Chapter 7: The Third Day's Dawn
A sharp ache was her first conscious thought. A deep, throbbing soreness that seemed to radiate from her core out to the very tips of her fingers. The second thought was heat. A solid, muscular heat at her back, an arm like an iron band across her ribs, and the insistent, thick presence of him still lodged inside her. He was hard. Again.
Visenya blinked against the grey light. It was morning, or something like it. The fire had guttered low, and a chill had seeped into the stone. She was lying on her side, curled against him, her ass nestled against his hips. He was moving. Not the frantic pistoning of the night before, but a slow, barely-there rocking, a subconscious seeking of friction even in sleep. His cock slid a fraction of an inch in, then out, in the wet, slick channel of her body. Each tiny movement sent a bolt of oversensitive lightning through her.
She tried to shift, to ease the pressure. His arm tightened, pulling her closer. A low, sleep-roughened sound vibrated in his chest. “Don’t.”
“I’m sore,” she whispered, her voice a ragged scrape.
“I know.” He nuzzled the back of her neck, his beard rough on her skin. His hips pushed forward, burying himself to the hilt with a slow, deliberate stroke that made her gasp. “The bond doesn’t give a fuck.”
He was awake now. She could feel the shift in his consciousness, a sharpening of focus along the tether that connected them. The sleepy rocking became a purposeful rhythm. He curled around her, one hand splaying over her lower belly, holding her in place as he fucked her with these deep, languid thrusts. It was intimate and devastating. There was no escape, no separation. Her body was a sheath for his, used and filled even before she was fully awake.
Her traitorous cunt, despite the ache, grew slicker, clenching around him in a tired, obedient rhythm. A broken sound escaped her lips.
“That’s it,” he murmured against her ear. “Just take it. Let it happen.” His other hand found her breast, his fingers plucking at her nipple until it was a tight, painful peak. Pleasure and pain bled together until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. An orgasm built, not as a crashing wave but as a slow, inevitable tide. It washed through her with a sigh, leaving her trembling, her inner muscles fluttering weakly around his invading length.
He came soon after, a hot, pulsing rush that filled her, adding to the sticky mess already leaking from her. He stayed inside her, softening only marginally. For a long moment, there was only the sound of their breathing, mingling in the cold air.
Then he withdrew.
The sudden emptiness was a shock. Cool air touched places that had been occupied for hours. She heard the wet sound as his seed dripped from her onto the already-stained sheets. Shame, hot and bright, flared in her chest.
He swung his legs out of bed. She watched the powerful muscles of his back and ass flex as he stood. He walked, naked and utterly unselfconscious, to the large copper bathtub that sat in an alcove. With a mere gesture of his hand, steam began to rise from the water; a small, casual use of the immense power he usually kept leashed. He glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Get in. You need to soak. You’ll seize up otherwise.”
The practicality of it was almost more shocking than the sex. She pushed herself up, wincing at the protest from every muscle. Her legs felt boneless. She saw the evidence of the last day smeared across her inner thighs, a map of their relentless joining. She shuffled to the tub, her gait awkward.
The water was blissfully hot. She sank into it with a groan, the heat leaching into her soreness. A moment later, he stepped in opposite her, his large body making the water level rise dramatically. They faced each other, knees almost touching in the confined space. The steam curled around them.
He picked up a cloth and a cake of sage-scented soap. “Turn around.”
She hesitated, then presented her back to him. His hands were surprisingly gentle as he washed her. He smoothed the soapy cloth over her shoulders, down the curve of her spine, over the bruises his fingers had left on her hips. He washed her hair, his strong fingers massaging her scalp. It was a quiet, methodical intimacy that felt more violating than any of the fucking. This was care. From him. It didn’t compute.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her voice muffled by the steam.
“Because you’re mine,” he said simply, rinsing the soap from her hair. The water ran grey and pink. “And I take care of what’s mine. Even if I have to break it first.”
He turned her to face him. His amber eyes were intent, examining her face. He washed her breasts, her stomach, between her legs. His touch was clinical, thorough, cleaning away every trace of their excess. She was too tired to be embarrassed. When he was finished, he handed her the cloth. “Your turn.”
She took it, her movements slow. She soaped the cloth and began to wash his chest. The muscles were solid, carved from stone. Scars, old and silvery, crisscrossed his skin—a history of violence written on his flesh. She washed his arms, his powerful shoulders. The water sloshed as he leaned back, giving her access. The atmosphere was eerily domestic.
Her hand drifted lower, over the flat plane of his stomach. His cock lay half-hard against his thigh, thick and heavy even in its passive state. She avoided it, washing his legs instead. When she was done, she sat back, unsure.
“You missed a spot,” he said, his voice dry.
She looked at him. A challenge glinted in his eyes. The bond, which had been a low hum, gave a hungry pulse. Her cheeks heated, but she moved forward. She took him in her hand, the soap making her grip slide easily over his skin. He hardened fully in seconds, growing impossibly thicker and longer, until he stood straight up from the water, the head flushed and leaking.
“Use your mouth,” he said, his tone casual, as if asking for a passing dish.
Her gaze flew to his. There was no cruelty there, just expectation. This, too, was part of the taking care. The claiming. She bit her lip, then leaned forward. The smell of him, clean skin and pure male musk, filled her senses. She licked a bead of moisture from the tip, tasting salt and soap. He hissed.
Emboldened by his reaction, she took him into her mouth. She couldn’t take all of him—he was too big—but she took what she could, her lips stretching around his girth. She bobbed her head, her tongue swirling along the prominent vein on the underside. His hands came up to tangle in her wet hair, not forcing, just holding. A low groan rumbled from his chest.
“Good,” he breathed. “Fuck, just like that.”
She sucked him, exploring the weight and texture of him, the way his body tensed when she applied pressure. The bond sang with his pleasure, a feedback loop that made her own body hum. She felt a fresh trickle of wetness between her own legs. She was sore, but she was also ready. Always ready now.
He pulled her off him before he climaxed, his cock sliding from her lips with a wet pop. “Enough,” he said, his voice strained. “Out.”
They dried off with thick linen towels. He produced clean clothes from a wardrobe—simple black trousers and a tunic for himself, a soft grey shift for her. It was plain, but the material was fine. She pulled it over her head, the fabric feeling alien against her clean skin.
A knock sounded at the outer chamber door. Raziel didn’t even look up from lacing his trousers. “Enter.”
A servant, eyes carefully averted, brought in a tray laden with food—roasted meats, bread, cheese, fruit, a carafe of wine. He set it on a table by the fire and scurried out without a word. The silence he left behind was heavy.
Visenya’s stomach clenched with a sudden, ferocious hunger. She realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She moved to the table, her movements still stiff, and tore a piece of bread from the loaf. It was still warm. She ate it standing, barely chewing.
Raziel watched her for a moment, then joined her. He ate with a focused efficiency, his gaze distant. The bond between them was quieter now, a simmer rather than a boil, but it was there, a persistent awareness of his body beside hers.
“How long can this last?” she asked finally, her mouth full of cheese.
“The acute phase?” He shrugged, tearing meat from a bone with his teeth. “A few more days, if we’re lucky. The texts described a ‘feral week’. After that, it settles into a background… need. Manageable, unless provoked.”
“A week,” she repeated, feeling hollow.
“You wanted the bond,” he said, not unkindly. “You knew the stories.”
“I didn’t know it would feel like being skinned alive from the inside.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Now you do.”
They ate in silence for a while. The food revived her, enough for the reality of her situation to solidify. She was bound, in every sense, to the most dangerous male in five kingdoms. She was trapped in his rooms, her body a slave to a magic she couldn’t control. And outside these walls, her brother Daeron was presumably still scheming, her father’s court still teetering on the brink of whatever chaos Raziel’s presence had ignited.
“What happens now?” she asked. “Politically. My father…”
“Your father is a coward who sold his daughter to avoid a war he knew he’d lose,” Raziel said bluntly, pouring two glasses of wine. He handed her one. “He’ll legitimize you. He’ll declare our union a blessed alliance. He’ll spin a tale of love at first sight to save face. And he’ll pray I don’t decide to take his kingdom anyway, now that I have a legitimate claim to it through you.”
The casual way he outlined the political evisceration of her family was chilling. “And will you? Take it?”
He sipped his wine, his amber eyes considering her over the rim. “Do you want me to?”
The question stunned her. “It’s not about what I want.”
“Isn’t it?” He set his glass down. “You’re my mate. Your loyalty is to me now. Your interests are mine. So I ask again: do you want his kingdom? Do you want to see that court of sycophants and liars bow to you? To us?”
She thought of her father’s neglect, her stepmother’s venom, Daeron’s smug superiority. A cold, hard knot of vengeance she’d carried for years tightened in her chest. “They looked at me and saw a tool. Or a stain.”
“Then let me give you a crown,” he said, his voice a low promise. “Let me make them look at you and see their queen.”
The ambition in his words was a dark, seductive melody. Before she could answer, the bond reared up. It was a sudden, violent pull, a cramping need in her gut that doubled her over. She dropped her wine glass. It shattered on the floor.
Raziel was across the room in an instant. He didn’t ask. He saw the panic in her eyes, felt the same demanding ache in his own body. The respite was over.
He lifted her onto the table, sweeping the remnants of their meal aside with a crash of china and silver. Her thin shift was pushed up to her waist. He freed himself from his trousers, his cock springing free, already fully erect and leaking. He positioned himself at her entrance, which was already slick with fresh arousal—the bond’s doing, not her own.
“It wants us joined when we talk of power,” he gritted out, as if deciphering a code. “It reinforces the alliance.”
Then he pushed into her, a single, brutal stroke that seated him to the hilt. She cried out, her back arching off the hard wood of the table. The fullness was shocking, a delicious, painful stretch. He leaned over her, his hands braced on either side of her head, his face inches from hers.
“Say it,” he demanded, beginning to move, short, deep thrusts that rocked her entire body. “Tell me you want their kingdom. Tell me you want their fear.”
She couldn’t think. Sensation swamped her. Each drive of his hips hit a spot inside her that made her vision blur. “I want it,” she gasped.
“Louder.”
“I want it!” she screamed, as he pounded into her, the table scraping across the stone floor with each impact.
“It’s yours.” He sealed the promise with a searing kiss, his tongue invading her mouth as his cock invaded her body. She came violently, her heels digging into the small of his back, her nails raking down his arms. He followed her over the edge, his release hot and copious, flooding her.
But the bond was not satisfied. It had tasted blood—the blood of ambition, of shared vengeance. It howled for more.
The next hours were a blur of positions and places. He took her against the wall, her cheek pressed to the cold marble, her legs hooked around his waist. He laid her before the fire and ate her cunt until she sobbed, his tongue lapping at her swollen clit before fucking her again with his fingers, then his cock. He was relentless, inventive, driven by the magic that bound them.
As afternoon faded, he produced the silk cords. They were crimson, like dried blood. He didn’t speak as he took her wrist, looping the cord in a complex, secure knot around it, then tying it to the carved post of his massive bed. He did the same with the other.
She lay spread-eagled before him, completely vulnerable. Her heart hammered against her ribs. This was different. This was deliberate, controlled dominance.
He stood at the foot of the bed, stroking himself slowly, his eyes drinking in the sight of her. “The bond wants everything,” he said conversationally. “Every part of you. It won’t be content until it has all of you. Do you understand?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
He climbed onto the bed, kneeling between her legs. He leaned down and took her mouth in a deep, claiming kiss. Then he kissed his way down her body—her throat, her breasts, her stomach. He lingered between her thighs, feasting on her until she was writhing against her bonds, begging for release. He denied her.
Instead, he moved up her body, his cock nudging at her soaked entrance. He sheathed himself in one smooth thrust, fucking her with slow, measured strokes that built an unbearable tension. She was so close, teetering on the edge, when he pulled out completely.
A sob of frustration broke from her. He ignored it, his hands sliding down to grip her ass, lifting her hips. He spat into his palm, slicking himself, then pressed the blunt head of his cock against a different, tightly furled opening.
Her eyes flew open in pure panic. “No,” she breathed.
“Yes.” The command was absolute. He pushed, a slow, inexorable pressure. The burn was incredible, a sharp, tearing stretch. She cried out, her body straining against the silk cords. “Relax,” he growled, his own breath coming in short gusts. “Breathe. Take it.”
He pushed deeper, past the initial tight ring of muscle, burying himself inside her an inch, then two. The feeling was one of impossible fullness, a violation that bordered on agony. Tears streamed from her eyes.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Raziel, please, it’s too much.”
He stilled, his body trembling with the effort of control. Sweat dripped from his brow onto her chest. He looked into her eyes, and for a fleeting second, she saw something other than hunger—a strain, a flicker of something that might have been remorse. But the bond snarled between them, a beast with no patience for mercy.
“It has to be done,” he said, his voice raw. “The bond demands it. All of you. This is the last claiming.”
Then he began to move. The pain shifted, transformed. The sharp burn melted into a deep, throbbing pressure, a sense of being split open and remade. Each thrust sent jolts of sensation through her, a confusing mix of pain and a shocking, taboo pleasure. He fucked her ass with the same ruthless efficiency he’d fucked her cunt, his balls slapping against her, the lewd, wet sounds of it filling the chamber.
Her body, traitorously, began to respond. Pleasure coiled in her belly, mingling with the pain. She came, her ass clenching tightly around his invading shaft, the orgasm ripped from her with a sound of sheer shock. He groaned, his rhythm faltering, and then he was coming too, his release pumping into that