The Rivaled Crown (The Veiled Kingdom, #3)

by Holly Renee

“The rest of the kingdom will fall to their knees before you, Verena.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss just below my belly button before he stared up at me. “But please allow me to be the first.” Another kiss, this time on my right hip bone. “Allow me to show you how you should be worshipped.” The next kiss was on my left hip bone, and my hips surged forward, desperate for more. “Allow me to show you where I will gladly spend the rest of my days if you let me.” I sucked in a breath feeling the heat radiating from him as he knelt before me, his hands still clasped around the backs of my knees, his breath warm against my skin. He pressed another kiss just above my pussy, and I gasped as my fingers tightened in his hair until he groaned.

He looked up at me, his gaze dark and as out of control as I felt. “It wants you.” I shook my head trying to explain something I didn’t understand. “I’m scared I’ll take from you again.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, my arousal still coating his lips. “Take anything you want, love.” One of his hands snaked around my hip until it pressed against my lower stomach. “Take from me until I have nothing left to give. I am devoted to you. Everything I have is yours to take.” He pressed hard on my stomach until my ass hit the wall, and I had no room to escape.

“Do you hear me, Verena?” He was watching me so carefully, so intensely. “I am drowning in my want for you, and there is no room inside me for fear. Take from me, touch me. Feed your body with what yearns for you. I would ruin every part of me to give to you.” I turned my head slightly, looking away from him, from his words. “Look at me,” he demanded, and I couldn’t deny him. “I am yours, and you are mine. There is nothing beyond that. No fear between the two of us.”

“Dacre,” I whispered, my fingers tightening in his hair, my chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. “I don’t trust myself.” His gaze snapped up to mine, dark and wild, his lips still glistening from me. “Then trust me.” His hands slid higher, pressing into my waist, his fingers flexing as if to remind me that he was here, that he was unshaken. “I have never feared you, Verena. And I never will.” His voice was rough, steady, a vow carved from stone. “You are mine.” His grip on me tightened. “And I will not let you go another second thinking you are anything different.”

“I have hungered for you for every moment that I searched for you, and now that you’re here, I will never have enough power to let you go again.” He leaned forward, his lips pressing soft, searing kisses along my collarbones, up my throat, until his breath was hot against my ear. “It was you,” I whispered. “You are the only thing that kept me alive, the thing I clung to desperately through our bond whether I was imagining it or not. I only had you, and it was the only thing I needed.”

“I will not be able to be gentle once I’m inside you,” he rasped. “I am weak for you, utterly wrecked, and I cannot be careful with you right now.” “Then don’t.” My fingers dug into his back, my nails raking down his spine. A low growl rumbled in his chest, and then his mouth was on mine again, fierce and claiming, and I felt myself give in, felt the last of my walls crumble. This wasn’t careful.

I had already been lost once. I had been torn apart, shattered, but Dacre would piece me back together with every whispered vow, every desperate touch, every moment where he refused to give up on me.

“Hips up, love,”

Not me internally screaming when I see “love” as a nickname.

I let out a shuddering breath, clinging to him with everything I had, and I kissed him again, hard and desperate, needing him to understand, needing him to feel what I couldn’t put into words. I had been so fearful, but he was still here. Still whole. Still mine. And if I was a storm, then he was the one thing unshaken in its wake. I had spent my entire life running, from my father, from my past, from the power that lived inside me, but not anymore. I wasn’t running. I was his.

She melted into me, her hands tangling in my hair, her body pressing against mine, and gods, I wanted to lose myself in her all over again.

Verena’s smile reached her eyes, and I swore I could have stared at it for the rest of my life.

He broke the kiss just long enough to rest his forehead against mine, his breath coming in ragged, uneven breaths. “Please don’t fear me, don’t fear us.” “I don’t.” I shook my head and tried to make him understand. “Not anymore.”

“What does it feel like for you?” he asked, his voice thick with want that told me he could feel me just as I felt him. “Like I’m not alone in my own skin anymore,” I finally answered, feeling the truth of my words resonate deep within me.

“Dacre,” I whispered, his name a demand, a breaking. His hand slid up, fingertips grazing the underside of my breast, and I shuddered. “You have no idea,” he broke off, his lips hovering over mine, his voice a wrecked rasp. “No idea what you do to me.” I did because I felt it. His need. His devotion. His magic, tangled with mine, curling through my body, twining around my spine.

His breath hitched, and I felt it, the relief, the grief, the love, the rage, all of it tangled together. I lifted a hand, brushing his damp hair from his forehead, letting my fingers linger. A sound escaped his lips, something between a laugh and a breath of disbelief, and then he kissed me. It was slow, deep, aching. Like he was learning me all over again. Like he needed to feel every part of me, memorize every inch of me, just in case the gods tried to steal me from him again. I melted into him, letting the world fall away, letting the bond between us hum, warm and steady beneath my skin. “You are mine," he whispered against my lips, his hands shaking where they held me. “I’m yours,” I murmured. "And you are mine.” His lips ghosted over mine, his voice nothing more than a breath. "In this life and every life after."

“No one will see us as long as you’re quiet.”