Healer to the Ash King (Dark Rulers, #5)

by Rebecca F. Kenney

“Once the house is in bed, someone will come to fetch you. The King would speak with you alone.”

I SWEAR REBECCA MAKES ME FEEL THIS WAY EVERY TIME

“Are you sure he doesn’t spew lava when he comes?”

HOWLING

His cheekbones and jawline are so perfectly parallel to each other, and his forehead is so smooth except for a tiny dent between his eyebrows. His nose—just the right size.

“When you smile, I feel as if there is happiness quivering on your lips, just here.” He brushes my mouth with the tip of his thumb. “And if I want it, all I have to do is…”

the Ash King’s shoulders are hard as rocks, and not just from strength. This is a knotted anxiety, hard-baked into his flesh. There is extraordinary tension below the base of his neck and along the upper part of his spine.

“There she is,” says the King, pulling back, while his eyes burst into hot blue flame. “There’s the water goddess I’ve been waiting for.”

“I hate you,” I whisper, my eyes stinging with tears. “I hate you more.”

I think I’ve been wanting to fuck him since he branded my chest with his burning hand. And that makes me a terrible, terrible person.

“And you love this mountain, the one that could kill you without meaning to?” I press my palm over his heart. “I do.”

“I do not want any woman’s mouth or body if it isn’t yours,”

“I will have you and you alone,” he says quietly. “I told you I want you. I want you grimy and soil-stained, shining with sweat under the sun, on your knees and palms in an open field while I take you from behind. I want you secretly in some broom-stuffed closet while servants look for us outside. I want you splayed on my bed—I want to feel your tremors when you come on my tongue. I want you against the garden wall and on the desk in my library. I want your mouth on my cock while I sit on my throne. I want you now, in your youth and beauty, and I want you years from now, when we’re both slow and sagging.”

“Then yes. Yes to everything. Yes, over and over, as long as I live, if I can have this one ‘yes’ from you, right now. Will you be my Favored one, Cailin, my everything, my queen, my wife?”

“Do I still have to go away from you?” I whisper. He lets out a broken laugh. “No, love.”

When someone dies, everyone expects you to perform your grief for them. They watch your reactions carefully, to see how your emotions fit into their personal construct of how loss and sorrow should look.

We’ve made love in a real bed many times now—he’s been my comfort in every way these past few weeks. But I love seducing him in unexpected places. Or maybe he’s seducing me.

I love the moment when he first pushes inside me—it feels new every time, a parting of my inner self to let him in.

We’re filthy in more ways than one, scarred and sorrowful in places that will never quite heal.

“I love you,” I tell him. The glow in his eyes matches the sunset. “And I love you—Your Majesty.”