He pushes me away, and I am not sure why. Does he not want me anymore? No, that can’t be true.I sense the need in him, the want to tear into me, to break me. And I am not unhappy about it or threatened.All I feel is a relief that finally he’s revealed his true self to me. Just as I have to him. I watch him walk to the door, open it, and speak in a low voice to the soldier stationed outside. Footsteps approach up the corridor. A tray exchanges hands. He steps back, holding it. The door snicks shut behind him. It’s a soft sound and yet it shivers over my sensitized skin. The scent of food wafts over to me, but that only twists my stomach. He places the tray on the table, then turns and folds his arms over his chest. He doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to comply with his unspoken command. Every line of his body indicates he’ll patiently wait until I give in.I want to say no, want to deny him, but all that

When I come to it is to the thud of his heart under my cheek. I slide my fingers over warm skin. Turn my face and bury my nose in the light smattering of hair on his chest.The scent of his sweat and musk of his arousal turns me on, and it also strangely soothes me. I feel protected and cherished, and the still thinking part of my mind warns me I am falling into a place from which there is no return. I try to move only to find there is a heavy weight around my waist. It’s his arm, which is massive enough to hold me down. It feels so right that I know it’s wrong.Not like this.All my life I’ve spent fighting that core inside me, the part that was intrinsically dominion that needed to be tamed, subdued, knotted, and bred. And in one stroke he…this leader, the most monstrous of all in the city, has done just that. And I had encouraged him. The faint recollection of giving him what he wanted, of calling him by his name

I look at myself in the mirror and wince. My hair is caked with cum, and there is fluid drying on my body. My lips are swollen, the skin around my lips is chafed, my nipples look unusually larger, and my breasts…? I cup them and grimace.They feel sore, like they have been squeezed and pummeled.Well, to be fair, he had been gentle with my breasts. Overall, he’d been gentle with my body. For a big man like him, his fingers are unusually light in their touch. He’d rubbed his cum into every part of me that he could access, then poured some of our joined-up liquids into my mouth, and I had…loved it.I admit it.I had relished every touch, feel, taste of him.I had reveled in his scent. I had fucked him right back.I grasp the edge of the wash basin and lean forward, my hair falling over my face, bringing with it the scent of sex. That darker, deeper, muskier essence of his laced with the lighter on

I am so close to her that I can see the little creases around her eyes. I can see the pores on her skin, the freckles on her nose, the creamy expanse of her throat; I want to lean in and touch to remind myself she is as soft as I remember her to be. Then her throat moves as she swallows. Nervousness and fear come off her in waves. And that stops me.When I had dragged her here and fucked her… It wasn’t completely against her will, for she had all but begged me to take her, but she was also in the high of her heat cycle then, had not been in her right mind, and her body had needed me. But now?Her gaze is clear even as those green eyes burn with desire. Her body trembles. The sugary scent of her arousal fills the air. She presses her bare toes into the floor. Every part of her is eager for me, and yet she holds back. “Don’t be afraid.”She starts at my voice, her gaze flying to my face.

I’d walked out of there and that was not what I had intended. I’d wanted to try to be civil, to stay with her, make sure she was okay after the last few days. And that thought itself is so unnatural. What does it matter how she feels? She is my hostage. The daughter of an enemy who’d walked into my palace with the express need to hurt me. Why did she agree to do that? I’d never bothered to ask her of her intentions.I didn’t need to.The look on her face when I had called her out on her own identity was proof enough. Besides, I am judge, jury, and executioner. I don't need to explain my decisions to anyone, and certainly not to an dominion. And yet that part of me that seems to come alive when I’m around her, insists that I give her the benefit of the doubt.Why is it that the sight of her green eyes, wide and with tears shimmering in them, haunts me? That scent of hers, that familiar,