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  “Surprisingly yes,” she managed in a whisper, and he responded with a low chuckle. She strained against him, moving her hips as he continued to pump his fingers in and out of her, his thumb pressing her sensitive flesh, causing her the most pleasurable sort of agony she’d ever experienced. She kept her eyes closed, but Daarik’s presence invaded every one of her senses, his short, harsh breaths against her neck, the beat of his heart thumping against her breast, the heat of his body. When he began slowly walking her back toward the bed, she went willingly, a slave to the sensations he was making her feel. He settled her back onto the bed, and she finally opened her eyes, watched him untying the ties on the front of his pants with the same hand that had just been pleasuring her, their other hands still tied together from the wedding ceremony.

  When he sprang free, her first thought was that yes, he did indeed have a penis.

  “Gods help me,” she whispered. He was enormous, as she’d suspected he would be. A mix of fear and excitement overtook her as he settled his huge body over hers, murmuring that she should open wider for him. She spent a moment looking up at him, at his fearsome face, his fangs visible behind his lips, at his nearly black eyes, the dark eyebrows and beard, the boulder gray skin, the thick muscles of his neck. She guessed she’d drunk more than she’d thought; she didn’t find him terrifying in the least, at the moment.

  Something to consider another time.

  She closed her eyes again and did as he asked.

  He entered her slowly, stretching her, filling her, and she let out a small, helpless cry. His body trembled above hers, and she got the sense of power being held in check, of tension. She knew she was trembling as well. She clenched her free hand to her chest, and he gently took it in his and pulled it up over her head and twined his fingers with hers as he pushed himself deeper into her aching body. The moans that escaped her didn’t sound like any sound she’d ever made, but they were echoed by his own deep growls, and she felt better knowing that he was as lost as she was.

  Once she’d adjusted to him, he started moving his hips, and she found herself moving with him, needing him, wanting each thrust of his hips, the pain of their initial joining turning to sheer ecstasy.

  Daarik moved over her, slowly, and within moments her tightness and warmth had him on the verge of losing control completely. Her clean, floral scent surrounded him, and the tiny whimpers she made did not sound, to him, like sounds of pain. Soon, his thrusts were met with the rise of her hips, and he knew she was at least as affected as he was, despite how he knew he was stretching her.

  He moved faster, his hips pistoning harder as he chased some kind of relief.

  “Shannen. Open your eyes,” he demanded.

  She did, and the sight of the unchecked desire in her gold-flecked eyes did something to him. Warmth tore through him, possessiveness, and he knew he was close. He moved faster, encouraged by the fact that her legs were wrapped around him, her hips thrusting wildly against his.

  And then the whole world seemed to fall away as he felt his orgasm roll through him, as he spilled his seed into this human who was the last thing he could have imagined wanting jut a few short days ago. He heard a soft, strangled cry, and felt her body clenching his almost painfully tightly, and realized she’d gone over the edge as well.

  He was surprised, and swelled with pride.

  When he was spent, he bent his forehead to hers, meeting her eyes again.

  “Well done, wife.”

  “Thanks. Nice job,” she said, in a somewhat hoarse voice as she patted his shoulder. He smiled down at her.

  “Yes, yes, very well. I need to see evidence that your seed was spilled into her.”

  Daarik turned his head, just then remembering that they had an unwelcome audience, stunned by the fact that he’d managed to forget it at all. A glance at his wife showed that she’d momentarily forgotten about them as well. He would try not to let that go to his head.

  He turned back to Shannen. “Let’s let the annoying maggot have his evidence so we can be rid of him,” he said softly. She nodded, then closed her eyes tightly and turned her face away. Daarik stood up, gesturing to the human emissary that he should do whatever he needed to. The malignant little troll came over, followed by Daarik’s grandmother, who gave Daarik a gentle smile as if there was nothing out of the ordinary happening. The emissary looked between Shannen’s legs, and Daarik was struck by the urge to rip his head from his shoulders for looking at something of he had no right to see. His grandmother seemed to sense it, and put a calming hand on Daarik’s bicep.

  “Very well,” the emissary said in a tone of clear disgust. Daarik reached out and closed Shannen’s legs, then tossed one of the blankets over her. She used her free hand to promptly pull it up over her face.

  The emissary signed off on some papers, then had his grandmother do the same. He gave Daarik a copy of the document, then gave both him and his grandmother a nod and left the room.

  “What a horrid little man,” his grandmother said, and Daarik nodded, somewhat appalled that this grandmother had witnessed him the way she had. She gave him a knowing smile.

  “Daarik, I changed your messy diapers, and I also washed your bedclothes all through your teenage years. You haven’t done a damned thing I am unfamiliar with,” she said. She began untwining the rope that bound his hand to Shannen’s. Shannen, who, other than her arm, still lay hidden under the blankets, likely mortified.

  “You handled yourself well, girl,” his grandmother said in Common, speaking to Shannen.

  “Thank you,” Shannen said, and he hid a grin at the mortified squeak to her voice.

  Once she had them untied, her grandmother set the rope on the bedside table, patted what he guessed was Shannen’s shoulder under the blanket, then gently kissed Daarik on the cheek before leaving, closing the heavy door behind her with a resounding click.

  He turned back to the lump on his bed that was his bride.

  “You can come out now.”

  “Gods, that was horrifying,” she said, her voice still muffled by the blankets.

  He felt his face heat, and went to the washstand. He cleaned himself, tied his pants, then brought a warm wet washcloth out. “It didn’t seem as if you suffered that horribly,” he grumbled. He pulled the blankets aside and made as if to wipe her body. She jumped up, her eyes widened in alarm.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” she asked him, moving away from the bed.

  He stood there, holding the washcloth. “We do this for our women,” he said, feeling, all at once as if he was caught in some kind of upside-down world where nothing made sense. Shannen stalked to him, snatched the washcloth from his hand, and stormed toward the wash room.

  “I’m not Maarlai,” she said. He looked at the door separating her from him and felt the sudden urge to bash it down and make her look at him.

  “You’re married to a Maarlai,” he called through the door. The door opened, and she stood there, face clear of the veil. The glare on her face was enough to nearly make him cringe back.

  “As if I could forget it,” she hissed. “What in the hell were you doing?”

  “What?” he stared at her in disbelief. “You were here, weren’t you?”

  She stalked over to her trunk, which one of the servants had delivered to the suite earlier in the day. Her movements reminded him of an angry wolf on the verge of snapping. She bent over it and shuffled through its contents, eventually coming up with what he guessed was clothing. “You didn’t have to go that far.”

  “What?” he repeated, staring at the human. His wife, he had to remind himself, who seemed more alien all of a sudden than she had for much of the day.

  “You could have just finished your business and been done. Why did you do all of those other things? The touching and the…” she broke off, turning on him with that angry glare again.

  “It angers you that you felt good?” he asked, dumbfounded.

  “It was not my intention to put on that much of
a show for anyone,” she said, and her face reddened, and he understood.

  Or, at least, he thought he did.

  “I forgot they were there,” he admitted quietly. “My intention was for you to not be in pain, and to maybe even enjoy it. I did, more than I thought I would.”

  Her face reddened further, and she looked away from him. “Well, at least it’s over with,” she finally said, looking down at the clothing in her hands.

  He didn’t answer. Why was she acting this way, as if it had been horrible? Had he been that wrong, when he assumed she’d orgasmed as well? “Yes, I suppose so,” Daarik finally said. Without another word, Shannen dug through the trunk some more, coming up with a large brush. She tossed it onto the rumpled bed, then went into the washroom with her clothing. He sat, and, with nothing else to do, waited in confusion for her to come back out. He considered going down to the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of bloodwine. He felt like he could use it.

  A moment later, the washroom door opened, and his breath caught. She was no longer wearing the long, loose gown or the veil. She was dressed in a band of fabric around her chest and breasts, moulding her in a delicious way. Her midriff was bare above a pair of loose, flowing pants that clung to her hips and rear end. Her bare feet peeked from below the loose ends of the pants. Both the pants and top were a deep green color that suited her complexion. She was unbraiding her hair, and, focusing on that as she walked out, she didn’t even notice him staring at her.

  “What are you wearing?” he asked. She stopped and looked at him.

  “They’re called pajamas. Sleeping clothes. Don’t you have those?”

  “Why would you wear clothes to sleep in?” he asked.

  She paled, just a little. “You are not sleeping naked with me.”

  “If you can sleep like that, I can sleep the way I always have,” he said. She looked away, as if determined not to pay any further attention to him, and sat on the edge of the bed. She finished unbraiding her hair, and he stared at her, mesmerized by the way it caught the light as it flowed well past her waist. She started running the brush through it again, methodically, a section of hair at a time, from the crown of her head all the way to the end of the strands. As she did, he tried not to notice how the fabric stretched across her ample breasts, or how her soft, curvaceous stomach was bared to him. She finished brushing her hair, and braided it again, binding the end with a bit of leather cord. Then she twisted and tucked, until it was gathered at the back of her head. With her hair up and out of the way, he could make out several long, pale scars across her back, line after line of them, both across her shoulders, and on her lower back as well. They were the kind of scars one got from a particularly brutal lashing, and he wondered how it was that a princess had undergone that kind of punishment.

  He had a feeling this was not the time to bring it up, if ever, with this coolness between them now.

  When she finally turned, as if remembering he was there, their eyes met.

  “We will not be doing that again,” she said softly.

  It hit him harder than it should have, especially right in that instant, with another erection pressing against the front of his pants from watching her. He wouldn’t let her see how much it bothered him, the idea of not bedding her again.

  “As you wish, wife,” he said. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up around her, and he started pulling off his shirt, then his pants, and settled himself, naked, beside her in bed.

  “Sleep well,” she said stiffly, then turned away from him, facing the wall.

  “Same to you,” he muttered. He had a long, dark night ahead of him to wonder at the passion that had erupted between them, at the possessiveness he already felt toward his strange wife, at the fact that she apparently hadn’t enjoyed it as much as he’d thought, as well as at the nagging reminder that, by her own word,s she’d been perfectly fine with casual sex with humans, while telling him, her husband!, that she did not want him again.

  He tried to harden himself against her. He would not let her, or anyone else, see how he already had become a fool for her.

  Chapter Five

  When Shannen woke the next morning, Daarik’s side of the bed was, thankfully, empty. She’d lain awake long into the night, aware that he was also awake, tossing and turning beside her. They had not said a word through the night, and she’d eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  She lay there, and she wondered what she was supposed to do now. She was wed to him, as she’d promised. He’d certainly accomplished the bedding, she thought, feeling the tender ache between her legs that reminded her, all too well, of the way the enormous warrior had made her forget herself. Of the way he’d so effortlessly made her feel something she’d never felt with a man.

  She hadn’t lied when she’d told him about sleeping her way through the men in her uncle’s palace. She had. She’d lost count after a while. It was never for pleasure and certainly not for love or devotion on her part. She slept with the ones who she knew would talk, who would be sure to tell everyone they knew that they’d plowed the princess against the stable wall, or in the cellar, or against a tree in the orchard. A way of avoiding anyone ever wanting her hand in marriage. She’d never taken any pleasure in it, and even when it was decent, it had been over too quickly for her to do much more than feel the first shivers of pleasure.

  None of that had been the case with Daarik the night before. And their bedding had been, like any other, for another purpose. It had had nothing to do with anything other than sealing a contract between his people and hers, between the ruling faction and those who had bent the knee to them after over a decade of bloody battle.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, grimacing again at the clear reminder that she hadn’t dreamt it all somehow.

  He’d been kind to her. Much kinder, much more careful with her than she ever could have expected. The unexpected way he’d stood up for her against Harledon’s insults had shocked her; no one had ever done that on her behalf before. She was more than capable of defending herself, but it felt nice to have someone standing with her anyway.

  But no matter how kind or solicitous he’d been, she would be a fool to forget that truly, she was here for one reason: to be the first line of punishment should her people move against his. No matter what altruistic words Daarik’s father spoke in regard to their union, no matter how little her uncle’s family cared for her, she was a member of House Lyon, the last stronghold of human civilization left on the planet. When her father, the former King, had fallen in battle, the throne had passed to her uncle as the next living male relative. She’d been hidden away; indeed, very few even knew that the former king had any offspring and her parentage hadn’t been questioned since there were eight sons of House Lyon and several of them had seemingly set about re-populating the Earth, so numerous were the bastard children they created and left behind.

  Her father, though, only had one child, and she’d been left alone until her father’s death. Her uncle had been all too happy to hide her away in his palace, haunted as he was by his brother’s greatness.

  This was politics, she reminded herself. No matter how maligned she was in her uncle’s home, she was a member of the human royal family, and she would be a fool to think Daarik’s father did not have a backup plan, most likely involving her and her death, should things sour between the humans and the Maarlai again. He knew what her worth was, politically, even if Daarik did not. All four of the women sent to the Maarlai to be possible brides for Daarik had been beloved among her people: a scholar and stateswoman, a celebrated athlete, the most renowned beauty in the land, and her, a member of the royal family, relations of the last great king, who had given his very life in battle for his people.

  Should things become nasty again, her neck would be first on the chopping block. She would be a fool to forget that, which was why it was completely essential that Daarik not touch her again. The way she had lost herself with him the night before had been stupid a
nd unsafe, to say the least.

  And for all she knew, he was on the same page as his father. Women in her world were possessions or bargaining chips. It seemed to be no different for her here than it was there.

  She cleaned her teeth, then washed, grateful she’d brought several blocks of soap she’d brought from home, soaps she’d made herself, a fragrance mixture she had developed specifically for her use. The mix of lavender, lemon blossom, and anise immediately centered her. It was like stepping back into herself, and away from the stupidity of the previous night. She washed, and re-braided her hair, and dressed in a clean gown and scarf. She was just stepping into her supple black boots when there was a knock at the chamber door.

  “Yes?” she called, straightening.

  A Maarlai female poked her head into the room, barely hiding the distaste on her face. Shannen recognized her as the same one who had brought the tray of food when she’d been waiting the night before being wed.

  “Daarik requested that I show you to the palace library when you desired. Would you like to go now?” the Maarlai asked in a clipped, cool tone, in utterly perfect Common.

  Shannen considered telling her she would like to eat, but she changed her mind. Books first. “Please,” she said to the Maarlai, who merely nodded at her. Shannen followed her down the corridor and down a wide stone stairway.

  “What is your name?” Shannen asked, trying to make conversation.

  “Does it matter?” the Maarlai woman muttered.

  “Of course it does. This is the second time you’ve been sent to babysit me. I feel as if I should know what to call you.”

  The Maarlai gave her a withering glance, and Shannen just looked back at her calmly, the practiced aloofness that came with being raised in the royal family coming as naturally to her as breathing.

  “Janara,” the Maarlai finally said.

  “Well met, Janara. Thank you for showing me around today, as well as for the meal the other night.”