Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
“This makes sense, though, sweetheart, there are other instances of a crime committed against a person that have much the same effect.”
“I have been beaten up, Ellie. I have even been jumped by surprise and assaulted. It is the way of training a soldier in Airen, and also in Firenze. Especially if you are a prince who others wish to take down a peg. But I have not had my body invaded. The very thought threatens to suffocate something inside me. And thus, I think this is the way forward.”
It also had to do with his mother suffering that same fate.
Repeatedly.
However, I did not mention this.
“Horatia will not face tribunal,” he decreed. “I will quietly pass her sentence, though I think she has served enough, as it were. Thus, I will find somewhere safe and pleasing where she can spend the rest of her days.”
“I think this is the best way,” I murmured.
I rose and fell with the mighty rise and fall of his chest.
Then I lifted my hand and touched the markings under his eye. They were a sort of brackets, but the top of the one to the right had a short slash going in, but none at the bottom, the opposite on the bracket to the left side, and a miniscule four-sided star was in the middle.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“Completion,” he told me.
I looked into his eyes.
“Of training,” he went on. “When I became an officer.”
“Oh,” I whispered, not surprised at this for all his men had the same under their eyes. I moved my finger to his temple. “And these?”
I touched my finger to two swooshes, both truncated at one end. And under them, the same swooshes, but they emitted from two four-sided stars.
“Conception and birth.”
My gaze jumped to his.
“The top I had inked when we found Aelia was growing in Liviana’s belly,” he shared. “The bottom I had inked after she’d safely arrived.”
I decided, for that day, not to ask more.
“Oh no, my princess,” he whispered, turning us, me to my back, him looming over me. “You did your reading, now you shall have mine.”
I wanted his.
But I did not wish to take him to places that would open old wounds in getting it.
“Cass, you don’t have to do this.”
“I do,” he stated, these two words seeming to be torn from somewhere deep in his soul. “For you must know, she is here.”
He took my hand, pressing my fingers to a larger bracket that was over his heart, the top end bent inward more, shielding to its right a small swoop that was inked over another four-sided star.
“Protection. Liviana,” he grunted, dragging my hand up and pressing the tips of my fingers to a symbol at the pulse of his neck that I did not look at, for I was gazing into his eyes.
But I did not need to look, for I had it memorized.
Two downward sweeping swooshes, one smaller and tucked into the other.
“Pulse,” he said. “This symbol depicts a heart that beats for another. Also, Liviana.”
I was finding it hard to breathe, hearing his words, having this further demonstration of his love for her, as he pushed his body farther away.
Arching, he pressed my hand to the skin of his stomach and slid it down toward his groin.
He flattened my hand under his, my fingers separated by his shaft, my palm teased by the hair above it. “But you will be here. And I will keep it shaved so I will see you there as I take you and you take me. And when you are inked there forever, it will be the symbol of ownership.”
Oh my goddess.
“Cass,” I breathed.
“I will not be the first Airenzian man who is owned by his woman,” he said thickly.
“I do not own you.”
“You do.”
“Cass.”
He shifted our hands, closing mine around his rock-hard cock.
I trembled.
All right, maybe I did own him.
“I will ink you elsewhere, Elena,” he vowed, his voice now throaty as his hand over mine stroked his shaft. “I will cover all that is blank with symbols of you, our girls, the children we will make, the life we will lead.”
Optimism.
Thank the goddess, he was sharing hope. Hope for us. Our girls. Our family.
The future.
“Yes,” I agreed readily, my body shifting greedily, pressing as best as I could to him. “Let me take you inside,” I murmured, needing that, and not caring where he wanted to be inside.
I would take it, adore it, worship it.
“No,” he grunted, and his eyes held mine captive. “Own it.”
“Yes,” I whispered, stretching to him to take his mouth in a deep, wet kiss before I moved slightly away and took what was mine.
I dropped my head.
Watching.
Cass’s hand tightening over mine deliciously.
I saw his movements, heard his noises, sensed his strain.
I reached in, he spread his legs for me, and I gently squeezed his sac.