Kathlyn kept her eyes demurely lowered, because a girl was surely only as ruined as she acted.
“I present my sister, Princess Kathlyn,” N’kosi said, his voice booming out. He sounded proud of her, Kathlyn thought, and then had to swallow past the strange lump in her throat. “May she please you with her grace tonight.”
Kathlyn performed the necessary curtsey, and stayed down until she heard her father’s grunt that told her it was time to rise again. But even when she did, she kept her gaze aimed toward the floor. How many times had she heard her father speak distastefully about arrogant girls who stared around the mounting stage as if they were there to perform instead of accept their fate?
This night was a memory. A ghost. She was performing perfection for a dead woman and her own nostalgia. And that meant she had no option here but to please her father, no matter what. As if she was as innocent and eager to gain his favor as she’d been a year ago. As if she still believed this night was the beginning of the life she’d always assumed waited for her.
“Bring out the candidate,” King Athenian boomed, and the crowd erupted into hoots and cheers and applause—as much for the spectacle as anything else, if she had to guess.
Keeping her eyes to the ground then was the hardest thing Kathlyn had made herself do in a long while. Especially when she heard—and felt—a ripple go through the crowd. And then felt N’kosi stiffen even further beside her.
And she was aware of the raider king when he came to stand at her other side. Aware of his height, his strength, and that intensity he gave off without even looking at him. The air hummed differently. Her skin prickled. Her breath went shallow.
Her father spoke the usual words, if a little more abruptly than usual.
“Accept this gift as it is offered to you,” he said, and while he was addressing Wulf his voice was loud enough to scrape the far-off ceiling. “That her virgin’s blood may strengthen the kingdom, bring honor to her father, and empower you with her innocence, freely given.”
While N’kosi, acting the part of the father who would normally give a girl away, said the usual nonsense about the linking of aristocratic families in the long tradition of the western highlands, Kathlyn listened for the rumbles of crowd every time her innocence was mentioned. But it was hard to hear much of anything with Wulf so close and her heart thundering at her, out of control and wild.
“Long may the rains spare us,” the crowd intoned when it was their turn.
And Wulf snorted with laughter.
Kathlyn froze. N’kosi seemed to turn to stone. And Kathlyn was sure she could feel her father’s most horrifying smile, aimed right at her.
“Thanks,” Wulf said into the silence that followed that completely unacceptable and impolite response to the ritual words, sounding lazy and amused and entirely too dangerous. “I can take it from here.”
Kathlyn’s breath deserted her completely and in the next second, she felt Wulf’s battered hand close around her upper arm, even through the material of her long, flowing white sleeve. She would know the feel of him anywhere, a rough warrior’s grip as if she was his favorite blade. He tugged her around to face him, and for a moment all she could see was blue.
Bluer than she remembered, those eyes. So blue they seemed to fill her to overflowing. So blue that the fact it had been so long since she’d last seen him seemed to disappear into it.
He gazed down at her, something too ferocious to be laughter in that bright gaze and stamped into the corner of his hard mouth. Intensity and power surged from him and around him, making Kathlyn feel as if the air itself was charged. Electrical, like a summer thunderstorm. Or like he was. Threat and command and all that sheer ruthlessness poured from him, so bold and unmistakable she didn’t understand why the guards weren’t coming for him, guns out and ready.
But then she noticed what he was wearing. Or wasn’t wearing.
And the shiver that raced through her then had nothing to do with fear.
The traditional outfit for men at a mounting ceremony was a crisp white shirt, oversized, to cover them when they lowered their usually loose, dark pants and got to work. Wulf wasn’t wearing a shirt. He was treating the entire palace to a view of his naked chest, covered in all his tattoos and scars and brands, roped in muscle and sculpted into a warrior’s fearsome physique. He wore those black trousers of his that molded to his legs and his boots. Every inch of him an unapologetic raider, with that intricate braid tossed over one shoulder in case there was any doubt.
He nodded at her father as if he was dismissing Athenian. As if this was his palace, and Kathlyn shook at the temerity. But Wulf didn’t look back. He simply propelled her away from her father and brother, across the expanse between the viewing platforms and the base of the stage. Not around the side to the stairs, where the couple usually walked up together, but directly to its front.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, her heart so loud in her ears she thought one of them might rupture. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
He slid his hands to her waist. “They want a barbarian savage. I hate to disappoint an audience.”
She sucked in her breath as he lifted her, with no apparent difficulty or even a deep breath, and sat her on the edge of the stage.
The crowd rumbled all around them, and Kathlyn shivered at that. “But you’ll be exposed.”
Wulf didn’t smile. His lips didn’t curve at all. But his gaze made her belly somersault.
“Baby,” he said in a low voice, “my bare ass is out more than it’s hidden back home. I fuck in front of crowds all the time. But you don’t.”
And then he moved to the side of her and jumped. Up and onto the stage in a single lithe burst of motion, making the crowd gasp as he landed in a light crouch. Then stood. He didn’t look at their audience though she knew he was aware of them. She was sure she could see it in the particular way he stood there. He did that a moment, then he reached down, took hold of her arm, and pulled her up with him.
“I’m prepared for this,” she assured him as he dropped a hand to the small of her back and moved her toward the stark, plain mattress, gleaming white and pristine.
This is actually happening, a voice inside her pointed out, possibly with a little bit of panic. Possibly with a whole lot more than a little bit of panic. Right now. Right here. With him.
“So am I,” Wulf said shortly. “They’ll all stare at me rather than you. Which is a good thing for you, princess, because I think you know you’re not going to suffer.” That enigmatic gaze touched her with all that blue. “But you better hope you don’t come, either. I don’t think daddy would like that.”
Kathlyn blew out a shaky breath at that. In all these discussions of brutality and punishment and numbing teas, it hadn’t really crossed her mind that she had more to worry about than pain. That pleasure would condemn her even more, and more absolutely, than agony ever could.
She stopped in front of the bed that was a little high for her, but hit right below Wulf’s hips. She took in the pot of oil at its foot, and remembered all the ceremonies she’d witnessed and the men who’d used it—and the few who hadn’t.
Animal, the women had whispered the last time a man had gone without. Men like that should never be allowed to bid on a decent girl from a good family.
If Wulf failed to use oil tonight, no one would whisper that about her. They’d shrug their shoulders and claim ruined girls got what they deserved, then watch closely to see how badly he hurt her. They’d think she deserved that, too. She shuddered a bit at that. Someone shouted something from high in the gallery that made a tier or two convulse with edgy laughter. Kathlyn felt it trickle through her, as if someone was dripping hot wax on her head and letting it smother her.
“Please,” she murmured, unable to help herself. Because she knew so little and he was so much more overwhelming than she remembered, even standing there beside her, barely even touching her. “Don’t hurt me.”
“Are you scared, princess?” he a
sked, his voice gruff. “Because that’s the only excuse I can think of for you saying something as bullshit as that. Again.”
Wulf turned her, wrapping his hands around her waist again. And then he picked her up all over again and deposited her in the center of the mattress. It was a hard bed—deliberately, she knew, though it still took her by surprise. Soft beds tended to sag when in use, and that impeded the view. Nobody liked that.
Wulf didn’t stand at the foot of the bed the way he was supposed to. He bent to swipe up the oil and then he crawled into the center of the mattress with her. He propped himself up over her, sliding his legs between hers. Kathlyn widened hers to accommodate him.
This is really, truly happening, that panicked voice inside her yelped.
And it was the strangest thing. They were surrounded by the whole of the palace. She could hear the catcalls from the high tiers of the gallery and she could feel all those eyes all over her, fastened to the skin she’d bared and waiting to see how much of her they’d see. It was awkward and mortifying and she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t burst into tears, but still, the moment his body rubbed against hers in the cradle of her thighs, she felt goose bumps shudder into life all over her body. The way they had when the two of them had been alone in her rooms.
“I asked you if you were scared.” It was one of his royal commands that time. She felt it spiral through her, then take up residence high between her legs, as if it was a another smooth, solid part of him.
“I don’t want to be,” she whispered, and there was nothing she could do about her ragged voice. Over his wide shoulders, she saw a wall of noisy people. Walls on all sides. She thought she could pick out faces she knew, and that was horrifying. Then in the next instant it was a wall of strangers, and that was possibly worse. “I want to be—”
“Princess.” His voice was rough and low, and had that smoky, lazy note in it that made her bones melt. “Don’t look at them. Look at me.”
Kathlyn obeyed him. She shivered everywhere, but she focused on that face of his and all that fathomless blue. She took one panicked breath, then another. And then the next one was less panicked. A few breaths after that, she was almost back to normal.
And when his mouth crooked up in the corner, it was like the great hall fell away. Leaving only the two of them on a hard, white bed with nothing to do but the one thing she hadn’t been able to get out of her head for a week.
“What are you going to do?” he asked her, that half-smile on his beautiful face and something far more intent in his gaze. “No matter what happens. If they yell, scream, or blow up, and I’m hoping it’s that last one. What do you do?”
“Look at you,” she whispered. “Only you.”
“See, baby?” And his gaze seemed to fill her up, fire and all that icy, delirious blue, as he reached down and began to tug her dress up toward her hips. “This is going to be fun.”
Wulf treated this epic cluster fuck of a twisted mainland ritual like a raid.
He’d done his recon as best he could. He’d narrowed down his objectives, which involved the survival of both him and his princess, especially since he had to be bare-assed in front of so many douchebags he knew wanted him dead. He knew exactly what he needed to accomplish, and everything outside of that was secondary.
One of the king’s smirking tools had pranced into his cell earlier to give him a rundown on what he was supposed to wear and how he was supposed to act and what, precisely, he was expected to do in this sick little performance.
Wulf had nodded, smiled, and then threatened to feed the little asshole his own dick if he didn’t fuck off.
Satisfying, yes. But it had also been strategic. They were expecting an animal and Wulf was only too happy to deliver.
Then he’d seen Kathlyn standing there with the head of the king’s guard, looking small and subdued and scared, and it made his ribcage seem to shrink too fucking tight inside his chest. He didn’t like that shit at all. He didn’t want her to be afraid of anything when he was around.
You told her no one would hurt her, he reminded himself. Not that he’d forgotten that or any other thing he’d said to her.
And now, in one of life’s greater ironies, he had to perform a little sex show for a palace full of compliant assholes, none of whom knew what real fucking looked like. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Kathlyn that his ass was more on display than not in the eastern islands. Wulf had been having sex in public as long as he’d been having sex.
But not like this. Not while a whole lot of people who weren’t fucking sat around taking notes and tittering about it behind their hands. And not when the purpose was to make the whole thing as unexciting and even painful as possible.
If he could boil down the problem with compliance into one moment, it would be this one. Kathlyn looked even more beautiful than usual in her crisp white dress. She was delicate and lovely and the reason she was here was to let him—or anyone else her father might have tapped for this task, a reality that made Wulf want to start cutting people apart—fuck her hard enough to make her bleed. That was what all the white was for: a canvas for a bloody show.
Wulf wasn’t opposed to blood. He was a raider. Sometimes his blades sang out with his enemies’ blood, and he truly loved every second of a good battle. He was made to fight. To win. To revel in the bloodlust. But he didn’t roam around butchering innocents and calling that a family ritual.
His cock, of course, had no fucking scruples either way. Kathlyn was near, so the horny bastard was hard as a blade and more than ready to do this thing. Wulf reached between them to unfasten his trousers, aware that he felt suspended between a kind of resolute determination and straight up, gut-kicking, who gives a shit lust. Half a warrior engaged in a new kind of battle and half a sick, twisted fuck who didn’t care how and when he got inside her, who was watching, or what these assholes thought of it.
Just so long as he got inside her again.
“You can’t . . . do all those things you did in my rooms,” Kathlyn said almost soundlessly, her dark gold eyes big and wide. “You can’t show them those things. It’s not compliant.”
“Afraid they’ll get jealous?” He didn’t need the stupid oil these dumbfucks needed to use because they didn’t know how to get a woman hot. That mouthwatering bare pussy of hers was already showing him a little cream in the smooth brown folds he wanted to get his face in, but there were appearances to keep up. Or some shit. He scraped up a palmful of the oil anyway and then fisted his cock, pumping it a few times because he liked to live dangerously when he was this hard and had had so little sex recently. His cock hardly knew what to do with itself. But Wulf was the raider king, not a punk bitch who came that quickly—though this was the first time in his life he wasn’t entirely sure of that. “I don’t blame you.”
Her soft brown eyes were fixed to his. And much too solemn and slicked with emotion for his liking. “It has to look like it hurts.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he growled. “You need to start believing that.”
He shifted forward, letting his trousers fall so all the compliant ladies in the gallery could get a good look at his ass. He propped himself up with one hand and guided his cock to her entrance with the other. And he didn’t slam himself right in, though he wanted it. Bad. He moved his hips instead, rubbing his way through her wet, hot folds and nudging her clit with his fat cockhead. Once, then again. Everything was more slippery with the oil, and he saw a fine little mist of perspiration break out at Kathlyn’s temples. Good.
“Stop enjoying yourself,” he dared her, his voice already gravelly from not fucking her the way he wanted. Long and hard and hot and his. Not this strange little performance.
And when she bit down on her bottom lip as if she thought she might cry out if she didn’t, he slid inside her.
Slick and deep, like he was coming home.
13.
Kathlyn could feel him.
God help her, but she could feel him ever
ywhere.
So big—bigger than the last time, she was sure of it, or maybe she was just noticing all of him this time around. All of him, so velvety and hard and infinitely slicker tonight. Stretching her and filling her and sliding in further with an ease that made her stomach drop even though she was lying on her back.
Her dress was shoved to her hips and her knees were up and bent and she knew no one could really see anything—she’d been to too many mounting ceremonies to think otherwise—but there was something about the fact they were in public that made her face feel hot. Her whole body. She was burning to a crisp because of all those eyes on her, and then there was what Wulf was doing to her, and he was inside and she was outside herself right there in the great hall and—
She couldn’t breathe. Maybe she was never going to be able breathe around him in any real sense, but certainly not when he was lodged inside of her like this. Right out here in the open. With her father and her blood brother and everyone she knew looking on.
Kathlyn shuddered. But Wulf didn’t move. He didn’t start thrusting wildly the way the lower-ranked citizens packed in the higher tiers always loved to applaud. He held himself above her, his hands flat on the mattress beside her head and his far harder gaze pinning her to the ungiving mattress beneath her.
“Is that a toy?” he asked, the growl of his voice somewhere between a laugh and the sort of arrogant astonishment she thought he wore a little too well for her peace of mind. “Speaking of shit that isn’t compliant.”
For a moment Kathlyn had no idea what he was talking about. Her hands were braced against his chest and that was all she could think about for a moment, that she was touching that fascinating tattoo that covered his heart, two rings of symbols surrounding a central circle of more—but he flexed himself, deep inside her, and her thoughts scattered. Then refocused on that little bundle, deep inside of her, that was making the way he filled her that much more intense.