He smiled and she took very little comfort from it. “I think not. I like having you at my disposal. All wet and ready to f**k when I so choose.”
She’d spit at him if he were any closer. Especially when she felt her body respond so immediately. Her n**ples peaked and wetness seeped from between her legs. He saw it, too, and his grin grew wider.
She fought the chains again. “I’ll scream for help.”
“I wouldn’t bother. Remember whose family this is. Ailean the Wicked. Somehow he managed to woo my mother who, I’ve been told, tried to kill him more than once before their Claiming. So, I seriously doubt he’ll find this such an extreme form of courtship.”
“I am a princess,” she argued, “you can’t treat me—”
“You are a princess,” he cut in. “A beautiful princess who belongs to me.”
He finally walked over to her and she stared hard at the human body before her. Gods, why did he have to be so beautiful?
“Tell me you’re mine, Rhiannon, and I’ll let you go.”
Angry and lustful all in one turn, Rhiannon turned her face away.
“Tell me, Rhiannon.” His fingers slid up her calf, teasing the skin with just the tips of his fingers. “Tell me”—fingers slid between her thighs, soft kisses followed—“or I’ll be forced to get it out of you . . . somehow.”
She shuddered and, to her shame, it wasn’t from fear or anger. But lust. Her weakness sickened her. How could she ever hope to be queen, when she couldn’t even tell this bastard “no”?
Kisses turned to licks that trailed over her sex and across her lower belly.
“Such simple words, Rhiannon. ‘I belong to you, Bercelak.’ Say them and let’s be done with all this.”
As she turned her neck, the collar bit into her flesh a bit. She closed her eyes in horror when she realized how much she liked it.
“I won’t,” she choked out, while his tongue was teasing the very tip of her nipple. “I won’t say it.”
“Fine. Then I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.” He pulled away from her and she briefly wondered what the “hard way” was? She couldn’t imagine Bercelak hurting her.
At least not without some proper begging involved. He stretched out beside her, his head in her lap. She watched through narrowed eyes as he kissed her sex, his tongue pushing in to tease her cl*t the tiniest bit.
She groaned, her eyes closing and her body tightening. Then he stopped, pulled back and blew on her. Gently.
Her eyes snapped open and he gave her that gorgeous smile. For someone who rarely smiled, he seemed to be doing it a lot all of a sudden. Because of her?
“Give me what I want, Rhiannon, and I’ll give you what you want.”
Refusing to speak, she shook her head. The collar, warm from her body heat, felt wonderful resting against her flesh.
“As you wish.” He leaned down and began teasing her again. Growling, she looked away, only to see his engorged c*ck bobbing there, Bercelak’s hand gripping it firmly, stroking it slowly.
Unable to stop herself, she growled with wanting and Bercelak’s mouth stopped moving. He lifted his head and looked at her. They stared at each other for several long moments, then Rhiannon licked her lips.
Bercelak groaned and growled all at the same time while he easily pushed himself up until he rested on his knees. He moved toward her, his c*ck leading the way. She no longer looked at him, but at it.
Straddling her chest, Bercelak slid his hand behind her neck and gently lifted her head up. She opened her mouth and he slid his c*ck inside her. They both closed their eyes with a moan as Rhiannon sucked on him, loving the way his body shook as she took possession of him.
“Gods, Rhiannon,” he whispered. “Gods that feels good.”
She thought about torturing him the way he’d been torturing her, but she didn’t want to. She liked having his big c*ck in her mouth. She liked having him over her. She felt no fear, no sense of dread, wondering when he’d prove what a bastard he was. So she sucked and she licked.
His hands tightened in her hair, holding her head still as his c*ck moved in and out of her mouth as he neared release. Finally, he pushed into her one last time. She nearly gagged as his seed filled her mouth, bursting into the back of her throat. But she swallowed it and sucked until he pulled away from her and dropped down on the bed.
Feeling smug, she licked her lips again and watched him panting, a light sheen of sweat over his body.
Now he wouldn’t be able to resist her. Now he’d rip these chains off her and f**k her until they both passed out.
That’s what she waited for. And she kept waiting.
Eventually, Bercelak gave one big satisfied sigh, then leaned back against the bed, his hands behind his head, his legs crossed at the ankles. The legs currently resting by her head.
He looked up at the ceiling. “So which would you prefer, Rhiannon? A male hatchling first? Or a female?”
Her eyes widened in annoyance. “Wha-what?”
“For our first. Male or female? I like the idea of a female. I’ve always wanted a daughter.” He smiled at her and it was the warmest smile anyone had ever given her. “I want her to look like you.” Then his eyes returned to the ceiling as if he could see their entire future—their entire future together—playing out above their heads. “But a male offspring would also be nice, too, don’t you think? He could take care of his younger siblings. Now I don’t think we have to have as many as my parents. Fifteen is excessive, but . . . definitely more than two or three, don’t you think?”
Unable to look at him anymore without screaming, Rhiannon stared out the window and debated the logic of flinging herself from the ledge . . . after he released her, of course.
With a pathetic roll of her eyes, Rhiannon sighed but it came out more like a sob.
Chapter 7
He finally released her arms and legs, and allowed her enough chain to get to the chamber pot and the bath. Other than that, he kept her tied to the bed for the remainder of the day and well into the night.
Rhiannon really wished she could say she hated him. Hating him would make this so easy. She would promise him whatever he asked, wait until he untied her, and then she’d cut his currently human throat with a jagged piece of glass . . . or simply rip his throat out with her teeth. Whatever was convenient.
But she didn’t hate him. And she hated herself for not hating him.
Pathetic female.
She yanked her chain again. When Bercelak decided to leave her alone for a bit, he quickly realized that the headboard wouldn’t last two seconds against her strength and rage. So he wrapped the chain around a pillar and locked it. With an annoyingly happy smile, he kissed her on the cheek with promises of returning and walked out.
That had been nearly an hour ago and he still had not returned.
A soft knock at the door had her grabbing an animal fur from the floor and wrapping it around her body since these human servants reacted so dramatically to any kind of nak*dness. Why they would react that way over their own bodies with someone they didn’t lust for, she had no idea.
“Come.” Might as well since clearly she wouldn’t be for quite awhile.
The door pushed open and Ghleanna and Shalin walked in. Gleanna held a tray of food, the smell bringing Rhiannon’s stomach to growling life, and her mother followed with a goblet and decanter.
Rhiannon prayed that was wine she had with her, because she needed to numb her brain before she began destroying things around her for her own amusement.
“We thought you might be hungry.”
“I’d like the key even more.”
The two females looked at each other but, not surprisingly, it was Ghleanna who spoke, “You’ve lost your mind, Princess, if you think we’re about to get between you and my brother on this.”
“Fine!”
She turned, the chain winding around her throat, and stalked back across the room.
“Now, now,” Bercelak’s mother soothed. “No need to get angry. Everything will be fine. I promise.”
“Your son is unreasonable.”
“My son is in love.”
At Shalin’s words, Rhiannon spun around, but the chain pulled tight around her throat, snapping her head back.
“Ack!”
Bercelak watched one of his younger brothers pass out and drop to the floor. All that wine . . . he should have known better. His father’s wine could kill an elephant.
His father’s hand slapped him on the back. Anyone else, even dragon, would go flying. But all of Ailean’s children learned to have sturdy backs and good balance.
“Don’t worry, son. You’ll break her.”
Rolling his eyes, “I don’t want to break her. If I wanted that, I’d have chosen one of those insipid royals.”
“But you didn’t choose her,” his brother Caerwyn felt the need to say.
“Her mother may have thrown her to me, but I’d chosen Rhiannon long ago. Everything I’ve done, every battle I’ve won, every rank I’ve earned has been for her. To be worthy of her.”
“You are worthy of her.” His father sat down in a chair, putting his feet up on the table. “You’re my son.”
“Oh, yes. That’s been quite helpful.”
His brothers and two of his hard-drinking sisters laughed in agreement, but his father looked at his brood in confusion.
“What does that mean?”
“Come on. You can’t tell me you don’t know. Your name follows us around like the stink on a dog.”
“Everyone knows you, father,” one of his sisters offered up. “And what they know isn’t good.”
His father, always jovial and smiling, looked suddenly angry. “So you’re saying . . .”
“That you’re an embarrassment? Yes.” Bercelak didn’t mean to be cruel, but he wondered if his time with Rhiannon wouldn’t have been a tad easier if his father hadn’t been known throughout Dark Plains as Ailean the Slag.
“I’m still your father, boy! So watch how you speak to me! It’s not my fault you can’t get the little bitch to submit. Perhaps if you were more like me, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
If it hadn’t been for his siblings grabbing hold of him, Bercelak would have torn the old bastard apart.
“Oh, I tried to kill him twice. Almost succeeded that one time.” Rhiannon watched as Bercelak’s sweet mother made a line across her throat with one finger. “Sliced his throat from here to here. But he shifted to dragon before I could finish. His scales prevented him from bleeding to death.”
Rhiannon glanced at Ghleanna, who looked bored and unimpressed. “Why . . . that’s a lovely tale, mistress.”
“No. It’s not. But it is to say that the males of this brood are not looking for shy, retiring mates. The more you fight my son, the more he wants you. After I cut Ailean’s throat, he Claimed me one moon later.”
“Do you . . .” Rhiannon looked away from Shalin’s steady gaze.
“Do I what?”
“Well . . . ever regret being with him?”