.
He shuddered, rising onto his elbows.
I paused, knowing I was doing this all wrong, and met his eyes. They were half-mast, his chest rising and falling heavily. His order rasped. “Keep going.”
Emboldened that he seemed to like my curious fingers, I did—until a sharp curse left him and he tucked the hair that curtained my face behind my ear. “Do you want to put my cock in your pretty mouth, butterfly?”
I blinked up at him, hating how the action likely conveyed my vulnerability and uncertainty. “I don’t know what to do.”
His fingers swept across my cheek to my jaw, pausing at my mouth. His thumb pulled at my lower lip, then caressed it. “Believe me when I say you cannot disappoint me.” He eased back down, but kept his eyes on me, shockingly earnest as he said, “I will not force you. Only do it if you truly want to.”
I looked at his cock, still snug in my hand, and moved back a little.
Again, I rubbed that vein with my thumb. I wanted to. He knew I wanted to. And as the fear of not knowing how to please him faded from his reassurance, I gave in and lowered to the reddened head.
My lips parted and skimmed the salty bead of desire. I licked his taste from my mouth.
Florian groaned, “Fuck.” His hips bucked beneath me.
I licked him, then ran my tongue down the long length. As I traced that vein I was growing obsessed with, my body continued to warm rapidly with hunger.
I wanted more. Everything.
But when I slid my tongue back up his length to see how much of him I could fit into my mouth, I released him halfway down his shaft with a moan and wet pop.
Then I climbed off his bed while wiping at my lower lip.
