Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine Book 1), page 7
The temperature in the room dropped, the air rapidly frosting.
“Until next time, butterfly.”
Right before my eyes, the king disappeared, leaving me staring at the melting wisps of flurries he’d left in his wake.
Gane’s features creased and bulged continuously with shock and horror.
I’d have found it comical if it weren’t for the fact I hadn’t told him everything. The goblin would have likely fallen from his perch behind the desk if so.
If I’d told him that not only was I indebted to Madam Morin but I was also meeting and playing dangerous games with a king.
“The Lair of...” The goblin shook his head and growled, “You are but an infant in such matters.”
“I’ve reached full maturity.”
“Just,” he spat. “And you’ve barely scraped the surface of what that truly means, Flea. You know what awaits you. It could begin at any moment—”
I raised a hand, stopping him.
Indeed, I knew what would befall me during the months following my twentieth year of existence. The heat. I wouldn’t have him speak of it to me. This conversation was mortifying enough.
“Gane, I’ll be okay.” I lifted a shoulder. “My client isn’t too bad, and he’s the only one I’m seeing.” I refrained from making a face after saying those words.
“Too bad?” Gane sputtered.
The king was as cold as the frigid room he’d left me in the evening prior.
I hadn’t heard from Madam Morin since, nor had I received a sparrow from Florian. After what I’d admitted to him, I half feared I wouldn’t, and that maybe he’d decided, despite whatever he’d wanted from me, I wasn’t worth the trouble.
The other half was terrified of the impossible—that the winter king might actually consider helping me.
It was all I wanted. All I’d dreamed of for endless nights.
And perhaps, I thought as I recalled Florian’s drugging curiosity of me, it would be my doom.
I shivered.
Gane frowned. “Flea, I urge you to speak with the madam and come to another arrangement.”
“What other arrangement could we possibly conjure?” I nearly laughed as I said, “Should I offer to clean the pleasure house instead?”
Actually, that was not such a bad idea.
Gane agreed, his cheeks red with outrage. “Yes. Something exactly like that. The creatures who visit that Lair are not looking to court and befriend you.” He sighed and lowered his voice. “Some might even hurt you.”
Florian’s warning returned.
No one’s intentions for you are more wicked than my own.
“It’s too late. I’m making good coin,” I said, uneasy and desperate to keep it from showing. “Good enough to be free of Madam Morin in no time.” I straightened from where I’d been leaning against his desk. “I know what I’m doing.”
The anger in Gane’s dark eyes was soon replaced with sadness. “Flea, you have no idea what you’re doing. You’ve lived your entire life inside of books and this rotting building, and your naivety will land you in disaster.”
He was likely right, but I had nothing else. All I had was this slowly opening doorway to everything I’d ever wanted.
Even if it might cost me more than I could have ever imagined.
The sparrow came mere hours after I left the library.
In nothing but a towel, I padded across the apartment to where the bird ceaselessly tapped against the kitchen window. It chirped when I pushed open the glass, and as I reached for the note, rubbed its blue-feathered cheek against my finger.
I smiled in wonder as the sparrow took flight, but then quickly collected the tiny roll of parchment before it was lost to the soapy water in the kitchen sink.
The note was the same as the first.
With little else to do besides try and fail to read, I arrived at room twelve an hour before the scheduled meet time of midnight.
I’d dressed simply in a gown of my own. A sky-blue cotton tunic that cinched at the waist and dropped to my ankles. The flowing sleeves gathered at the wrists, and the neckline dipped right above my breasts. It was worn but lovely, and it would do.
Even so, I fidgeted and paced, worrying if I had time to change into something better. Something more seductive. Then I took a seat upon the end of the bed and finger-combed my hair. I hadn’t touched it after washing it.
I wasn’t sure what had possessed me to present myself in such a bland way. Impatience, maybe. Perhaps it was because I’d barely been touched at all during our last meeting after I’d gone to some effort to seduce.
I knew too little of such things, so if I were to be embarrassed again, it would not be because I’d tried to be someone I wasn’t.
Someone I perhaps wanted to one day be.
The air stilled then changed as the king materialized.
Warmth spread throughout the room, followed by blistering cold. More of those small flurries danced and melted upon touching the floor as the king appeared wreathed in fading midnight tendrils of shadow. He wore a tight, long-sleeved black tunic with similar armor-lined pants and matching knee-high boots.
He looked as though he’d just left a battlefield, though not a trace or scent of blood could be detected.
Every impressive inch of his enormous physique was outlined. Every inch of him dangerous in a way I’d already known but had perhaps failed to wholly realize.
Amusement sparked within his eyes as he surveyed my expression.
I closed my mouth and averted my gaze to my bare feet. I’d kicked my slippers off before perching upon the end of the bed.
“No curtsy this time?” Panic had me ready to spring to my feet until the king said, “Don’t bother. I like you where you are.” Three long strides brought him within touching distance, and touch he did. He tipped up my chin until I met his eyes with mine. “Ready and waiting for me.”
I blinked, without words.
His lips parted as he stared. “I dreamed of you,” he murmured as if unwillingly. “It has been a long time since I’ve dreamed of anything.”
“Truly?” I heard myself ask. I couldn’t imagine merely sleeping when dreams were all that had kept me floating from one day to the next.
“Well...” His luscious mouth tilted. “Not of anything sweet, at least.”
His admission created a strange twinge within my chest. “I’ve thought of you,” I said, thinking it only fair to give him something in return.
“I expect you have.” His touch fell away, leaving a crisp burn. “Been wondering over my answer to your request?”
I frowned. “That’s not what I—”
“Trust I will not leave without giving you one, but first...” He yanked at the sleeve of my gown. “What is this?”
“A gown.”
“It is a tent to hide within.”
He wasn’t entirely wrong, but annoyance still flared. “No one is telling you to wear it.” My eyes widened at my foolish audacity.
Florian stilled, as did my heart.
It pounded hard when he unleashed a devious grin. “My, you’re something else when a little riled, sweetling.” His humor died as rapidly as it came. “Take it off.”
Though I would have loved nothing more than to see what he had planned for me, my annoyance refused to budge. “And if I don’t want to?”
“Then you do not have to.” He turned for the divan. “We will conduct this meeting as you wish.”
The question left me without thought. “What will you do if I remove the gown?”
He stopped, and with his back to me, said with a softness that grazed, “What would you like me to do?”
I shouldn’t have said anything.
I should have just told him I would like him to kiss me again. To touch me again, wherever his hands desired to roam. Instead, I blurted, “You did not even wish to kiss me during our last meeting.”
He stalked back to me with slow grace, a brow raised. “Did I leave you disappointed?”
I couldn’t deny that I had been. He saw as much when I again averted my attention to my feet.
“Cease trying to hide. Look at me.” My eyes rose, and his knee knocked open my own as he loomed above me. “You shocked me. You continue to shock me in ways I find myself ill-equipped to handle, but I’ve decided something.”
“You have?”
“I’ve decided that I like it.” He cupped my face, brought it close to his, and ordered to my lips, “Now, I want this tent gone and your back upon the bed.”
He helped me pull the gown over my head. Slowly, I eased down on the bed. He stepped away, and I rose to my elbows in nothing but my slip. “What are you doing?”
“Admiring the treasure I’ve found.” But his expression remained unmoved. He stood with his hands clasped before him, his feet braced apart. “Open your legs.”
My heart stopped galloping and climbed into my throat.
King Florian cocked his head. “Are you uncomfortable, butterfly?” He knew I was, but still he said, “Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Make your choice.”
“And if I choose not to?”
“Then you choose not to,” he said as though not having me however he wished would not bother him when we both knew it would.
It thrilled me that it would.
My skin burned beneath the weight of his attention. But as each second ticked by, my breathing evened, and the itch to see what he would do to me became a need impossible to ignore.
He knew I was nervous. He knew I wanted to play regardless.
My knees rose. Then slowly, they opened.
My slip slid over my thighs as they did, and though he made not a sound, I could feel it. The flood of tension emanating from him crackled, an iced breeze before a blizzard.
“Sweet indeed,” he murmured, as if to himself. “Tell me something.” His voice was closer, and I tore my eyes from the filigree etched into the mildew-dotted ceiling to find him standing at the end of the bed.
And staring between my thighs.
“Do you touch yourself?”
I hesitated only a moment before whispering, “Yes.”
He hummed. “But no one has touched you, correct?”
“Correct.”
I waited, my stomach tightening. As if knowing he was tormenting me, he seemed pleased as he said, “Would you like me to be the first to touch your lovely cunt, sweet creature?”
My next breath caught. Skies stab me, he was unmerciful.
And it would seem I wanted nothing less, a heady anticipation and impatience rushing through my body in the form of venomous heat.
“Yes,” I croaked.
“Then open nice and wide for me.”
I did as I was told, which earned me a soft hum of approval that swept over my skin like a whisper in the dark.
I tried to watch him, every part of me strung tight as the warmth of his touch hovered over my core. But as the first drag of his finger stroked through me, parted me, my eyes closed.
Bright light flashed behind my eyelids. My hips bucked.
“Do you wish for me to stop?” Humor thickened his question. He already knew what my answer would be.
“No,” I said instantly.
His finger returned, trailing from my clit and opening me slowly as it moved to my entrance. He paused there. “Your thighs shake already, butterfly.” A gentle dip inside me with the tip of his finger. “And you’re so fucking excited.”
His touch left me again.
I opened my eyes to find him sucking my arousal from his finger. His eyes closed as if he was savoring the taste of me. My stomach fluttered when I heard the low and almost imperceptible rumble in his throat. When I noticed the slight tremor of his broad shoulders.
His eyes opened. A blue so bright they matched a sunlit sky.
Our gazes locked. The tension in the room bubbled.
Then, with his eyes still on mine, he returned his hand to my core. Featherlight, he stroked his fingers over the sensitive skin of my inner thighs and tickled them over my mound. “Tell me, sweet creature.” His voice was different, hoarse and sharp. “What would you do in order to get everything you desire?”
I couldn’t concentrate. Not with his expert touch blinding me to all else.
He pressed the pad of his finger right above my clit and applied the slightest pressure. A rasped moan flew through my lips, and then he paused. “I’ll resume when you answer me.”
“Anything,” I breathed, desperate for the pleasure to return and for all I’d ever wanted.
My answer apparently pleased him.
Enough that he dropped to his knees before the bed. His hands gripped my thighs, bruising as they dragged my body forward and straight to his hot mouth.
“Skies,” I almost shouted, my back curling off the bed as the king dug his nose into my core and rubbed it up and down.
He inhaled deeply, his exhale a ragged groan against my slick flesh. “Fucking divine.” Then warm, velvet heat dragged from my entrance to my clit. There, he circled and lapped as though I were a treat he would take his time to devour.
The sounds that left me would have been mortifying, had I any ability to care.
I had none.
But I clenched the bedding to keep from reaching for his hair as one thing repeated with sparkling loops in my starlit brain—he was a king.
A king of Faerie had his face buried between my thighs.
The room twirled. A cool sweat broke out over my skin. His hold on my thighs grew more painful. Burning—I was igniting from within and seconds away from feeling the flames dance all over my skin when he stopped.
Breath panted from me. Before I could protest, a fingertip gently pressed into my body.
I tensed, and Florian felt as much. He withdrew and pushed the tip of his digit back in. He would go no farther, only allowing my body to swallow his fingernail. I whimpered for more, my hips rolling.
His wicked words were steeped in unbending promise. “When I break you, it will be with my cock, and certainly not in a rotting pleasure house.”
Then his mouth latched onto my clit, and everything within me seized.
And exploded.
He held me firmly as a storm of pleasure assaulted in waves. From my scalp to my toes, it roared through me. I writhed, moaning and breathless and attempting to make him stop.
He didn’t.
He seemed intent on torturing me. His eyes, still a brighter blue, glowed with satisfaction beneath low lids.
Uncaring who he was, I reached down to make him end such exquisite punishment. Yet as soon as my fingers encountered his thick and shockingly soft hair, I surrendered.
As though he’d been waiting for just that, he ceased torturing me and crawled over my body on the bed. The size and darkness of him was a threat I couldn’t find the energy to be wary of. He’d ensured I was nothing but rapture-wrung limbs and uncatchable breath.
“I will give you everything,” he said, low and coarse directly above me. “And I will take everything in return. That includes every drop of pleasure I draw from your body.”
Unable to speak, I could only stare up at him in a daze.
His words ricocheted through my mind like a warning. A warning I would ignore, even if it had been more blatant. For the way he looked at me, large hands braced on either side of my head as he studied my flushed face, my heaving breasts straining against my filmy slip...
It made me want him all over again.
It made me desperate for everything and anything he was willing to give.
His nostrils flared, and his eyes darkened. He lowered his mouth to mine and rasped, “You are the sweetest fucking nectar I’ve ever tasted.” Our lips grazed with each word. “Kiss me.”
I did so gently. Once, twice, and on the third press of my lips against his, my confidence blossomed. I licked my own essence from his upper lip and ran my fingers over the thick material encasing his torso. My hips rose for my bare body to meet his clothed erection.
He hissed between clenched teeth and tore away with a light growl.
It didn’t escape me that he’d visited a pleasure house, yet I was the only one who seemed to be receiving pleasure.
I was about to ask if he did not wish to be touched in return when his earlier words about breaking me came back. Fighting off a shiver, I pulled my slip down over my thighs and sat up.
The king of Hellebore poured himself a drink, his fingers steady but his jaw ticking. “I think it’s time for me to admit to being somewhat...” He set the stopper in the decanter. “Deceptive.”
Not alarming, considering who I was dealing with. Still, a nervous patter in my chest began to overpower the lusty fog he’d left me in.
“I require a bride.”
Those words cut through the fog and the room like an iced wind.
He turned and leaned against the liquor cabinet to assess my reaction.
There was no hiding my shock, nor my confusion. I blinked ceaselessly and stammered out, “Do you mean me?” He couldn’t, surely.
I was a nameless nobody from a land he and his fellow royals despised.
He sipped the whiskey. “There is no one else in this room, butterfly.”
My cheeks threatened to stain with heat. The outrageousness of what he was saying kept it from happening. “But...” My voice dried. I shook my head and cleared my throat. “I’m a changeling. I have no noble family. I have no family or name at all,” I said, almost wincing at hearing myself spill the sad truths aloud. “I don’t even have friends.”
That last one wasn’t exactly true.
I loved Gane, but admitting that the goblin who ran the town library was my only friend would not help. A goblin King Florian had exiled from his kingdom at Gane’s desperate request, no less.
“Which makes you perfect,” Florian said, the words soft but with a coating of steel that sent a spike of alarm trailing down my spine.
I wondered if he might even remember Gane, but I quickly pushed the thought away when I realized what this king was asking.
He was asking for a queen.
“Why?” I gripped the crinkled satin bedding, needing a tether to know this was real and not one of my dazzling dreams.
