MasukIrina He reached around my waist. His massive hand grabbed my throat. He didn't choke me, but his thick fingers wrapped completely around my neck, holding my head up. He forced me to keep looking down at the courtyard. "Watch them," he ordered, his voice strained and heavy. "Watch then fuck as I fuck you." I watched a northern woman get pinned to a wooden table right below us. She was screaming, her back arched as a massive man pounded into her. I felt the exact same heavy, brutal thrusts tearing through my own body. "You like this," he taunted, his hips snapping forward so fast like they were made of elastic. The wet, slapping sounds of our bodies colliding grew louder, syncing perfectly with the heavy drums. "You like to be fucked like an animal. You want to be used." "Yes," I sobbed, completely abandoning any shred of pride. I thrust my hips backward, desperately meeting his rhythm, trying to take him even deeper. "Don't stop. Please." The friction inside me was building into
IrinaThere is a specific kind of starvation that makes you want to be treated like absolute trash. You stop caring about soft beds. You stop caring about who sees. You stop caring about your name, your title, or your dignity. You just want the blunt, physical weight of a man to crush the loud, frantic buzzing in your head.He didn't carry me to a room. He didn't ask if I was sure.He grabbed the heavy crimson silk of my skirts in both of his massive fists. He didn't bother trying to find a seam or a lace. He just pulled his hands apart. The fabric ripped straight up the middle.The freezing night air hit my bare skin immediately. It was a physical shock. The sweat on my thighs instantly turned to ice. Goosebumps broke out across my legs and my stomach. I gasped, my chest heaving against the tight constraints of my corset.I was completely exposed. From the waist down, I was standing completely naked on a stone balcony overlooking a courtyard of hundreds feral wolves. The thin strip o
Torin“Are you not enjoying the celebration tonight?”She didn't look angry. She didn't look feral. She looked completely relaxed, like she had been sitting there watching me struggle for the last ten minutes."Saddle would have slipped completely under the beast's belly the second you hit a full gallop," Yvara noted. Her dark eyes flicked down to the loose straps hanging from the horse, then back up to my face. She smiled. "You'd break your neck before you even cleared the tree line."I dropped the reins. The heavy leather straps hit the dirt floor. My mouth opened, but no sound came out. My throat was completely paralyzed."Going somewhere, Lord Torin?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. She set the lantern down on the hay bale next to her."I..." I swallowed hard, the taste of my own blood still sharp on my tongue. "I am leaving. The Queen ordered me back to the capital. I am carrying a message for King Aldric."Yvara let out a soft, breathy laugh. She wasn’t buying my lie. She
Torin"Easy, boy."I glanced around the dark stall and spotted the tack hanging over the wooden partition. A heavy leather saddle, a thick felt pad, and a tangled mess of reins and straps.I grabbed the saddle pad and threw it over the horse's back. The animal side-stepped heavily, slamming its immense weight against the side of the stall. The wood groaned under the impact."Stand still, you stupid beast," I hissed, panic rising in my chest again.I grabbed the saddle. It weighed at least forty pounds. I grunted, hoisting it up and dropping it awkwardly onto the horse's back. It landed slightly crooked.I moved to the horse's side to secure the straps.I didn't know what I was doing. Back in Valdris, my stable boys had my mount saddled and ready before I even finished my breakfast. I had never actually tacked a horse myself.I reached under the horse's belly to grab the heavy girth strap. The animal pinned its ears back and shifted its weight, stepping directly onto the toe of my righ
TorinThe men walked slowly. They were talking in low, guttural voices. As they passed the tapestry, the smell hit me. It was a suffocating wave of copper, stale alcohol, and raw musk. I peeked through a small tear in the fabric.They were massive. Both of them were stripped to the waist, their chests covered in a sheen of sweat and smeared with fresh blood. One of them had deep, angry scratch marks running all the way down his back. They were casually dragging a heavy wooden flagon of wine between them, laughing about something I couldn't understand.I squeezed my eyes shut. I suddenly smelled the heavy, floral scent of my own expensive lavender soap wafting up from my collar. It was the most unnatural smell in this entire fortress. I was reeking of the South. I waited for them to stop. I waited for them to catch the scent, rip the tapestry aside, and drag me out by my hair.The footsteps kept going. They faded down the hall.My lungs burned. I dropped my hands and gasped for air, th
TorinThe heavy oak door clicked shut, and the sound echoed in the freezing room like the drop of an executioner's blade.I stood completely frozen in the center of the guest quarters. I stared at the dark wood of the door, waiting for it to open again. I waited for Irina to walk back in, to tell me she was just punishing me, to tell me she actually had a plan to get us out of this frozen hell alive.The iron latch didn't move. She was gone.The silence inside the room pressed against my eardrums, but it couldn't drown out the low, violent vibration coming through the floorboards. The Ironmaw drums. They thumped with a relentless, heavy rhythm that made the acid in my stomach push straight up into the back of my throat.I dropped to my knees on the cold stone floor. My hands shook so violently I couldn't even press my palms flat against the ground. I dry-heaved, coughing up nothing but bitter saliva.She left me. The Queen of Valdris, the woman I had risked my entire life to bed, had
SeraI watched Kael. His chest heaved sporadically. He was choking on the blood flooding his windpipe."Hold his shoulders down!" the healer yelled at Yvara. "The bone is completely displaced."I knew exactly what that meant. Taya’s arm had healed crooked because her wolf biology kicked in before t
LyraWe slipped out of my bedroom. The castle corridors were dim and silent, the stone walls lined with the painted portraits of my ancestors. I hated looking at them. They all had the exact same cold, calculating eyes my father had.We moved quickly, keeping our footsteps light. We bypassed the ma
SeraThe sound changed first.The open, biting wind of the trail died away, replaced by a deep, resonant echo. The wagon wheels stopped crunching over frozen dirt and began to strike something solid and smooth. Stone. Large, fitted blocks that sang under the horses' hooves. We were passing under an
SeraFenris took a slow breath in through his nose. His massive fists clenched at his sides."The alliance between Ironmaw and Valdris was supposed to be simple," Kael continued. He pushed his luck. He pushed right against the blade. "Dimitri understood that well enough. If Dimitri were here right







