Chapter 10 Ten

Chapter 10 Ten
I sped over to the dagger where it had fallen earlier, and hurriedly picked it up, pressing it to my own throat again.

“If you walk out that door,” I said, my voice shaking but clear, “I’ll do it. I’ll cut my own throat right here and bleed out on your floor.”

He turned slowly, his eyes fixing on me with an expression of such cold rage it should have turned me to stone.

“You would deign to make this foolish threat a second time?”

“Yes,” I said, pressing the blade hard, unable to think of anything else, “I don’t know why you have kept me alive so long, a beast of your reputation would have already ended me the second I barged into your doors. Yet you have kept me alive.”

I continued, “I suspect it is not only because you intend to use my body, but because somehow in some way, I must be important to you. So important that you would spend so long and murder so many trying to find me.”

I went on to bluster, hoping desperately that it would work, “So if you leave now, and go after my people, I’ll make sure you never get what you need from me, and all your efforts would have been for nothing.”

His hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“You are testing my patience, Heartwalker.”

“Good,” I spat back. “Go on and test mine. Kill my people and see what happens, see if I don’t take myself away from you permanently. You have already taken my family and my dignity, I have nothing left to lose.”

We stared at each other across the room, locked in a battle of wills, the blade trembling against my throat.

Then I changed tactics. I lowered the blade slowly and walked toward him, completely naked, my skin flushed and marked all over with his bites, his bruises, the slick evidence of my own arousal still coating my thighs.

“Or,” I said quietly, “you could come back to me… and finish what you started.”

I pressed my bare breasts against his chest, letting him feel the hard points of my nipples “If you are as smart a king as you believe yourself to be, great powerful dragon, one little setback won’t stop your plan.”

I leaned back a little, reached up and traced one finger across his chest, feeling the rapid hammer of his heart beneath my palm.

I was thinking hard, trying to remember everything I’d learned about human mating rituals, about their art of seduction, anything that would help in this situation.

“You were so close,” I whispered, rising up on my toes to brush my lips against his jaw, wrapping my fingers around his still-hard, glistening member, stroking slowly from root to tip.  “Don’t you want to feel that release? Don’t you want to claim me completely?”

His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, stopping me.

But he didn’t push me away.

“You think you can manipulate me so easily?” he asked, his voice dangerously soft.

“I think,” I said, meeting his burning gaze without flinching, stubbornly returning to strike his thick length. “that you want me more than you want revenge right now. I think that terrifies you. And I think…”

I pressed closer, letting him feel every inch of my bare skin against him.

“…that you’re going to choose me anyway.”

For one long, terrible moment, he just glared at me.

Then he grabbed me by the throat and the back of my head simultaneously and crushed his mouth to mine in a kiss so brutal it split my lip.

He lifted me effortlessly and slammed me against the nearest wall. In the next breath, he hooked one of my legs over his arm and, pounded back into me one brutal stroke, burying himself balls-deep.

There was nothing gentle about it this time, nothing calculated. Only raw, furious, desperate need so violent and passionate that I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

He took me against the wall as though he wanted to break me completely, burn his ownership into my very flesh. His grip bruising me, his hips moving with punishing force, dragging against every sensitive nerve inside me. 

The new angle made him hit deeper, grinding against my cervix with every brutal thrust. My breasts bounced with the force of it, nipples scraping against his chest as I clung to him, nails raking down his back hard enough to draw blood.

I wrapped my legs tighter around him and took everything he gave while biting down on his shoulder to muffle my cries.

When he finally came, it was with a roar that shook the windows, his entire body going rigid as he spilled hot and deep inside me, pulse after pulse of thick seed flooding my insides. 

He kept thrusting through it, grinding hard against me till I shattered again, coming so hard my vision blacks out and my voice broke on my helpless cry.

We collapsed together in a tangle of limbs, both breathing hard, sweat-slicked and trembling.

And in the distance, I heard something. The sound of hundreds of wings beating. The Heartwalker delegation was taking flight, leaving Nexium territory, and escaping into the safety of our lands.

They were gone.

They were safe.

I’d done it.

Relief flooded through me so intense it brought tears to my eyes, mixing with the shame and the unwanted pleasure still thrumming through my body and the sheer wrongness of what I’d just done.

I had let the Dragon King take my purity, and I had fallen to pieces underneath my family’s murderer, twice. I had moaned and begged and pleaded like a whore, debasing myself for the sake of my people.

But at least for now, they were safe.

Dragus pulled out of me abruptly and stepped back, his eyes already going to the window.

The moment he realized what had happened, his expression faded from satiated to horrified fury.

He crossed to the window in three long strides and looked out at the darkening sky, at the distant shapes of Heartwalkers flying away in formation, already too far to catch, too far to stop.

His hands clenched on the windowsill, knuckles going white.

For a long moment, there was absolute silence. Then he turned to look at me, his eyes blazing with fury, like staring into the heart of a volcano about to erupt.

“You,” he said, his voice deadly quiet, “have sealed your fate, little spy.”

And just like that, the act was over. I didn’t need to pretend submission anymore, nor did I need to play the seductress or the willing captive.

My people were gone. Safe far beyond his reach.

So I let the rage I’d been suppressing for the past hour flood back into my face, let him see exactly how much and how deeply I despised him, how much every touch had cost me.

“Good,” I said coldly, standing up despite my shaking legs, meeting his gaze without fear. “There are legends written about how ruthless you are, how the dark gods themselves gave you cunning beyond comprehension, yet underneath all that muscle and bravado… You are still just a man.”

I stared him down, “And like all men, you are weak to the seduction of any woman who knows exactly what buttons to push. I may be the one broken and bruised, nevertheless, I am victorious. You lose, Dragus. I win.”

“Is that so?” he asked, his voice dark and terrifying.

He took one step toward me then another. I couldn’t suppress the urge to run from him, a beast so huge he towered over everything, blocking out what little light passed through the window. 

I took one step back, my survival instincts blaring in my head.

“So you believe you have one. That in keeping me here, distracting me with your body, and saving your pathetic delegation you have done something that matters.”

He took another heavy step and I stepped back.

“You have no idea what you have unleashed, light-bringer.”

He was right in front of me now, backing me into the wall so I had nowhere left to go.

“I will make you regret every second of this deception,” he promised quietly. “Every lie, and every false promise. Every moment you dared to play me for a fool.”

He leaned down until our faces were inches apart.

“And when I am finished breaking you,” he whispered, “you will beg me for the mercy of death.”

I lifted my chin defiantly.

“Then prepare to fail, Dragus” I said. “Because I am Cupid Eirene, Heartwalker of the Aureate Province, Daughter of the Gilded House, First of Thousands, and I have never lost a match.”

His smile was absolutely terrifying.

“Not for long, Heartwalker Cupid. For I am the Dragon King, Death Bringer and Emperor Of Darkness… and I will give you your first taste of defeat”