Chapter 2: The Kneeling of a Princess
Her laugh was still dissolving into the air between them when her hand found his belt again. Slick fingers, still trembling from the aftershocks, working the leather with a practiced dexterity that made his cock twitch against her thigh.
Kaelen caught her wrist.
Twisted.
Spun her.
Her gasp cut through the quiet as her palms slammed flat against the war table, scattering a half-dozen rolled maps and knocking an empty wine cup onto the floor. It clattered against the flagstones, rolled, went still.
She was bent over the edge of the table, her silver hair spilling across the parchment, her ass pressed against his still-hard cock. He could feel the heat of her through his trousers—the ones she'd shoved down earlier, still bunched around his thighs—and the wetness of her cunt soaking through the fabric where they touched.
"Kaelen—"
He fisted a hand in her hair. Yanked her head back, arching her spine, forcing her to look up at him over her shoulder. Her violet eyes—no, silver, they'd been silver before, but now they looked almost purple in the candlelight—went wide.
"You wanted to know what I want," he growled.
Her lips parted. He could see the words forming—some sharp retort, some defiant little quip—but he didn't give her the chance to speak.
He yanked her hair again. Harder this time. Pulled her off the table and down, down, until her knees hit the flagstones with a crack that should have hurt. Would have hurt a human. But she was dark elf, and her body was built for harder things than cold stone floors.
She landed with her face inches from his cock.
Still wet from her cunt. Still glistening with her own slick. Hardening again, slowly, as the blood rushed back into it at the sight of her on her knees.
"I want a princess to choke on my cock," he said. "And thank me for it."
Her nostrils flared. For a heartbeat, he thought she might bite him. Might spit some venom about human savages and their filthy demands.
Instead, she opened her mouth.
Wide. Obedient. Her tongue flat against her lower lip, her eyes locked on his, and there was no submission in that gaze—only a challenge. A silent dare.
He didn't need to be told twice.
He shoved forward, burying himself in her throat in one brutal thrust.
She gagged. Of course she gagged—he was too big, too sudden, and she hadn't had time to prepare. But she didn't pull back. Didn't try to breathe. Just took it, her throat working around him, her eyes watering, her hands braced on his thighs.
"Fuck," he breathed. "Look at you."
Silver hair tangled in his fist. Violet eyes streaming tears. Lips stretched obscenely around his cock. She was a princess of the shadow courts, born to silk and poison and the kind of power that made kings tremble. And she was on her knees on his flagstones, letting him fuck her face like a common whore.
He pulled back just enough to let her breathe. She gasped, dragging in air through her nose, and then he shoved in again.
"Again."
She didn't hesitate. Just opened her mouth wider, relaxed her throat, and took him deeper.
His hips found a rhythm. The same brutal pace he'd used on her cunt, hammering into her throat with a force that would have bruised a weaker woman. The candlelight danced over her skin—that impossible obsidian darkness, gleaming like polished stone, marred by old scars that traced patterns he didn't recognize.
She had scars on her back. On her thighs. A long one running from her left shoulder blade to the curve of her spine.
Someone had hurt her. Someone had cut her, whipped her, marked her—and she'd survived it. She'd survived it, and now she was here, choking on his cock with a hunger that matched his own.
The thought made him harder than he'd ever been in his life.
His free hand found the back of her head. Fisted in her hair alongside the first. Held her steady as he fucked her face with abandon, his balls drawing tight, his spine curling forward, every muscle in his body straining toward release.
"Touch yourself," he gritted out. "Show me how much you want it."
Her hand moved. Slipped between her thighs. He couldn't see what she was doing—couldn't see anything but her mouth and her eyes and the tears tracking silver lines down her cheeks—but he heard the wet sounds. The soft, desperate moans that vibrated around his cock.
She was fucking herself with her fingers. Fucking herself while he fucked her throat. Getting off on being used like this, on being filled and taken and owned.
"Greedy little thing," he rasped. "You want to come again?"
She nodded. Or tried to. It came out as a desperate little wiggle of her head, her mouth still stuffed full of him, and the sight nearly undid him.
"Then come."
She did.
Her body convulsed. Her throat contracted around him, a rhythmic squeezing that sent lightning up his spine. He heard her moan—muffled, strangled, desperate—and felt her fingers moving faster between her legs.
He held on for three more strokes. Four. Then his control shattered.
He pulled out just far enough to come on her face.
Thick ropes of it painted her lips, her chin, the bridge of her nose. She flinched at the first spurt, then opened her mouth wider, catching what she could on her tongue. Her eyes stayed locked on his the whole time—watching him come apart, watching him lose control, watching the commander of the King's vanguard turn into something animal.
When the last pulse faded, he released her hair.
She stayed exactly where she was. Kneeling. Covered in his seed. Breathing hard through her nose, her chest heaving, her fingers still buried in her own cunt.
"Thank me," he said.
Her voice was hoarse. Raw. Ruined.
"Thank you."
"Louder."
"Thank you, Commander."
Something dark and satisfied curled in his chest. He reached down, caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilted her face up.
"Good girl."
She smiled. A filthy, wrecked, beautiful smile, with his come still dripping from her lips.
"Was that what you wanted?" she asked.
He considered the question. Considered the woman on her knees before him. Considered the treaty, the war, the thousand reasons he should hate her and the one reason he couldn't.
"No," he said finally. "But it's a start."
He released her chin. Stepped back. Tucked himself away with hands that weren't quite steady, pulled up his trousers, cinched his belt.
She stayed on the floor, watching him with those impossible eyes.
"Are you going to leave me here?"
"The bed's through that door." He gestured vaguely toward the bedroom. "Get cleaned up. Sleep. I have matters to attend to."
"Matters." She said the word like it tasted sour. "At this hour?"
"War doesn't keep banker's hours."
She rose to her feet. Slowly. Deliberately. Her legs were shaking—he could see it, the effort it took for her to stand—and something in him twisted at the sight.
Good. Let her be sore. Let her remember this tomorrow, when they sat across from each other at the negotiating table and pretended to be diplomats.
"Kaelen."
He stopped at the door. Didn't turn around.
"What happens now?"
"Now you sleep. Tomorrow we talk. The day after that, we'll see."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
Silence. Then, softer:
"I didn't expect you to be gentle."
He did turn then. Faced her across the length of the war room, with its scattered maps and its candlelight and the ghost of her moans still echoing off the stone walls.
"I wasn't gentle."
"I know." She touched her throat. The place where his cock had been. "That's what I mean."
He stared at her for a long moment. Long enough to see the question in her eyes—the one she wasn't asking, the one she was too proud to ask.
Will you come back?
He didn't answer it.
He walked out instead, closing the door behind him, and stood in the dark corridor with his back against the cold stone and his heart pounding in his chest.
She was dangerous. Not because she had blades or poison or an army at her back. Because she made him want things he'd buried years ago. Because she looked at him like he was something worth seeing. Because when she smiled, he forgot—just for a moment—that she was the enemy.
He pushed off the wall. Started walking.
The night air hit him when he stepped into the courtyard, cold and clean and full of the smell of wet stone. His men were still at their posts, their faces carefully blank as he passed. They'd heard something, probably. The walls were thick, but not that thick, and he hadn't exactly been quiet.
Let them talk. Let them wonder. Let them think whatever they wanted.
He had a war to run. A treaty to uphold. A princess to keep at arm's length.
He'd managed the first two for years. How hard could the third be?
The answer came to him three hours later, when he finally lay down in his own bed and found that he couldn't sleep. Not because of the battle plans running through his head. Not because of the reports he still needed to review.
Because he could still taste her on his tongue.
Because he could still feel her throat around his cock.
Because somewhere in the fortress, in a room he'd assigned her, the enemy's daughter was probably lying awake too—and that thought did something to him that he didn't have a name for.
He rolled onto his side. Punching the pillow. Closing his eyes.
Sleep didn't come for a long time.
When it finally did, he dreamed of silver hair and violet eyes and a blade sheathed in silk—and woke with his hand wrapped around his cock and her name on his lips.
Kaelen woke with his hand slick and his jaw clenched, the ghost of her name still caught between his teeth. The sheets were twisted around his legs, damp with sweat despite the autumn chill that crept through the arrow slits.
He sat up. Swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until stars burst behind the lids.
The dream clung to him like smoke—silver hair spread across his pillow, violet eyes half-lidded with want, her voice a low murmur against his throat. He could still feel the phantom weight of her on his chest, the warmth of her thighs straddling his hips.
He shook his head. Hard. Like a dog shedding water.
"Fuck."
The word hung in the empty room, answered only by the distant clang of the watch bell. Third hour past midnight. He'd slept less than two.
He stood. Crossed to the washbasin. Splashed cold water on his face, his neck, his hands—scrubbing at his palm like he could scour away the evidence of what he'd done in his sleep.
It didn't help.
He could still smell her. That strange, dark scent—night-blooming flowers and something sharper underneath, like crushed herbs and old iron. It had clung to his skin after she'd knelt in front of him, after she'd opened her mouth and taken him to the root.
He'd left her on the floor. Covered in his seed. Still trembling.
And she'd thanked him for it.
His stomach twisted. Not with guilt—he was too old for that particular luxury—but with something adjacent. A cold, creeping awareness that he'd crossed a line he couldn't uncross, and worse, that he wanted to cross it again.
He pulled on his trousers. A shirt. His boots. The leather creaked as he laced them, the sound obscenely loud in the silence.
He needed air. Needed distance. Needed to put at least three walls between himself and the woman sleeping in his fortress.
The corridor was dark. He navigated it by memory, one hand trailing along the cold stone, his footsteps muffled by the thick rushes on the floor. Past the guardroom, where two of his men sat playing dice by candlelight. Past the chapel, its door cracked open to reveal a single guttering flame. Past the—
He stopped.
The door to her chamber was open.
Not wide. Just a sliver—barely a finger's width—but enough to let a thin stripe of candlelight spill into the corridor. Enough to hear the soft, rhythmic sound drifting through the gap.
Breathing. Fast. Shallow. Punctuated by something that might have been a whimper.
He should walk away. Should assume she was dreaming, or praying, or doing any of the hundred innocent things a woman might do alone in her chamber at night. Should keep moving, keep walking, keep the distance he'd sworn to maintain.
His hand found the door before his brain could stop it.
Pushed.
The room was small—he'd given her one of the guest chambers, nothing fancy, just a bed and a washstand and a single window facing the eastern mountains. The candle on the nightstand had burned down to a stub, its light barely reaching the corners.
She was on the bed.
Naked.
One hand between her thighs. The other fisted in the sheets.
Her back was arched, her head thrown back, her silver hair spread across the pillow like spilled mercury. Her lips were parted, her breath coming in those same fast, shallow gasps he'd heard from the corridor.
And she was saying his name.
"Kaelen—please—"
He should have left. Should have closed the door and walked away and pretended he'd never seen this, never heard this, never felt his cock harden at the sight of her touching herself and begging for him.
But he didn't move.
Couldn't.
Just stood there in the doorway like a man carved from stone, watching her fingers work between her legs. Watching her hips roll against her own hand. Watching her eyes fly open when she sensed his presence and found him standing there.
She froze.
Her hand stilled. Her breath caught. Those violet eyes—silver in the candlelight, always shifting, always impossible to pin down—went wide with something that looked like shame.
"I—" She swallowed. "I didn't hear you."
"No."
"I thought you were—I thought you'd gone to your own bed."
"I had."
She sat up slowly. Made no move to cover herself. Her nipples were dark against the obsidian plane of her breasts, peaked and wet from her own fingers. There was a smear of something on her inner thigh—his seed, maybe, left over from earlier.
"You're still hard," she said.
He looked down. His trousers did nothing to hide the shape of his erection, straining against the laces, forming a wet spot where the tip pressed against the fabric.
"So I am."
"Are you going to stand there all night?"
"I haven't decided."
She laughed. Not the sharp, mocking laugh he'd expected—something softer, almost sad. "You're a terrible liar, Commander."
"I'm not lying."
"No." She tilted her head. "You're just afraid."
The word hit him like a slap. He stepped into the room, pulled the door shut behind him, and crossed to the bed in three long strides.
"Say that again."
"Afraid." She met his eyes without flinching. "You're afraid of wanting me. Afraid of what it means. Afraid that if you touch me again, you won't be able to stop."
His hand shot out. Caught her chin. Forced her face up.
"You don't know a fucking thing about what I'm afraid of."
"Then tell me."
The challenge in her voice was unmistakable. No coyness, no flirtation—just a raw, desperate honesty that made his chest ache.
He released her chin. Stepped back. Started unlacing his trousers with fingers that shook.
"I'm not going to tell you anything," he said. "I'm going to show you."
The laces came free. His cock sprang out, thick and ruddy and already leaking, and he watched her eyes drop to it. Watched her tongue wet her lips.
"On your knees," he said.
She moved without hesitation. Slipped off the bed, onto the floor, the same flagstones she'd knelt on hours earlier. Her hair pooled around her, silver against gray stone, and she looked up at him with an expression that made his heart stutter.
Not defiance. Not challenge.
Surrender.
"I'm going to fuck your mouth," he said. "And you're going to take it. You're going to choke on it, and you're going to thank me, and you're not going to come until I tell you you can."
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, Commander."
He fisted a hand in her hair. Pulled her forward. She opened her mouth wide, tongue flat, eyes locked on his, and he slid into her throat with a groan that came from somewhere deep in his chest.
She took him. All of him. Her throat worked around him, swallowing, squeezing, and he felt the wet heat of her mouth close around his shaft like a fist.
"That's it," he breathed. "Fucking take it."
He moved. Slow at first, letting her adjust, then faster. Harder. He fucked her face with a rhythm that matched the pounding of his heart, his balls drawing tight, his breath coming in harsh, ragged gasps.
She didn't fight him. Didn't pull away. Just knelt there and took it, her hands braced on his thighs, her eyes streaming tears, her throat making those wet, obscene sounds that drove him closer to the edge.
He looked down at her. At the princess of the shadow courts, on her knees on his flagstones, her mouth stuffed full of his cock. At the scars on her back, the old wounds that someone had carved into her flesh. At the way her thighs were pressed together, seeking friction, seeking relief.
"You want to come," he said.
She nodded as much as she could with her mouth full.
"Too bad."
He pulled out. Let her gasp for air, her chest heaving, spit and pre-come dripping down her chin.
"Please," she whispered.
"Please what?"
"Please let me come."
He considered her. The desperation in her voice. The way her fingers were twitching against her thighs, desperate to touch herself. The way her cunt was probably aching, empty, clenching around nothing.
"Stand up," he said.
She rose on shaky legs.
"Turn around."
She did.
"Bend over the bed."
She obeyed.
He stepped up behind her. Ran a hand down her spine, over the scars, over the curve of her ass. She shuddered at his touch, her breath hitching, her hips tilting back toward him.
"You want my cock in your cunt," he said.
"Yes."
"Beg."
"Please, Kaelen. Please fuck me. Please—"
He slammed into her.
She screamed. Not in pain—in relief, in pleasure, in something that sounded almost like gratitude. Her cunt clenched around him, hot and wet and tight, and he had to pause for a moment just to breathe.
"Fuck," he gritted out. "You're so fucking tight."
"Please—"
He started moving. Hard, fast strokes that made the bed frame creak and the headboard slam against the wall. She met him thrust for thrust, pushing back, taking him deeper, her moans turning into something raw and animal.
"Touch yourself," he ordered.
Her hand slid between her legs. He could feel her fingers brushing against his shaft as he moved, could feel the frantic circles she was rubbing into her clit.
"Don't come yet," he said.
"I can't—please—"
"You can. You will. You don't come until I tell you to."
A sob escaped her. But she obeyed. Held back, even as her body trembled, even as her cunt clenched around him in desperate, fluttering waves.
"That's my girl," he murmured. "That's my good fucking girl."
The words seemed to break something in her. She went limp against the bed, her cheek pressed to the sheets, her hands fisted in the blankets, her entire body trembling with the effort of holding back.
He fucked her harder. Faster. Chasing his own release now, using her body the way he'd wanted to since the moment he'd seen her in that courtyard.
"Come," he growled.
She shattered.
Her cunt clamped down on him like a vice, rippling in waves that seemed to go on forever. She screamed his name—not loud, but raw, broken, like a prayer torn from her throat.
He followed a heartbeat later. Buried himself to the hilt and spilled inside her, pulse after pulse, his vision going white at the edges.
They stayed like that for a long moment. Him bent over her, still inside her, both of them breathing like they'd run a mile.
Then he pulled out.
She made a small, wounded sound. Turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, her eyes dazed and wet.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He didn't answer. Just walked to the washstand, poured water into the basin, and cleaned himself off with a cloth that was probably too rough for the purpose.
When he turned back, she was still bent over the bed. Still exposed. Still waiting.
"Get under the covers," he said.
She straightened slowly. Climbed onto the bed, wincing as she moved, and pulled the blanket up to her chin.
"Are you leaving?"
He should. He should walk out that door and go back to his own room and pretend this never happened. Should put as much distance between them as possible before this thing—whatever it was—consumed them both.
Instead, he sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Go to sleep," he said.
She studied him for a long moment. Then, without a word, she shifted over. Made room.
He didn't lie down. Just sat there, staring at the wall, listening to her breathing slow as she drifted off.
When he was sure she was asleep, he reached down and brushed a strand of silver hair away from her face. Tucked it behind her ear.
"You're going to be the death of me," he murmured.
She didn't stir.
He stayed until dawn.