Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
I knew instantly I made a mistake.
The forest spun. Blinking, my mind couldn’t connect how I came face-to-face with him, and the vicious cut I opened on his forehead. My back pressed to the tree within the space of a breath. A small eep escaped me, undercutting my bluster, when he dropped my ankles on his shoulder.
“Starts now.”
Alisdair lost control.
There was no other way to describe it. No word more flowery. No adjective more accurate. The man buried deep inside me, and all sense of civility and control snapped.
My cries were straight screams, echoing into the whistling, frigid forest. Alisdair pumped so hard and fast, he was barely out before he was thrusting back in, hitting heretofore undiscovered angles, and exploding heat and fierce, fiery arousal deep within a core long ignored.
I kicked and slapped at him. Somewhere in the part of my mind still functioning, it was screaming I still had a chance to break free, and stop this before the ancient rites took hold.
My hand came up to dig into his cut, but he threw his head back at that moment—ragged groans ripping from his throat, and baring his fangs to the sky. Fangs that were... bigger?
Alisdair snapped his head forward, and my head back—tangling in my hair and wrenching a cry out of me. It was all the things he’d said it’d be. Not quick, gentle, or loving but—
“Ahh,” I moaned. “Ohh, so deep. You bastard, I—”
“Hmm. You’re moon-kissed...”
Heavy-lidded eyes snapped open, and landed on the strands of snow-white hair woven through his fist. I looked up.
The ever-present clouds parted the barest bit, letting through the scant glow of moonlight that fell over me, revealing my great shame.
I tripped over my tongue. “I—I can—"
“You continue to surprise, little bird.” With that, he latched on to my neck, sucking and teasing my skin.
That was it? People who found out I was moon-kissed usually had much harsher, insulting things to say. Why wasn’t—?
“Ow!” I cried out more from surprise than pain. The madman drew back, admiring the small nip he left on my neck. Palming my breast, he gave the sensitive, heated mound another to match.
“Hey, what are you—?”
Alisdair broke the limits of possibility and pumped faster still, hammering that spot like it needed to be punished. My ability for speech flew up into the trees with the rabbits, abandoning me for good.
I was filthy, raw, and wet. Gravity pulled me down, making me meet him thrust for thrust—bouncing as he bucked. Alisdair nipped me all over my neck and chest, and my swats were landing softer. The sharp pinpricks of pain anchored the pleasure, making it sweeter still.
Too sweet.
My muscles coiled like a viper, bending my back off the wood. Alisdair sank deep and his chest tightened against my thighs. Explosions burst in my mind, throwing me to the edge—tumbling, falling, screaming—gone.
He spilled inside me, filling me to the brim with seed as my pussy gushed its own warm arousal.
Alisdair dropped to his knees—the great and shadowed evil of the faelands brought low because of me. I might’ve crowed about it if I could catch my breath, or take my eyes off my shoulder.
“The rune...”
It was glowing.
I slid down the bark—transfixed. All over our bodies, our runes—our binding promises—lit like the glow from the moon.
And was that it.
I was Shadowsoul’s wife. His mate. His queen. His stepping stool to the throne, then all of Lyrica. I was his to own, command, taunt, torture, and fuck.
I was his... until I learned to run faster.
Alisdair grasped my chin, lifting my gaze to him as the glow faded. “You must forgive me, my queen, for I lied to you once again.
“It actually starts now.”
I didn’t know what he meant, until I did.
“Wait—”
That was the last intelligible thing I said for the rest of the night.
Chapter Six
Icracked a lid open, groaning before my eyes were all the way open. I felt around for the ice and wood that would be my rude awakening, and my fist curled around silk.
Grimacing, I pushed up—vision clearing on my surroundings.
I wasn’t in the woods anymore. I didn’t know where I was.
Fresh, sweet-smelling red-and-gold sheets and tasseled pillows covered me, cocooning me in warmth. Long-stemmed candelabras loomed over me, casting soft candlelight on the bumps, cuts, and bruises on what used to be the fairest, most unblemished skin in the east.
My face heated as memories tumbled through my head, each more shameful and scandalous than the other.
Alisdair Shadowsoul ravished me. I wished there was another word I could use. One that didn’t make me sound like that soft little peach torn apart by a beast. But there was no other word, because that’s exactly what he did.
Alisdair took me like an animal against that tree all night long. Pounding me in every position known and unknown—extracting so many orgasms out of me that my well ran dry. His did not.