Page 106 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

I blinked away sudden tears. “Let us dress.”

Extracting myself from the leotard was one matter, and then dressing in my new underthings took twice as long again. Slithering into the exquisite dress took the least time of all. Midnight whispered over me, and up past my elbows, when Valetise slid the gloves over my patches and stitches.

Monsters had not yet entered the dining room, waiting on me to take my spot beside See to lead the way.

See’s milky gaze stole breath and thought. “I have had five minutes to regret the excellence of my hearing. The sound of silk and bead moving across your skin is engrained in me.”

I set my hand upon his extended arm, and our hearts skipped a beat. “Let us go to dinner.”

Desire was thick between us, but once I looked upon the other monsters present, I was able to recover more strength to be a queen, and resist the urge to drag See from the room.

“If you wish to attend dinner, then you must walk in with me now,” I murmured. “Lust threatens to consume me.”

His milky gaze snapped to mine. His shoulders heaved with his breaths.

“The other side of midnight belongs to us,” I told myself as much as him.

Pawns were ready to wheel in shackled kings. Princesses waited beside their kings, aside from the princesses of Bring and Change. Simple monsters lurked at the very back of the procession.

Need for See thumped in my ears. The tandem beat of our hearts had never echoed louder. I gasped a breath, then clamped down on the sound.

Just one dinner.

I would move my feet.

I would move them now.

“No,” King See stated, so mildly that I knew at once he was in a furious rage.

Has Been called ahead, “My liege?”

King See faced me, and his pained expression—his tormented and anguished expression—stole all thought from my mind.

Candor announced, “King See was about to break.”

“Have your dinner,” See snarled at monsters without looking at them. “I must feast elsewhere.”

See scooped me into his arms, and I was left to peek back at smirking or befuddled monsters.

A king carried me from the room.

And I did not care.

ChapterTwenty-Three

Could the past and future ever be ignored?

I would try

For this goodbye.

The lounge room had not closed before See shoved me against the stone wall beside the doors. We both yanked at my dress, and I could not have cared less about its beauty. Beads scattered on stone. Silk tore.

Then his fingers were inside me.“At last,”I said on the air, and the sharp pinch of my virginity barely registered through my utter desperation to have more.

“At last,” echoed See in a guttural tone.

I cried low and hooked my outer leg around his hips to grant him better access. See took it, and quickened his hooking pace.

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