Chapter 24: Hit Me Hard And Soft

"Go ahead, hit me!" he murmured, his voice dripping hard, "But you better hit me hard, Liora. Because when I take my revenge... I will not be so kind."

I stood there, trapped between the freezing stone wall and the burning furnace of the Lycan King. Every emotion in the world was swirling violently inside my head. Terror that he was going to kill me. Anger that he had betrayed me. Fear of what Kaelen would do to me.

But louder than all of it was the lust.

More lust. And more lust. It was suffocating. My body was screaming at me to tilt my head, to close the distance, to let him tear the wool tunic from my body and take me right against the stone. My thighs were trembling so badly I could barely keep myself upright.

‘No,’ I thought, fighting a vicious war inside my own mind. ‘Don't give in. He doesn't care about you. He is a monster.’

I violently clenched my jaw in repulsion, forcing my hazel eyes to harden as I glared up at him. I needed to show this arrogant, manipulating King that I did not give a single hoot about his royal power.

Riven watched the internal struggle play out on my face. A dark, wicked amusement danced in his molten eyes.

"Come on," Riven taunted softly, his gaze dropping to my lips before rising back to meet my eyes. "Don't tell me after all that babble from that razor-sharp mouth of yours... you are too afraid to strike me."

My blood boiled over.

"Afraid?" I scoffed, a hysterical, breathless edge to my voice. "Oh, you think I'm afraid of you?"

"Show me," he challenged.

My right hand was shaking uncontrollably. I balled it into a tight fist, my blunt fingernails digging painfully into my palms. I pushed past the instinctual terror screaming at me to stop. I pushed past the intoxicating scent of his arousal. I channeled every ounce of trauma, every drop of bitter humiliation I had suffered in that courtroom, and I swung.

Crack.

The sound of my knuckles connecting with solid bone echoed sharply in the quiet bedroom.

I hit his cheekbone, the force of the blow carrying my fist right into the bridge of his nose. The impact sent a sharp, painful jolt all the way up my forearm.

Riven’s head snapped slightly to the side.

The room instantly fell dead silent.

My adrenaline vanished in a millisecond, completely replaced by pure, unadulterated, ice-cold horror. ‘Oh fuk! What did I just do?’ My wolf began to weep in absolute terror, scrambling frantically into the darkest corner of my mind. I had just struck the King of the world. The Alpha of all Alphas.

But the worst realization came a second later.

A single, thick drop of dark crimson blood slid from his left nostril, trailing down his carved jawline.

I had made the King bleed. I was a dead woman.

Riven remained still for a long, agonizing moment. Then, very slowly, he turned his head back to face me. He reached up, swiping his thumb across the trail of blood on his face. He looked at the red smear on his skin.

And then, he smiled.

It wasn't a gentle smile. It was a vicious, unhinged, deeply feral curve of his lips that promised absolute devastation.

"You hit pretty hard," Riven murmured, his voice thick, heavy, and dripping with a dark, violent arousal.

He took a slow half-step closer, fully trapping me.

"But not hard enough." The golden hue in his eyes completely vanished, swallowed by the pitch-black void of a dominant beast entirely off its leash. "My turn."

Before I could even register his movement, his hands shot out like lightning.

He grabbed both of my wrists. His grip was like iron, bruising and absolute. I didn't even have time to scream before he forcefully hauled my arms up over my head, slamming my back completely flat against the stone wall. The breath was knocked out of my lungs.

He shifted his weight, pressing the massive, unyielding wall of his chest flush against mine, pinning my lower body so tightly I couldn't even twitch my legs. He let go of my right wrist, using just his massive left hand to easily restrain both of my arms above my head.

I was completely, utterly immobilized.

Riven brought his free right hand up to my face. His rough, scabrous fingers brushed against my jawline, sending violent shivers down my spine. His touch was slow, agonizingly deliberate. He traced the shape of my trembling lower lip, sparking a wildfire in my blood.

Then, he pushed his thick thumb right past my lips, sliding it directly into my mouth.

I gasped at the sudden, erotic intrusion. I tasted the salt of his skin and the faint, metallic tang of his own blood.

Riven's eyes darkened completely. He pulled his thumb out roughly, dragging it hard over my swollen bottom lip. The rough friction pulled a helpless, needy whimper straight from my throat.

"I'm going to teach you five very valuable lessons tonight, little bird," Riven growled against my mouth, his hot breath fanning over my lips. "Rules you must abide by."

He pressed his hips forward, and I felt the thick, heavy, terrifyingly massive ridge of his arousal pressing directly against my core through our clothes.

"Rule number one," Riven whispered, his fangs grazing the sensitive skin of my throat. "I punish my slaves if they try to run away."