Page 46 of His Dark Delights
“I told you I would not be happy if you continued the war. Bringing me a piece of home doesn’t change that. I will not sit here in the garden with Millie for the rest of my days while you’re off butchering fae,” I replied, placing my palm over his pounding heart.
“It wouldn’t be for the rest of your days. Just wait until I win the war, and you can stay by my side as my—”
“No, Ren, I won’t. As long as you continue your savagery, I will not keep myself here.” Peering up through my lashes, I locked eyes with the king. “If you leave for another crusade, you will return to find megone.”
His head dropped to my shoulder, and his furious exhale against my neck caused a shudder down my spine. My eyes closed at the delicious sensation of his warmth permeating my dress and heating my skin.
“Lilly, you can’t ask me to end the war. You can’t.”
“Why not? Why are you like this?” I stuttered over my words when Ren placed a kiss on the fluttering pulse in my throat. My hands flew up and tangled in the front of his shirt.
He moved his mouth, speaking between delicate kisses. “I was born a bastard of the king. When His Majesty and all his legitimate heirs were dying of plague, he had his oldest male bastard brought to the palace. One look at me and he signed a decree to legitimize me upon the death of his last true heir.”
I gasped, reeling out of his grasp. Losing my balance, I stumbled back until my bottom hit the stone bench once more.
“I had no idea,” I balked, going ashen. Things I’d overheard in the palace fit together with Rhydan’s comments like settling pieces of a puzzle.
Soren followed my path, staring down at me with pure wretched disdain for his past haunting his gaze. He dropped to his knees before me, bracing his hands on my thighs. “I was a soldier in the ranks at the time, already bent on my revenge. Truthfully, I didn’t care about meeting my father or half-siblings. Taking the throne was a way for me to achieve my goal. A means to an end.”
“You became king for revenge?” I almost laughed at the lunacy of it, but my heart broke for him, too. “What about your mother?”
Soren’s fingers dug aggressively into my thighs, and his lips peeled back into an enraged grimace. “Theytook her from me. Murdered her. So, yes, I wear a crown heavy enough to break my back so I can seek justice for what they did to her.”
A fae killed his mother, and he wanted revenge. Being legitimized and made king gave him the reins of an army bound to his service. The council handed him the keys to the kingdom, and he would use it as a weapon for vengeance.
I gaped down at Ren’s dark hair and the errant curl over his forehead. My heart surged and dipped for him and his loss as it had an eternity ago on my farm. I felt his pain as if it were my own, cleaving through my heart and drawing us close once again.
The king parted my thighs and moved until we were chest to chest. His heart hammered and my breath sawed past my lips. My heaving chest and parted mouth stole his attention. Some of the fury lining his expression lessened, swept away by increasing desire.
“I’m sorry,” I began.
“Don’t be. Just kiss me.” Soren drifted closer, intent on sealing our mouths. With a mighty effort, I pulled away, placing my hands on his shoulders to stop him.
“I thank you for your gesture today. It was a lovely surprise, but I cannot.” I smoothed my hand up his neck to cup his cheek. “I’m sorry for what you experienced, but it’s no excuse for your continued cruelty. Your misfortune doesn’t justify an extinction.”
The Butcher glared more fiercely than he ever had before. I didn’t think his bold, angered stare was aimed at me directly. He hated the situation I’d put him in and the truth of my statement. While he had the capacity tobe a cruel man, I believed he could see reason with the right encouragement.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he pushed through gritted teeth.
“I know you’re a madman, a butcher, but that you still crave love.”
While he grappled with my words, his hands moved mindlessly, restlessly, tugging up the hem of my dress. He hiked the endless layers of pink gauze onto the bench around my hips. There was such a stark, determined storm gathering in his eyes that my heart stuttered.
Fresh air kissed my bare thighs as Ren shoved them apart. I vented a sharp breath as anticipation coiled through my lower belly.
“What are you doing?”
A voice scraped through him, hoarse and ragged. “You won’t kiss me, but I am going to taste you, Lilly. Right now.”
Ren used intimacy as a diversion. The wild mania of chasing pleasure and ecstasy with another intruded on his responsibilities, stopping him from facing his deeper feelings. Simultaneously, he used sex to form bonds of passion.
His defenses lowered when we were together. In the vulnerability of wanton flesh, his heart opened, making room for the feelings he’d otherwise not face in the light of day. That seemed to be where his love stemmed from.
He hooked his hands in the fabric of my undergarments and briskly removed them from my legs. His Majesty dipped his head between my thighs, breathing hotly against the tender skin. The short layer of scruff growing along his jaw scraped my inner thigh before the king sank his teeth into my flesh.
The shock of pleasure-pain caused me to arch my back, parting my legs further. I braced a hand behind me on the bench, curling my fingers over the stone. My other hand reached for Ren’s head, weaving my fingers through his dark hair beneath his crown, and guiding his mouth to my quivering center.
A firm pressure glided over my folds, provoking a moan from my lips. My sex opened for his tongue, and he lapped me up, devouring me like a starving man. He rumbled with his satisfaction, always eager to taste me and pull my climax with his tongue.
