Chapter 1: The Wedding Night
The chamber held the cold of the mountain stone from which the palace was carved. Hana sat on the edge of the vast bed, her fingers twisting in the sheer silk of her nightgown. The maids had dressed her, their faces unreadable as they draped the transparent fabric over her shoulders. “The Duke will find this pleasing, my lady,” the eldest had said, tying the last ribbon. Hana, hearing that, had felt a flutter of excitement. If this was what he would like, then she wanted to wear it.
She believed, with every fiber of her being, that no person was truly evil. The rumors of Duke Serkhan’s cold blood, the stories of his brutality on the battlefield, were just that—stories. The man she had seen at the altar, with his stern brow and proud bearing, had a gravity that stirred something deep within her. She had fallen in love with him then, a single, devastating plummet into devotion. She saw not a monster, but a lonely man carrying the weight of an empire on his scarred shoulders.
The heavy door swung open without a knock.
He filled the space, a silhouette against the torchlight of the hall before the door thudded shut, sealing them in. Duke Serkhan moved into the flickering light of the single brazier. The scars were plainer now, a pale network across his knuckles, a brutal line cutting through his brow. His eyes, the color of winter sleet, scanned her from feet to face, lingering on the translucent silk that hid nothing of her slender form, her small breasts, the dark shadow between her thighs.
Hana smiled. It was a wide, genuine thing that made her honey eyes crinkle at the corners. She stood, the silk whispering against her skin.
“You are not dressed for the chill,” his voice was a low rasp, like stone grinding on stone.
“The maids said you would like it,” she said, her voice bright with hope. “Does it… please you, my lord?”
He was silent for a long moment, his gaze a physical weight. “It suits you,” he finally said, the words clipped.
Her smile deepened, radiant. “Thank you.”
He closed the distance between them in three strides. The heat of him, the scent of leather and steel and cold night air, surrounded her. His hand came up, calloused fingers gripping her chin, forcing her face up to his. “You are my wife now. But do not expect tenderness. I am not a gentle man. I know only conquest and duty.”
She didn’t flinch. Her eyes searched his, full of open curiosity. “I am yours to conquer, then,” she whispered, and the sheer, stupid bravery of it made his thumb, still on her chin, shift. It stroked the full curve of her lower lip.
He watched his own thumb trace her mouth, as if surprised by its own motion. Something in his stern face shifted, a crack in the ice. With a rough sound, he bent his head and captured her lips with his.
It was not a kiss of love. It was possession. Hard, demanding, forcing her lips apart. Hana gasped, her hands coming up to clutch at the hard muscle of his arms. She kissed him back with clumsy, earnest enthusiasm, following his lead. He tasted of dark wine and something fiercely, uniquely him. When he broke the kiss, they were both breathing heavily.
“You obey?” he growled, his voice thick.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Whatever you ask.”
A dark fire ignited in his gray eyes. He spun her around, her back now to his front, one iron band of an arm wrapping around her waist. His other hand came up to her chest, palm rough against the silk, cupping her small breast. She shuddered, a little cry escaping her.
“This is your body,” he said into her ear, his voice a lesson. “It will respond to my touch. You will feel pleasure here.” He pinched her nipple through the silk, rolling it. A sharp, shocking bolt of sensation shot through her, and she arched against him. “Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
He tore the fragile gown. The sound of ripping silk was loud in the quiet room. The fabric fell away, and she was bare in his arms. He turned her to face him again, looking his fill. His scarred hands were dark against her porcelain skin as he mapped her shoulders, her ribs, the dip of her waist.
“Lie down.”
She did, settling back against the dark furs, watching him with wide, trusting eyes. He stripped his own clothes with brutal efficiency, revealing a warrior’s body, honed and etched with the history of violence. She saw the thick, angry scar that dominated his left side, the old wound on his hand. She saw, too, the heavy, hard length of his erection, and her breath hitched. This was the act she knew nothing of, only that she must not resist.
He came over her, caging her with his arms. He didn’t kiss her again. Instead, he lowered his head and took one puckered nipple into his mouth.
Hana cried out, her back bowing off the bed. His tongue was hot, lapping at her, then sucking deeply, relentlessly. His teeth scraped, and the sensation was so intense, so foreign, it bordered on pain before melting into a pooling heat low in her belly. He marked her there, a bruising kiss that would leave a dark bloom on her skin, then moved to the other breast, giving it the same devastating attention. Her hands fisted in the furs, little gasps and whimpers falling from her lips.
“You are sensitive here,” he observed, his voice guttural. “Good.”
His hand trailed down her quivering stomach, through the soft black hair between her thighs. He cupped her there, his whole palm pressing against her. She jerked.
“Be still.” He pressed a knee between her legs, spreading them. His fingers parted her folds, finding the slick, hot core of her. She let out a choked sob. “This is your cunt, Hana,” he taught her, his finger sliding through her wetness. “This is where you will take me. Where you will bear my children.”
She nodded frantically, overwhelmed by the intimacy, by the crude, clinical words that somehow thrilled her because they were his. “I understand.”
One blunt finger pushed inside her.
She froze, her whole body seizing at the intrusion. It burned, a stretch of untouched, tight flesh. He watched her face, his own a mask of fierce concentration. He began to move his finger, a slow, in-and-out piston. The burning gradually subsided, replaced by a strange, building friction. He added a second finger, stretching her further, and she whimpered, her hips moving restlessly.
“Do you feel that?” he asked, his thumb finding a small, swollen knot of flesh above where his fingers worked. He circled it.
A jolt of pure, white-hot lightning shattered through her. She screamed, her eyes flying open. “W-what is that?”
“Where you can feel good,” he grunted, his rhythm on that spot becoming insistent, relentless, while his fingers continued to plunge inside her. The sensations coiled, tighter and tighter, a whirlpool of pleasure she didn’t understand. She was sobbing now, her hips lifting to meet his hand, chasing something she couldn’t name.
“How…” she panted, her mind fracturing, “how will it feel… when you…?”
He withdrew his fingers suddenly. He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad, hot head of his cock pressing against her soaked flesh. He looked down at her, her face flushed with rapture, her body offered freely, her trust absolute.
“It will hurt,” he said, the truth a blade. “Then it will not.”
He pushed forward, burying himself in her tight, resisting heat with one relentless thrust.
The pain was sharp and brilliant, a tearing sensation that made her cry out. Tears sprang to her eyes. He sank fully into her, sheathing himself to the hilt, and went utterly still above her. His body was trembling. His face, when she blinked up at him through the tears, was a war of agony and wonder.
Hana breathed through the pain, focusing on the feel of him inside her, so deep, so full. She lifted a shaking hand and touched the scar on his brow. “You are here,” she whispered, smiling through her tears. “With me.”
At her touch, at her words, something in Duke Serkhan’s eyes shattered. A ragged groan was torn from his throat. He dropped his forehead to hers, his breath hot and harsh on her face. For a long, frozen moment, he simply stayed there, impaling her, buried in her innocence, undone by her smile.
He was lost.
He was lost. The pain in her eyes had been expected, a necessary breach. But her smile, that goddamn radiant smile through the tears, and her fingers on his scar—it was an invasion he hadn’t prepared for. It disarmed him completely.
He began to move, a slow, tentative withdrawal followed by a deeper, more controlled thrust. The burn for her subsided, replaced by a stretching fullness that made her gasp. Her body adjusted, accepting him, and with each movement, a new kind of heat began to spread.
“Oh,” she breathed, her head tilting back into the furs. “It… it doesn’t hurt now.”
“No,” he grunted, his rhythm steadying, his hips meeting hers with more purpose. “It doesn’t.”
Hana couldn’t contain her moans. They were soft at first, little exhales of surprise, but as he found a pace that rubbed something profound inside her, they grew louder, more desperate. She was so expressive in bed, her every sensation written across her face and voiced into the dark air. She didn’t shy away from telling him what she wanted, even if she didn’t know the words.
“There, please,” she whimpered, her nails digging into the hard muscle of his back. “Right there, my lord.”
“Serkhan,” he corrected, his voice ragged. “Call me Serkhan.”
“Serkhan,” she moaned, and the sound of his name on her lips, so full of pleasure, undid another piece of him. He felt her getting wetter, her cunt clutching him tightly, drenching him with her arousal. The slick, hot sounds of their joining filled the room.
“Your cunt is so greedy,” he said, the words crude and low in her ear. “Sucking me in like it’s starved.”
She blinked up at him, her honey eyes clouded with lust but still holding that earnest light. “Is that bad?”
He almost laughed, a rough, choked sound. He drove into her harder, making her cry out.“No. It’s not bad. I like it. I like how fucking wet you are for me.”
A beautiful, beaming smile broke through her pleasure-wrecked expression. “Then I will do it more,” she promised, her hips lifting to meet his next thrust with shocking force. “I will be so wet for you, always, if you want me to.”
It was too much. Her innocent dedication, her raw, unfiltered passion—it shattered his control. He pulled out of her abruptly, the sudden emptiness making her whimper in protest.
“Turn over,” he commanded, his voice like gravel.
She obeyed without hesitation, rolling onto her hands and knees, the perfect arch of her back presented to him. Her pale skin glowed in the brazier light, her dark hair cascading down her spine. He positioned himself behind her, one hand gripping the swell of her hip, the other guiding his cock back to her soaked entrance.
He pushed in, deeper this way, and she screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated ecstasy. He set a brutal, punishing pace, each thrust jolting her forward. The room filled with the sounds of flesh slapping flesh, her frantic moans, his guttural curses.
“You take my cock so well, you perfect little whore,” he growled, his fingers digging into her flesh.
“Am I your whore?” she cried, pushing back against him. “I want to be yours!”
“You are. This cunt is mine. This come is mine.” He was relentless, pounding into her, chasing his own release while he felt her inner muscles begin to flutter wildly around him. She was close.
She came with a shattered cry, her body convulsing around him, her channel milking him in rhythmic pulses. He didn’t stop, driving her through it, forcing another peak from her almost immediately. She sobbed, overstimulated, blissed out, her arms giving way so that her face pressed into the furs.
He followed her, his own climax tearing through him with a force that blinded him. He emptied himself into her with deep, pulsing jets, filling her up, marking her from the inside. He collapsed over her, his weight pressing her into the bed, his spent body still joined with hers.
They lay there, gasping, the only sound their ragged breaths and the crackle of the fire.
After a long moment, Hana shifted beneath him. He rolled off, and she turned onto her side to face him. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen, her eyes soft and satisfied. She reached out and touched a droplet of sweat on his chest. Then her hand drifted to her own stomach, a wonderous look on her face.
She looked up at him, her expression impossibly innocent amidst the carnage of their coupling.
“Am I pregnant yet?”
A soft, rough sound escaped him. It took Hana a moment to realize it was a laugh, low and warm, a vibration in the chest beneath her palm. He’d never laughed before, not in her presence.
“No, little wife,” he murmured, the cold duke utterly gone, replaced by a man whose gray eyes held a shadow of weary amusement. “We would need to do that much, much more frequently to make certain of it.”
She blinked, processing this. The soreness between her legs was a dull, persistent throb, a brand he’d left on her. Yet, the memory of the piercing pleasure that had followed the pain… it made her skin feel too tight. A fresh, desperate curiosity fluttered in her stomach.
“Could we?” she asked, her voice small. “Do it again? Now? To be more certain?”
He went very still. His gaze, which had softened, turned intense again, searching her face for any trace of mockery or duty. He found only earnest, wide-eyed curiosity. His cock, still wet from her, gave a thick, heavy twitch against her thigh where they lay joined.
He let out a sharp breath. “Greedy little thing.”
In one fluid motion, he rolled them over. Hana gasped as the world spun, finding herself straddling his hips, the dark furs beneath her knees. He lay back against the pillows, a mountain of scarred muscle and controlled power, his renewed erection jutting up between them. The sight of it, so thick and rigid, sent a fresh pulse of wetness between her legs.
“You ride this time,” he commanded, his hands coming to rest on her slender thighs. His thumbs stroked the delicate skin there. “Take me inside you.”
“I… I don’t know how,” she whispered, looking from his face to his cock with a mixture of awe and anxiety.
“I’ll teach you.” His voice was a dark promise. “Put your hand on me. Guide me.”
Tentatively, her fingers closed around his shaft. It was hot and solid, like smooth steel wrapped in velvet. She bit her lip, positioning him at her entrance, still swollen and sensitive from his first taking. She sank down slowly, a shaky exhale leaving her lips as the broad head stretched her open.
She could only manage about half his length before the stretch became a burn, her inner muscles fluttering in protest. She paused, breathing hard, her eyes screwed shut. “It’s too much. I’m too heavy, I’ll hurt you.”
Another one of those quiet laughs. “You are light as a feather. You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”
“I’m not,” she mumbled, but she obeyed. She tried to lower herself further, whimpering with the effort.
He watched her, the concentration on her face, the blush spreading down her chest. He saw the moment she gave up, her body trembling with the strain of holding herself back. A low growl rumbled in his chest.
“Enough.”
His hands shot to her hips, fingers digging in, and he yanked her down hard while simultaneously driving his own hips up off the bed.
He speared her to the hilt in one brutal, perfect stroke.
Hana’s cry shattered the air. Her head flew back, her back arching violently, her eyes rolling back under fluttering lids. The feeling was too immense, too consuming. The pain was a bright, sharp spark that was instantly drowned in a tidal wave of shocking, mindless pleasure. It crashed through her, wringing a second, choked scream from her throat as her cunt clamped down around him in frantic, pulsing waves. She came undone just from the feeling of being utterly filled, her orgasm ripping through her with the violence of a summer storm.
“Fuck,” Serkhan hissed, his own control fraying at the edges as he felt her convulse around him. “That’s it. Look at you. Coming just from taking all of me.”
As the last tremors shook her, he brought his hand down in a sharp, stinging smack on the curve of her ass. The sound was crisp in the quiet room. She jolted, a fresh moan pulled from her.
“Now move,” he ordered, his voice ragged. He kept one hand anchored on her hip, the other moving to where their bodies were joined. His thumb found her swollen clit, already slick from her release. “Up. Then down. Use your thighs. Take what you want.”
Dazed, drowning in sensation, Hana obeyed. She lifted herself, a slow, shaky rise until only the tip of him remained inside, then sank back down with a gasping sigh. He guided her with the pressure of his hands, setting a slow, deep rhythm.
“Like that,” he grunted, his thumb circling her clit in time with her movements. “You’re sheathing me so deep. Your pretty little pussy is swallowing my cock whole.”
His filthy words lit a fire in her blood. She moved faster, her hips finding a clumsy, eager cadence. The soreness was gone, burned away by a building, coiling heat. She rode him with increasing abandon, her silken hair sticking to her sweat-dampened skin, her small breasts bouncing with each plunge. The room filled with the wet, slick sounds of their joining, her breathy cries, his guttural encouragements.
“Yes. Just like that. Take it. All of it.”
She was close again, the pressure building at her core, amplified by the rough pad of his thumb. Her movements became erratic, frantic. He took over, driving up into her from below, meeting her frantic descent with powerful, punishing thrusts.
“Serkhan!” she cried out, a plea and a prayer.
“Come for me again,” he commanded, his own release building, a tight coil in his gut. “Soak my cock. Let me feel it.”
It was the permission she needed. Her third climax tore through her, longer and deeper than the others, a relentless series of spasms that gripped him like a tight, wet fist. With a roar, he followed her, his hips slamming up to hold her impaled as he emptied himself in hot, pulsing jets deep inside her.
She collapsed forward onto his chest, a boneless heap of shuddering flesh. He was still buried inside her, both of them breathing in ragged, broken gasps. His arms came around her, one hand sliding into her damp hair, holding her close. The other splayed possessively over the red mark on her ass.
They lay like that for a long time, until the fire burned low and their heartbeats slowed. Hana, drifting on the edge of exhausted sleep, felt him shift beneath her. He withdrew from her body, a slow, intimate slide that made her sigh. He pulled the furs over them both, tucking her against his side. His chin rested on top of her head.
In the darkness, just before sleep claimed her, she felt his lips brush her forehead. It was the barest touch, softer than a sigh.