Chapter 3: Claiming the Spoils
The quiet stretched, thick and tangible as the velvet drapes around the bed. Lilly kept her eyes closed, her cheek pressed into Eris’s palm, listening to the slowing drumbeat of her own heart. His skin was warm, his touch unmoving. This close, she could smell the salt on his skin, the damp earth of his magic, the scent of her own release on him.
He moved first.
His hand slid from her cheek, back through her hair, a stroke that was almost tender before it fisted gently at the nape of her neck. He leaned down, his mouth hovering over hers. “Open your eyes.”
She did. His gaze was no longer bare. The shutters were back, the amber depths observing, assessing. The mask of the Autumn heir was firmly in place, but it was fractured. She’d seen behind it. She could see the cracks now.
“That,” he said, his voice a low rasp, “was a mistake.”
Her breath hitched. “Which part?”
“Letting you see.” He released her hair and stood up from the bed in one fluid motion. The loss of his warmth was immediate. He walked to a carved wardrobe, his back to her, the muscles shifting beneath his skin. He pulled out a robe of deep green silk and shrugged it on, leaving it untied. He poured water from a pitcher into a basin.
Lilly pushed herself up on her elbows. The movement sent a pang through her well-used muscles, a reminder of his hands, his mouth, his cock. She saw the faint, angry red marks on her wrists from the vines, the darker blooms on her hips and ass. She felt the sticky dampness between her thighs. She should feel used. She felt… claimed.
He returned with a damp cloth. He didn’t hand it to her. He sat on the edge of the bed and began cleaning her himself. The cloth was warm. His touch was methodical, impersonal, wiping the sweat from her brow, the stickiness from her inner thighs. It was as much an act of possession as what had come before.
“Your father’s steward,” she said, her voice quieter than she intended. “He looked at me like I was something you’d dragged in from the forest.”
“You are,” Eris said, not looking up from his task. His fingers spread her, the cloth swiping gently. “Something I dragged in. And I don’t share my possessions.”
She reached out, her fingers stopping just before they touched the edge of his robe where it lay open on his chest. “Is that all I am? A possession?”
He finally looked at her. His eyes were unreadable. “Would you prefer to be a guest? A guest has freedom. A guest can leave.” He tossed the cloth aside. “You’re not leaving.”
The words weren’t a threat. They were a statement of fact, cold and absolute. A shiver that wasn’t entirely unpleasant traced her spine.
He moved suddenly, his hands gripping her waist, flipping her onto her stomach with effortless strength. The sheets were cool against her heated skin. He shifted her hips up, arranging her on her knees, her ass in the air. The vulnerability of the position stole her breath.
His palm came down on one sore cheek, not a slap, but a firm, claiming press. “You took your punishment so well,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a register that vibrated through her bones. His other hand slid between her legs from behind, his fingers finding her wet, swollen folds. He stroked her once, a casual, teasing touch that made her jerk. “Still so fucking wet for me.”
He pulled his fingers away, bringing them to his mouth. He sucked them clean, his eyes locked on hers over her shoulder. “Mine.”
Then his hands were on her ass, spreading her cheeks wide open. The air was cool against parts of her that had never felt it. She buried her face in the sheets, a muffled sound escaping her.
She felt him lean close. His breath was hot. “You trust me,” he stated.
It wasn’t a question. She didn’t know how to answer. Did she?
He answered for her. “You do.” And then he spat.
The warm, wet shock landed directly on her tight, untouched hole. She cried out, a strangled gasp of pure surprise. Before she could process it, his thumb was there, spreading the moisture, rubbing in slow, insistent circles. The pressure was foreign, intrusive. Her body clenched in instinctive denial.
“Shhh,” he soothed, but it was a hunter’s calm. His other hand slid between her legs again, two fingers plunging into her cunt without preamble. She was so slick, so open from before, they slid in to the knuckle with ease. He pumped them slowly, deeply, the dual sensations overwhelming—the invasion from behind, the familiar fullness from within.
“See how open you are?” he growled, his fingers curling inside her, hitting a spot that made her thighs tremble. “This greedy little cunt is milking my fingers, begging for more.” He worked her with a relentless rhythm, his thumb continuing its maddening circles. “It’s going to help you take me. You’re going to take every inch.”
He removed his fingers from her cunt, now glistening with her arousal. She heard the slick sound as he smeared it over her other hole, mixing with his spit. The pressure of his thumb increased, a steady, inexorable push.
“Breathe out,” he commanded.
She exhaled in a shuddering rush. His thumb breached her.
The stretch was a sharp, burning line of white-hot sensation. She whimpered into the sheets, her fingers clutching the linen. He held it there, letting her body adjust to the shocking fullness, moving it in a tiny, torturous rotation.
“Good,” he whispered, his voice thick with lust. “So tight. So perfect.”
He withdrew his thumb. Before the emptiness could register, she felt the blunt, massive head of his cock pressing against that same stretched, throbbing entrance. It was so much bigger. A choked sob tore from her throat.
“Eris, I can’t—”
“You can.” His hand came down on her ass, a sharp, stinging smack that made her yelp and then arch her back. “You will.” He leaned over her, his chest pressing against her back, his mouth at her ear. “You defied me three times. You corrected me. This is the price. You take all of me. Everywhere.”
He pushed.
The world dissolved into a single, searing point of pressure and pain. It was a slow, brutal invasion, tearing her open. She screamed, the sound muffled by the bedding. He didn’t stop. He fed himself into her, inch by impossible inch, until his hips were flush against her ass. He was fully seated, buried to the hilt in a place never meant to be filled.
He held still, his body shuddering above her. She felt him, a burning, stretching fullness more intense than anything she’d ever known. Tears streamed down her face. Her body throbbed in ragged protest.
His hand smoothed over her back, a stark contrast to the violation below. “Breathe, Lilly. Just breathe.”
She dragged air into her lungs. The pain began to mutate, to twist into something else—a terrible, overwhelming fullness that walked the line between agony and ecstasy.
He moved.
A shallow pull, then a push. The friction was devastating. A broken cry was wrenched from her. He did it again. And again. Each stroke was a furnace, a forge reshaping her. He set a slow, deep, relentless pace, each thrust a conscious act of possession.
“Tell me who you belong to,” he gritted out, his control fraying.
“You,” she gasped, the word torn from her.
“Where do you belong?”
“Here. With you.”
His pace intensified. The pain was fading, burned away by a rising, terrifying wave of pleasure. The sensation was obscene, wrong, perfect. Her body began to answer his, to push back against his thrusts, to clench around him in a vice of shocked delight.
He groaned, a raw, guttural sound. “That’s it. Take it. Take my fucking cock. Claim it.”
He reached around, his fingers finding her clit, rough and demanding. The dual assault shattered her. An orgasm ripped through her, violent and uncontrollable, her cries echoing off the stone walls as her body convulsed around his invading length. The intensity of it bordered on madness.
It tipped him over the edge. With a final, earth-shaking thrust, he slammed into her, burying himself as deep as he could go. His release flooded her, hot and endless, as he threw his head back and roared her name into the quiet of the lodge.
He collapsed over her, his weight pressing her into the mattress, both of them slick with sweat and spent. For long minutes, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the distant crackle of the fire.
Slowly, carefully, he withdrew. The emptiness was profound. He rolled onto his back beside her, one arm thrown over his eyes.
Lilly lay unmoving, her body a map of bruises and sensations she had no name for. The scent of sex and sweat and him was everywhere. She turned her head to look at him. His profile was stark in the fading light, beautiful and remote.
He spoke to the ceiling, his voice hollow. “My father will hear of you by dawn.”
It wasn’t an endearment. It was a warning. The outside world, with all its dangers and politics, was rushing back in.
She reached across the space between them, her fingers finding his. She laced them with his. He didn’t pull away.
Outside, the first drops of an autumn rain began to patter against the stained-glass leaves, a soft, relentless rhythm. Inside, the fire guttered, casting long, dancing shadows across the floor, over the bed, over their joined hands. The hunt, it seemed, was far from over. It had only just begun.