Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine Book 1), page 21
Only the goddess would know now.
The forest clearing became visible through the trees. Bonfires rose toward the sky, ice garlands strung throughout the birch trees I neared. The twirling loops of crystal surrounded what looked to be a large valley, joining the fires to give light to the shadows of moving bodies.
Florian snatched my wrist, keeping me within the woods. “Stop walking away from me.”
“Is that an order, Majesty?” Tearing my hand from his possessive hold, I fluttered my lashes.
“Florian.”
My temper flared. “You stop that because it doesn’t matter what I call you.” I should have been concerned by this newfound ability to let loose such anger after so many years of swallowing every unpleasant feeling I had.
Apparently, I was not as afraid of this war-hungry king as I had been of Rolina.
Definitely stupid, I inwardly scolded.
Florian’s own anger swelled. A blistering breeze that knocked my hair over my shoulders. But he only gritted, “It matters to me.”
I knew he hadn’t wanted to confess those words. And that he did made my ire and jealousy deflate.
He cursed, looking toward the sky as if Mythayla had cursed him even though he’d been the one to instigate all of this.
“Florian,” I said softly, unsure why I was speaking to the monster at all. His eyes lowered, narrowing upon me as if he were on edge and braced for an attack. “You did upset me.”
His features creased, the rare sight melting some of the resolve around my heart.
“I need to feed, Tullia,” he said simply. “And soon, you might too.” He scowled when I remained silent, as though he did not understand my unwillingness to understand him. “There’s no one I wish to fuck but you.”
My darkened lashes tickled my brows as my eyes widened. “How very sweet,” I said dryly, even as my stomach bounced. “But...” I licked my lips, forgetting again they were painted and frowning at the berried taste. “It’s just as intimate, isn’t it? Drinking another’s blood.” The question was genuine and not mocking. I’d read and always assumed it was.
The detachment that once again made his features unreadable, as well as his silence, caused my chest and eyes to burn. I turned and headed for the tree line, and this time, he didn’t stop me.
This heat was rendering me an unrecognizable and emotional mess.
The king caught up with me within two inflamed breaths, his stride unhurried and the warriors lining the woods parting to reveal our destination.
The hand at the small of my back felt more like a brand. A claim over a possession. Not a guiding touch toward the throne upon a wooden podium on the northern edge of the clearing. Beyond it, rippling in the breeze, was a large deep-blue tapestry of the royal insignia—a crimson hellebore flower backed by a gleaming white snowflake.
My skin itched as the revelry quieted to a low hum, and eyes fell upon us like needles poking at thread.
The final beating of a drum echoed through the deafening silence as he paraded me in an unmistakable display of power toward the throne.
A throne that was unlike anything I could have read in a book.
As dark as night, the ancient and curling wood glimmered with diamonds and sapphires reminiscent of icicles. The back of the giant chair arched in sharp spires and rose higher than Florian’s head as he stood before his people.
An endless sea of glowing torches and fire-lit eyes.
The king looked upon them all with a taut chin and shoulders, then seated himself.
My hand was clasped in his. I couldn’t remember when that had happened as I hadn’t known until I was tugged gently onto his lap.
The annual celebration of this wintry kingdom continued with a violent pound of a drum.
Stunned by the sight of so many people looking at me—seeing where their king had placed me—I flinched at the sound, belatedly attempting to close the gap in the leg of my gown and failing.
Florian seized my waist. He turned me until my thighs draped over his and his erection pressed into my hip. “Cease fussing, pet.”
“So I’m a pet again?” I asked, my eyes skirting the crowds of people adorned in blue and white and black. “Lovely.”
Smoke rose from vendor carts at the opposite end of the clearing. The scent of meat and fish and even something sugary sweet traveled upon the air.
Stiffly, I sat and tried to ignore the male whose mere presence soaked up the undivided attention of all those closest to the podium. Painfully aware that they might overhear despite the noise, I whispered between tight lips, “If I am to be queen, then shouldn’t I have my own throne?”
“Then how would I touch you?”
I both shivered and bristled.
His fingers circled idly over the bare skin through the lace flower at my hip. “You’re still displeased with me.”
“I’m not.”
My ass was pinched. I jumped and scowled, glaring at him.
It seemed that was his plan—to gain my full attention. A pleased spark glinted in his dark-blue gaze when I met it with mine. His hand slowly rose from the small of my back. My hair tangled in his fingers, my skin igniting despite my efforts to act unbothered.
He leaned forward, whispering to my cheek, “I’ve not fed since your arrival in Folkyn, and butterfly?” A shaken exhale left me as he murmured roughly to the corner of my mouth, “I’m fucking famished.”
I couldn’t keep my eyes from widening.
His hand reached my nape, his fingers curling and squeezing gently. “So although I adore quarreling with you and the look of molten fury in your eyes, right now, my patience only extends so far.”
Those edged words proved my earlier assumption wrong.
I didn’t need to ask him to convey exactly what he’d meant. He was just as in need, perhaps even more than I was, and he would have to remedy that if I wasn’t careful.
My thawing heart stuttered and drooped as what he’d said before failed to keep from nagging at me. I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop myself from saying, “You fed during the time we were meeting at the Lair of Lust.”
His eyes darkened.
I turned away, my teeth catching my lip. I hadn’t the room to care about the rouge. A red haze blurred my vision and swept through my body to tighten every organ. No matter how much I reminded myself that it didn’t matter.
After what he’d done, it certainly shouldn’t have mattered.
But for some reason, it did.
Florian’s hand caught mine when I rose from his lap. “We need only stay an hour for appearance’s sake. Then we can leave.”
I painted a smile on my face and tugged my hand free. “Then I would like to spend it enjoying the festivities rather than tolerating them and your presence.”
He scowled, a warning within his eyes, but he didn’t stop me from taking the two steps down from the dais to the grass.
Maybe he knew my own patience was at an end, and if I remained, we would cause a scene by continuing to do as he’d warned we shouldn’t—argue until one of us snapped in a way we could not take back.
The thought of humiliating him in front of so many onlookers both thrilled and nauseated me. That awakening part of me, likely tied to the heat, liked the idea of claiming that devious mouth in front of so many far too much.
Though the rest of me knew that to do so would only further suit his plans—and make me and my father’s kingdom appear weak.
Two guards trailed me as I entered the thick throng of faeries. Scents crashed into me and caused my head to swim. Overwhelmed, I bumped into bodies when a female with hooves for feet nearly squashed my slipper-covered toes.
Her features might have been dusted in a light layer of fur, and her eyes that of a bovine, but I didn’t miss the sharp sneer she gave me. Nor that from the cluster of goblins she’d been dancing with.
I could no longer see the warriors but knew they were watching from somewhere. My eyes caught on the twinkling throne I’d steadily moved away from, and I soon realized why the king had let me go.
A female with glowing crimson hair curling around slim shoulders now stood at the side of the podium.
Florian no longer sat on the throne.
I moved out from behind a line of dancing females, wine bouncing from their goblets, to see he’d descended the steps to speak with the red-haired female. She wrung her hands before her, but her smile was wide and bright. I could only see Florian’s broad back and the crown atop the hair he’d tied to his nape, but I could tell from the glow of her face that they were not family.
The king of Hellebore had no living family.
For if he did, I would not be standing here, dazed in a field of faeries.
Needing air, and to keep from marching back to stop the king from standing so close to the creature of whom he was evidently very familiar with for him to leave his royal perch, I made my way to the tree line.
As predicted, the guards had followed.
A lightly muscled male with piercing brown eyes smirked when I neared him. “Looking a little unwell there, Princess.”
The female beside him knocked his arm with her elbow. Her gaze remained steadfast upon the festivities, as if more of Molkan’s spies might emerge and snatch me at any moment. “Don’t, Fellan.”
“Don’t what?” he said, giving the female a feigned look of outrage. “I was only going to tell the princess not to worry, for dear Nalia is merely our king’s only permanent lover.”
He would only be merely screaming when I gave in to the temptation to snatch his dagger from his waist and bury it in his groin.
Shocked and a touch sickened by the flare of my violent temper, I closed my eyes and pleaded with the skies for this ghastly heat to hurry up and end. I couldn’t keep feeling and acting this way.
I couldn’t keep longing for something I couldn’t allow myself to have—especially when all I truly needed was to find the father who’d sent me to the middle lands when I was born.
If nothing else, at least it was now clear that Molkan had been trying to protect me from Florian’s wrath. A forgivable heartbreak, if only I was given the chance to give that forgiveness to him.
I didn’t need Florian and the useless feelings and desires he conjured.
And right now, I just needed Fellan to shut his irksome mouth.
“Decades, I think it was. Wasn’t it, Lorri?”
Lorri sighed. “I honestly don’t care to remember.”
“No, it was.” Fellan went on. “She practically lived with him, Princess. Though I do believe in different rooms, so don’t you worry.”
My teeth met and gritted.
“Oh, the fun they had. Hardly monogamous from what I recall, but they were always together for every wild gathering.” He laughed then. “I had a friend who walked in on one once. Females everywhere, he’d said. An endlessly magical sea of tits, cunts, and ass.”
Lorri had apparently decided she did not wish to hear another goading word. I was tempted to follow her as she walked back toward her king.
Too curious and apparently masochistic for my own good, I stayed. It would help, I thought, to hate him just that little bit more.
“Wish I’d seen it myself, of course.” Fellan tutted and stepped far too close. “If it weren’t for his wildling of a sister and his heartbroken father dying, then I’d wager they’d still be at it.”
I said nothing—wasn’t given the opportunity.
Fellan feigned a forlorn sigh, his hand tightening around the hilt of the blade at his side. “Changed him well and truly, that did. But don’t worry.” He elbowed me hard, and I ignored the impulse to place a hand over my ribs as the sneaky brutality and his words knocked the wind from me. “Looks like they might be on the cusp of a sweet second chance.”
His hoarse laughter stalked me when I finally drew away.
I was so enraged, so distracted by the knots that had replaced my innards, I all but threw myself back into the ever-growing crowds. Bodies crushed and shoved, and I ducked to avoid another blow from an elbow, this time to the head.
My hand was stolen.
Before I could react, a strange male with indigo eyes hauled me close. He grinned, fiendish, then twirled and spun me deeper into the suffocating swarm.
It took me a moment to realize he was dancing with me. That for the first time outside of my room inside of an apartment in the middle lands, I was actually dancing.
And not on my own.
But my awed smile slipped when another male grabbed my hand, and apprehension slowed my feet. His eyes flared a burning sky blue as he pulled me toward his chest and inhaled my hair. “The heat has her,” he said, the words almost groaned.
The male who’d stolen me first pressed his chest to my back. “Are you looking for help with that, Princess?”
“No,” I said, smiling tightly and attempting to push away from them. But they were too much muscle, too tall to see past, and too insistent on persuading me.
“We’ve done it before.”
“Yet to have found a mate from it, either,” the new one said over my hair at my ear. “So we’re not breaking any rules.”
“Who knows...” The other male’s hands clasped my hips. “Perhaps our beloved Mythayla will decide you’ll be our mate.”
Before I could tell them I wasn’t interested in them nor what the goddess might have in store, another male joined us. “Bold,” he said, his dark eyes glinting as he tossed back a goblet of wine. “To be touching the king’s plaything.”
“He’s occupied.” The indigo-eyed male squeezed my waist possessively. “We checked.”
The new arrival who’d been overtly ogling me looked over my head, and his grin spread. “History always repeats itself with those two.”
Jealousy, that insidious poison, stole my breath and burned through my veins.
The males laughed at the expression on my face. The new one took the opportunity to steal my hand and spin me around. “You’re better off with us anyway, Princess.”
Hands seemed to be everywhere all at once, traveling over my hips, arms, palms, and even brushing my thighs and ass. Hard groins were pressed upon me as they held and then spun me between them.
My lungs tightened, dizziness paralyzing.
Firelight and fiddles and drums melded into a storm of song that jumbled my thoughts and unsteadied my feet. But the males didn’t let me fall. They wouldn’t, which was the only reason I refrained from screaming for help. Instead, I played along until a gap opened between them.
I darted through it, the world tilting so much that I almost fell.
A hand caught my upper arm right before my outstretched palms met the grass, then pulled until the disgruntled barking of the males I’d escaped faded.
My back was pushed to a rough surface, my hands reaching behind me and feeling the bark of a tree. Panic receded, even though I could barely see the ice garlands blurring with the darkness. I’d made it to the tree line, away from the crush of groping hands and warm bodies.
Then a cloaked male’s scent infiltrated. A hurried whisper entered my ear.
The hands holding me up released me.
I stumbled, quickly leaning back against the tree to catch my breath—absorbing the words that had been pressed to my ear by the stranger I hadn’t seen.
If you wish to go home, find a way to the city florist on Ashen Street.
I shook my head, my vision still blurry as I held the tree and rounded it. I searched for the group of cruel faeries I’d left, attempting to guess which one had whispered to me while knowing whoever it was hadn’t been with them.
My eyes found Florian’s furious gaze instead.
Even with the distance between us, I could see the anger tightening his features—that stiffened his entire frame.
He stood below the podium. Alone.
Guards approached me, Fellan thankfully not among them.
I swallowed and looked back to the dancing bodies, but the males who’d been toying with me were nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t wait to be caught like a nuisance pet who’d wandered too far. I met the guards halfway. Seeming shocked as I passed them, they then trailed me back to Florian.
As soon as I neared, the king captured my hands, and we materialized to my rooms in the manor.
I wasn’t given time to recover from the journey.
Florian released me and strode to the door.
Disorientated again from materializing, I gripped the bedpost to stay steady on my feet. “You’re angry,” I foolishly croaked, feeling as though I had to say something before he left.
He laughed, the sound cold and hostile. “Angry doesn’t even begin to cover it, Princess.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I’ve never felt more murderous in my entire fucking existence.”
Oh.
Shit.
Guilt and jealousy tangled, causing my mouth to open again when every instinct screamed in warning that it would be safer not to speak at all. “I saw you,” I whispered. “With her.”
He stilled, but only momentarily. He opened the door and entered the hall.
“Florian, wait.” I followed. “Please, I want to talk to you.”
He turned back, effectively backing me into my bed chamber as the fury roiling from him drenched me in a light sweat.
My very flesh trembled. There was nothing I knew within his gaze, within his features and his prowled steps.
Before me loomed a stranger—a male with hatred where his soul once lived. It bled through his eyes, the air growing so cold, I feared it would snow indoors.
He was no longer Florian.
He was now a ruthless king capable of reducing another kingdom to rubble, stone by stone at a time.
“Bad pets do not get what they want.” My next breath sat in my throat when he wrapped his hand around it. My pulse punched at his fingers as he growled to my mouth, “Leave these rooms without my permission, and you’ll earn yourself a lesson on what regret truly means.”
His eyes bored into mine, swirling with a darkness that rendered them almost black. After a moment that brought tears to my eyes, I was released.
The door slammed, snow flurries melting upon the floor.
